Pariah

by Bob Fingerman

  What?

  “Mona, would you join me in prayer?” He offered his hands, which now trembled. He was so full of self-revulsion he thought he’d burst. If one could physically purge self-loathing Karl would be the human geyser, spewing from all available orifices. Was it natural madness? The drugs? Who could tell? Cabin fever? “Please?” he implored. Mona shrugged and looked uncomfortable—a recognizable emotion. Not the one he’d been hoping for, but human all the same. “It’s okay,” he sputtered. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to impose my thing on you. It’s okay.”

  “Cool,” Mona said as she gripped the doorknob, closing the door.

  “Yeah. Prayer is a private matter. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

  Mona shut the door and Karl heard her engage the deadbolt. Those things outside didn’t have any effect on her, but he seemed to have. He felt powerful for a moment. I scared Mona. He grinned, then winced, then ran upstairs to his apartment and retrieved a belt from his dresser and began flagellating his back. After several savage strokes he realized he was wearing his shirt, paused to yank off the garment, then resumed. How dare I take pleasure in causing her discomfort? Forgive me, Jesus. Forgive me, God. I don’t even know who I’m asking for forgiveness from, so forgive me for that. Is it Buddha? Allah? Oh, Christ, what if all those terrorists had been right? Karl had read one of Alan’s Phil Dick books, one called VALIS. Was that the real truth? Alan had explained that in the seventies Dick had a vision and became convinced he was in contact with a cosmic consciousness, which he dubbed VALIS, for Vast Active Living Intelligence System.

  Of course, Dick was a loopy speed freak, but maybe he was right. Had there ever been any stone-cold rational prophet? Did that trait even go with the territory? Rationality? Was faith rational? Ever? What about all that craziness John wrote? Revelation was still a hard pill to swallow, though Karl tried nightly. Pill. Maybe it was time for a pill. Karl dropped the belt and skittered to his kitchenette to poke one from the blister mat. A small pink caplet dropped into his palm and he washed it down with a bottle of Snapple tea. What am I doing? What am I taking? I need a Physician’s Desk Reference, that’s what I need. Maybe Mona can take me to the Barnes and Noble on Eighty-sixth. But how do I justify me wanting that book? Why would I need it? Unless I was taking unknown drugs. Has she noticed missing pills? Plus, if I went out with her would she take me everywhere she goes? Say her pharmacy jaunts are private? Maybe that’s why she’s reticent.

  As a boy, Karl had chicken pox, his pale, pasty body festooned with constellations of red bumps that blistered and itched like mad. He felt that way now, although his skin appeared normal. Many a saint had suffered. Even non-saints. Look at Job. Was it to be his fate to suffer like that? God was always tormenting His faithful flock. Just look at the world. Was this not evidence of a malicious God? God made man in His image, and man was nothing to boast about, really. Flawed, mean, petty, violent, arrogant. This was a creature to be proud of? Maybe that’s why God wiped nearly everyone out. But surely those who remained aren’t the best and brightest. Karl knew he wasn’t. And Eddie? God help us if he’s one of God’s chosen few.

  Karl laughed at the thought of Eddie being divinely spared. Karl laughed at the thought of God helping them. What a joke. What a blasphemous joke. The Bible! Drugs! Madness! Karl wanted to go outside so badly he bit his lip and drew blood. He sucked the metallic liquid deeply, savoring it. In his smallest voice he said, “Fuck you, God.”

  Then, with renewed vigor, begging clemency, he beat his bare back with the belt until it was slick with blood and sweat. A malicious God was not a God to test. With each stroke of the belt, spatters of blood flecked the beige walls, evoking the chicken-pocked skin of his youth.

  “What can I do?” Karl mewled. “What can I do?”

  “Well don’t do that,” Ellen sputtered. She stared at Karl in utter disbelief, as did Alan. “Have you flipped your wig? Okay, just assuming Eddie’s theory about the drugs is right—and for the record, I can’t even believe I’m lending credence to anything that ape’s ever said—but just to give the devil his due, you’ve been dosing yourself for what, maybe a couple days? What makes you think you’ve built up a resistance to the zombies? Because your mind is eroding, what, there must be a positive side to the effects of the drugs? Look at the back of your shirt.”

  “I can’t,” Karl said. “It’s behind me.”

  “It’s stuck to your skin, and that isn’t sweat. What the fuck have you been doing to yourself, as if we don’t hear?” Ellen made the whip-crack sound with her mouth, adding a wrist flick for punctuation. Karl plucked at the back of his shirt and sure enough it was a bit stuck to his spine. Ellen widened her eyes at him in challenge. “Pussy whipped for Jesus much?”

  “Well, anyway,” Karl said, wiping his fingers on his pants, then burying the offending digits in his front pocket, “I’m going. Someone has to go. Someone has to put this to the test. To prove either that the drugs work for us, or we have an umbrella of protection from proximity to Mona. That her gift, whatever you want to call it, maybe it spills out and would protect a companion.”

  “Great. Operation Big Umbrella.” Ellen scowled. The little idiot’s mind was made up. “Well. I’m not even giving you a shopping list. I told Mona what I want, but you, you I’ll say good-bye to. Not farewell or till we meet again, but good-bye.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Karl pouted.

  “I have none to give. You want me to lie? Fine, I’ll catch you on the flip-flop, my man. But seriously? It was nice knowing you.”

  Karl accepted Ellen’s remarks and made for the door, accompanied by Alan.

  “Have you told the others about your proposed expedition?” Alan asked.

  “Yeah. Eddie said he wanted to go first, not a little pussy like me, but when I said I might get killed, my guinea-pig status met his approval. Anything you want from me? Art supplies or something?”

  “Just come home safe.”

  Karl stopped and looked up at Alan, emotion swelling in his chest, which felt corseted. Eddie had been his usual self; Dave gave him a pat on the back, but that was about all; Abe was in a Valium-induced state of apathy; Dabney, drunk as a lord, yelled at him, accusing him of hubris and overweening arrogance. He’d begun to cry and then kicked Karl out of his new apartment, locking the door after Karl had been so summarily dismissed. And now Ellen’s dressing down. Alan was the only one to wish him well. What was wrong with this world? That was the million-dollar question in a world where a million dollars meant nothing. Alan and he shook hands and then hugged, Alan clapping Karl’s back and then realizing as Karl winced that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Alan looked at his hand, seeing traces of blood on it, and began to apologize, but Karl appreciated the gesture.

  “One thing,” Alan said, his tone cautionary. “I don’t know if those things have regular senses, but I know sharks are drawn to the scent of blood, so you should really do something about your back. I know it’s still hot, but maybe a jacket? Something?”

  “I hadn’t even thought of that. Oh Jesus.”

  “Yeah. Just a thought.”

  Karl ran upstairs and pulled off the shirt, the material stuck to some scabbing spots, making them bleed afresh. He poured some water down his back. He needed something stronger. If the lash wounds were there to appease a cruel God, maybe something to exacerbate the pain would go over well. In lieu of rubbing alcohol, he fetched a bottle of cheap vodka from his cupboard and poured it over the wounds. The stinging pumped tears out of his eyes as if he were rerouting the liquid cascading down his spine through his tear ducts. He stung everywhere and the stench of the liquor overwhelmed the room. It burned his nostrils and singed his injured back. Patting his back dry with a towel, Karl then bound his torso in Saran Wrap to seal in any scent of blood. He popped a couple of pills, pulled on a fresh shirt and his windbreaker, then made his way to Mona’s, his body tingling. Hoping it would further mask his potentially delectable aroma, Karl threw a
few items into a knapsack, then slung it over his back. Maybe it was the drugs, maybe it was the booze absorbed through the wounds, maybe it was adrenaline, but his back was numb. He felt no pain, physical or emotional.

  As he passed the Fogelhuts’ door he gave it a hard knock. “Wish me luck, old man!” Karl shouted. Silence. He drummed the door with palms flat. No reply.

  Fine. Be that way.

  “Let’s do this,” was Karl’s mantra all the way down.

  Let’s do this.

  Let’s do this.

  35

  Mona paused on the roof of Dabney’s van to watch Karl struggle down the rope. Abe and Dabney aside, the others had all come to see the twosome off and to witness what would happen next. Karl touched down on the roof, losing his footing for a moment. Mona grabbed him around the waist as he steadied himself. Like an overheated radiator venting steam, the onlookers released a collective sigh of relief. Karl’s heart pounded so hard he was afraid the zombies might hear it. Gripped in equal measure by terror and euphoria, Karl surveyed the scene around the van: innumerable undead below, friends and neighbors above, the world everywhere. Karl hadn’t seen the exterior of 1620 in half a year. How could something so prosaic seem so beautiful?

  “This is a real Kodak moment,” Alan said.

  “True that,” agreed Eddie, as did the others whose hearts labored almost as hard as Karl’s.

  “Okay,” Karl said to himself. “I can do this.” He looked up at the sky, which seemed bigger and bluer than it had on their roof, some four stories above. He was eye level with the Phnom Penh Laundromat sign. A pigeon skeleton was nestled between the brick and the sign, a couple of feathers still clinging to the husk. Karl looked away from the tiny carcass to the larger, ambulatory ones at street level. “Oh Jesus,” he gasped. Several were looking in the direction of the van, attracted by the activity. “Oh sweet Jesus.”

  “Lemme spread ’em out,” Mona said, hopping down onto the pavement.

  With a soft thud, Mona hit the ground. The response from the zombies was almost instantaneous. They began to back away, their sibilant hissing more penetrating at this proximity. It was a sound that traveled up and down Karl’s spinal cord. It lingered, for emphasis, in the lower colon and upper throat, seizing and massaging both with dead, constricting fingers. He could feel liquid collecting beneath his Saran Wrap armor, the brine basting his wounds. His mother used to marinade roasts overnight in the fridge, bound in cling wrap. He hoped he wouldn’t prove to be as tasty to the uninvited guests below. With an iris opened in the crowd, Mona gestured for Karl to join her on the asphalt. It’s now or never, Karl thought. He released his grip on the rappelling rope and eased himself off the van, first sitting on the edge, then lowering his legs until they were straight, then dropping to Mona’s side. The zombies stayed at bay.

  “So far so good,” he whispered.

  “Mm.” Mona proceeded, noncommittal, taking a step north. Her pace was slow, deliberate—with Karl in tow, slower than usual. She gave the zombies plenty of time to soak up her mojo and make way. Without actually holding onto her, Karl kept close to Mona, walking just slightly behind her. He’d never been this near to the zombies before, and up close, they were even fouler. The countless iterations on the theme of decay were staggering. Some, obvious victims of carnivorous attacks, were little more than haphazard collections of stumps and gristle, barely held together and yet still capable of locomotion. Limbs ended midway. Faces half consumed by rot—or just half consumed, period. Exposed bone. Internal organs that weren’t internal any longer. Karl never realized gums could recede so far. Their skin reminded Karl of overcooked fowl, matte, striated, thick and leathery yet translucent. Yellowed, browned, and blackened. Most eyes glazed by dull gray cataracts. Some stumbled around, sockets bereft of eyeballs. Cavernous nostrils, just vertical openings, black and rimmed with corrosion.

  “They’re so horrible,” Karl stated. “They’re so fucking horrible.”

  “I s’pose.” The response to a comment on the weather. Banal. But then again, zombies were the weather. A constant. Less interesting than the weather, actually. Weather changed. Karl’s walkie-talkie beeped and he removed it from its holster.

  “Just testing,” came Alan’s voice. “How’s it going?”

  “Uh, okay, I guess,” Karl said. “They’re hanging back, but it’s, uh, it’s kinda freaking me out, to be honest.”

  “Of course,” Alan responded. “How could it not? But you’re out, buddy. You’re actually out there.”

  Karl nodded in response, then snapped to and pressed the talk button. “Yeah, I’m out here. I’m out here. Look, I can’t walk and talk. I need to concentrate. Over.”

  “Okay, Karl. Understood. Over and out.”

  Karl clutched the walkie-talkie to his chest, a talismanic anchor to home. His face burned. They hadn’t even reached the corner and already he was hesitating. He looked back at the others, still in the windows. Ellen gave a very maternal wave of encouragement and Karl felt like he was back at his first day of school, Mom dropping him off, he being brave. Don’t cry, he thought. Please don’t cry.

  As they headed north Karl gasped when a naked, hunched, gnomelike zombie edged into view. Its pigmentation was almost human and it bore no disfigurements other than its stooped posture and deep livor mortis in its lower extremities. It cast its nearly hairless head in Karl’s direction and he gasped. Ruth! She must have fallen from the roof and come unwrapped. Karl stood motionless, staring at his former neighbor. Of all the people he never wanted to see naked, Ruth might be number one on the list. He thought of the late Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead.

  “What’s the delay?” Mona asked, not impatient.

  “It’s Ruth.” He pointed.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Karl suppressed that urge to chastise Mona. It wasn’t like he’d just pointed out that the sky was above or that water was wet. This was kind of a traumatic big thing, Ruth ambling around. She wasn’t bitten by one of those things. She just came back all on her own. Didn’t that portend the same fate for anyone? For everyone? Regardless? How would Abe feel knowing his wife was scuttling around in the raw amidst the unclean? Tidy, persnickety Ruth Fogelhut in her birthday suit—or would that be deathday suit—loose amongst the natives. It was an ugly sight made uglier. With not a trace of recognition, Ruth’s dead eyes glared in his direction as he felt Mona’s hand tug at his arm.

  “C’mon,” she said.

  Opting to not radio back this piece of info, Karl nodded and kept step with Mona, whose pace was deliberate, mechanical. She’d likely have made a fine soldier. Maybe she’d been one. Maybe she was some military experiment gone wrong. Or right. She was immune to the zombies. Maybe she was a supersoldier prototype. Maybe her creators were all dead. Or maybe they were still alive in some bunker, monitoring Mona’s progress from a safe distance by means of a tiny tracking chip implanted within her.

  How did one go about broaching a topic like that and not seem impertinent? Was “I was just wondering” the correct opening gambit? “So, are you some kind of genetically altered superbeing?” So, am I totally paranoid or retarded? Karl brooded as he trudged in Mona’s wake, the euphoria of being outdoors tabled for the nonce. The other thought, the one that kept cropping up, was whether or not she was even human. That posed an even trickier question of etiquette. “So, are you an angel of the Lord or a demon from Hell?”

  “What?”

  Mona stopped and looked at Karl with something approximating interest.

  “Huh?” he replied.

  “Am I demon from Hell?”

  Karl began to sweat even more, his stomach doing flips. I said that out loud? rang through his skull. Idiot!

  “What?” he stammered, attempting to feign innocence.

  “You said—”

  Karl cut her off with a wave of his hand. “No, no, no. Not you. No. Ruth, I was thinking about. Ruth. Over there. But she’s no angel, anyone can see that. Just a weird thing I was think
ing. Just wanted to see how it sounded out loud.” He smiled inanely. “Crazy. Not you.” He made the loco gesture pointing at himself and shook his head.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Karl longed for his belt to give himself a few choice strokes. The sun seemed hotter down here than on the roof, like it was turned up or aimed by some giant sadistic kid with a magnifying glass—God as megabrat. The air didn’t move. Just the flies. Karl’s neck skin crawled and oozed perspiration. Between the mortification and fear, his back felt like it was covered with fire ants, the Saran Wrap bandage loosening as it filled with sweat, but hopefully not blood. It stung like the fucker of all mothers. Shouldn’t the weather be cooling down by now? No, it was still summer. Endless summer. Global warming plus zombies.

  Yeah, humanity had somehow done this to itself.

  Stupid humanity, Karl thought. Stupid me. How could I not realize I said that aloud? He wanted to stop thinking altogether for fear of a repeat bout of honesty Tourette’s. He needed to stay in Mona’s good books.

  The Good Book.

  Books.

  That’s why they were making this expedition.

  As they slogged west, Karl was reminded of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade, which commenced here on East Eighty-sixth. The crowd pushed back as Mona and he trekked up the center of the street, ankle deep in rotting limbs and rubbish. Maybe this was a little less festive. Karl surveyed the crowd. His mind was swimming, overstimulated. Their path was serpentine, weaving between forsaken vehicles and countless zombies. Inside one car a zombified child in a car seat thumped its head mindlessly against the window, the glass glazed with coagulated grue. That withered tot had been trapped in that car for nearly half a year and was still animate. Karl shuddered. The seemingly eternal question once again flitted into his head: How long will it be before these things just run out of steam?