Dead City

by Joe McKinney

  “Next you’ve got the Haitian voodoo zombies. Those are living people who have had their free will stolen by a witch doctor. They’re used as slaves, primarily. Some argue that the Hollywood zombie is just an extension of the Haitian voodoo zombie, but I don’t think so.

  “The reason I got into talking about zombies, though, is because of the philosophical kind. They’re mainly a thought experiment that philosophers use to talk about consciousness. It’s really just a sexy version of the classic ‘other minds’ problem, but I think it’s a really cool way of stating the problem. How do I know I’m not the only being in the universe with consciousness? That sort of thing.”

  I turned off the street we had been driving down because of a large crowd and said, “But I thought you said we were dealing with a virus.”

  “I still think we are,” he said. “I’m just telling you about the website. These people walking around here don’t really fit into any of the categories I mentioned.”

  “So, what’s your take on them?”

  “Well, first off, these people are all still alive. A lot of the hard questions would go away if they were dead. Some of the hard questions, anyway. You’d still have to deal with the religious implications of re-animated corpses, but as it is right now, those zombies are going to raise a lot of legal issues for people such as yourself.”

  “Questions like what?”

  “Well, they all revolve around the issue of consciousness. How much of it do those people have left. If they have any degree of it, then we have to ask if they’re culpable for attacking the living. Can you arrest a zombie, or even a near-zombie, for eating somebody? And what about the living? The people who aren’t infected? Obviously it’s self-defense if they shoot a zombie who’s trying to eat them, but what about all the thousands of zombies that are just wandering around, unable to find somebody to eat? Do we shoot them because they might attack us? Do we have an obligation to contain them and try to find a cure for this virus? Do we take the utilitarian approach and kill them all before they have a chance to spread the virus to the rest of the world?”

  I almost laughed at him. “Is that the kind of thing you guys discuss on your website?”

  “Well, yeah. Those are all valid issues.”

  “Sounds like something for the courts to decide,” I said. “Maybe the military. I’m just a cop. I enforce the law, I don’t make it.”

  “But that’s not really true, is it?” He turned to me and pushed his glasses back in place. It made him look like a fat little cherub. “As a cop, you’re on the front lines of morality. The really important details, the freedoms we have, or had, as Americans, are decided in the blink of an eye by men and women like you on every street in the country. When you’re called to act, you do it based on your training, sure, but you also act on your own personal standard of what’s right and wrong. I hope you live through this, Eddie, I really do. I hope your family lives through this. And I hope you realize that what you do in the next few days and weeks will go beyond mundane legal issues like search and seizure. It’s going to be about life and death. About humanity, as you put it.”

  “You really like talking about this stuff, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” he said. “And what better vehicle for it than the zombie? Imagine it, a being caught between life and death, deciding issues of life and death for the rest of us. There’s a sort of poetic symmetry in that, don’t you think?”

  As he was talking I watched a man pull a woman’s leg off her body with his teeth and start to eat on the thigh. I looked for the poetic symmetry.

  He didn’t notice though. He was on a roll.

  “There’s more, of course, than just the philosophical side of it. I think a virus is causing this, like I told you, and that means we have to ask how it’s spread. Transmission of bodily fluids is the most likely culprit. Blood, for example. But, obviously, a bite will do it too. Maybe even a scratch, if the fingernail doing the scratching has the virus on it.”

  “But how do you suppose it got out of Houston? From what it looked like on the TV, this is happening in a lot of places.”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “That’s something to look into later, for sure. But there are precedents, you know. The Black Death was spread by fleas on rats, and Typhoid Mary showed how a single infected person could start an epidemic. Maybe it’s fleas, or ticks, or a combination of insects. Fleas and mosquitoes, maybe.”

  That didn’t sit well with me. I could shoot a zombie if I had to. Hell, I could shoot a whole army of them if I had to. But I couldn’t shoot a flea.

  “Any idea on why it formed? The virus, I mean.”

  “Well, that’s the question of the day, isn’t it? Could be any number of factors. Unsanitary conditions in the wake of the Houston hurricanes probably. Who knows, though? Maybe it’s not even a virus. Maybe it’s a bacteria. A super bacterium brought on by doctors over-prescribing antibiotics.”

  “So what you’re saying is, you have absolutely no clue.”

  “Basically, yeah. This is just me talking. One of the things that might help us though is the issue of cross-species contamination.”

  “Like zombie cats and dogs?”

  “Exactly!” He said it triumphantly, like he’d just won a convert to his cause, whatever that was. “Although I was going to come back to the issue of consciousness. Suppose it’s a virus that somehow thrives on the complex functions of the human mind. Another way of looking at it would be that it eats the mind away.”

  “Like Alzheimer’s disease.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Only this virus would work much faster. In hours instead of years. And when it’s done with the mind, it eats the body.”

  “Can a virus do that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll be able to say more if there are incidents of cross-species contamination. That would tell us how much of a mind you have to have in order to lose it. Are there zombie dolphins out in the Gulf of Mexico? Are there zombie chimps in the zoo or zombie killer whales in SeaWorld?”

  “That would be something,” I said. “I wonder if a zombie whale would remember to come up for air.”

  “Interesting,” he said. “Definitely food for thought.”

  I saw a man moving quickly down the street. There was a good-sized group behind him, and they were obviously all zombies. I slowed down to check on the man, thinking he was running from the others.

  I leaned over to Ken’s side of the truck and called out to him through the open window.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He stopped near the front tire on Ken’s side and wheeled around to face us. The side of his face was one continuous wound, from his ear all the way down to his shoulder.

  “Oh crap,” Ken said. “Go, Eddie, go.”

  I didn’t give him a chance to move any closer. I pointed the truck down the road and gunned it.

  “Why did you do that?” Ken asked.

  “I thought he was, you know, not a zombie.”

  “You couldn’t tell from the way he was walking?”

  “No. You mean you could?”

  He just shook his head and we drove on in silence. Ken watched the destruction with pity in his eyes, and it looked like he was adding up the human toll.

  “Eddie,” he said, his tone suddenly very serious. “What are we doing?”

  “We’re going to pick up Carlos’s wife and child. Then we’re going to pick up my family.”

  “Are you sure this is the right thing to do? I mean, how do you know his family is still safe? Look at all this. The outbreak has hit this place hard.”

  “I didn’t ask you to come along,” I said. But what I didn’t say was that I had been wondering the same thing. I wondered what in the hell I hoped to accomplish by going to Carlos’s family and telling them he was dead. What could I possibly say to her? Yes, your husband’s really dead. How do I know? Well, you see, I held the gun so he could shoot himself. No, no, it was painless. I promise. And yes, he did ask about yo
u. Sort of, anyway.

  I turned it over in my head, thinking about how to say it, but everything I could think of sounded equally cruel and inadequate.

  And yet, for all that, I didn’t turn the truck around. I kept going, driving and thinking about—

  Gunfire.

  The muzzle flash caught the corner of my eye. I recognized the high, metallic pop of a small caliber pistol and I locked up the brakes.

  I slid the truck to a stop and I jumped out, looking around for the shooter and whatever he was shooting at.

  Ken jumped out behind me. “What are you doing?” he said. “Get back in the truck.”

  “Gunfire,” I said back to him. “That means somebody back there has a gun. Maybe they can help us.”

  “Don’t be stupid, Eddie. Let’s get out of here.”

  “This first,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I’m not staying.”

  “What?”

  I was already in the yard. He never left the street. Before I could stop him, he jumped in the truck, threw it in gear, and peeled out down the street, leaving me in a cloud of acrid smoke.

  I screamed for him to come back, but of course he didn’t.

  I couldn’t believe it. The bastard left me alone and exposed, just like that. No warning. No nothing.

  Just then I heard another gunshot, and that snapped my attention back to the houses behind me.

  There were no zombies that I could see. I pulled my gun and started slowly toward the spot where I saw the flash.

  “Police,” I said.

  Silence.

  “Police,” I said again. “Can you hear me?”

  I inched my way around the back corner of the house, ready to fire. There was an officer standing in the backyard with his back to me. In front of him was a patrol sergeant and two other men, and they had that zombie look in their eyes.

  There were two other bodies face down in the grass.

  The officer with his back to me spun around and nearly shot me.

  “Stop,” I said. “It’s me, Eddie Hudson.”

  He didn’t say anything, but I recognized him. His name was Arguello, from the Downtown Division. It looked like he had been through hell. His shirt was torn at the shoulder so that I could see his body armor and T-shirt, and he was covered in dust.

  When I looked at his face for some indication that he recognized me, I saw his cheeks were streaked with tears.

  “Step aside,” I said, and dodged around him to fire at the zombies behind him.

  The one in front changed direction when he saw me. I fired once at his forehead and put him down. Then I turned to the zombie in the sergeant’s uniform.

  But I never got the chance to fire. Before I could pull the trigger, Arguello tackled me from the side and slammed me to the ground so hard it knocked the wind out of me.

  I broke contact with him when we hit the ground and rolled away. He came after me, scrambling to keep me from getting to my feet.

  I slapped at him as I rolled away, but he had the jump on me, and he was stronger and faster than me, too. He was able to kick my legs out from under me and push me face down in the dust. He held me there.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I said. “Let me up.”

  He didn’t answer. I struggled to turn my head back in the direction of the house, and saw the two remaining zombies were getting closer.

  “Let me up.”

  “I won’t let you shoot him,” he said, his voice choked with tears. “I won’t.”

  “Let me up, damn it. Hurry.”

  My gun was a few feet from my face. He got off me, picked it up, and tucked it into his back pocket.

  I rolled away as fast as I could and got to my feet. The zombies were closer to him, and they both turned on him.

  Arguello moved quickly, stepping around the sergeant and firing one shot at the zombie in civilian clothes. That one folded to the ground instantly.

  But he didn’t shoot the zombie sergeant. He wouldn’t even point his gun at him. He let his gun fall to his thigh and as the zombie got closer, he just stood there and cried, his whole chest shaking with sobs.

  “What are you doing?” I said. “Shoot him.”

  He turned his gun on me. “You stay away from him. Stay away!”

  The sergeant’s face was torn to pieces. His neck was a gaping hole, and there was dried blood all down the front of his uniform.

  Arguello stood there, letting the zombie inch toward him. He didn’t make any attempt to move out of the way.

  When the sergeant got close enough I was able to read his name tag. It said ARGUELLO, and I didn’t need to ask any more questions after that. I knew there was a Sergeant Arguello, and I knew there was an Officer Arguello, but it never occurred to me that they were father and son.

  “You can’t do anything for him,” I said, my voice softer now that I understood.

  “Shut up, Hudson.”

  “You have to protect yourself. No one can help him now. You have to look out for yourself.”

  “You don’t know that. You don’t know shit, Hudson. I can take him somewhere. Somebody can do something. Maybe they have a cure.”

  “He’s too close to you,” I said. “Back up.”

  He didn’t answer. He just cried.

  As calmly as I could I reached up and grabbed him by the shoulder. He shook me off the first time, but then he let me pull him back.

  When I got him out of the way, the zombie turned on me.

  I backed up slowly, and stepped away from Arguello so the zombie would follow me instead.

  When I was far enough away from Arguello I let the zombie reach for me. As his hands came up I grabbed his right wrist and twisted it upwards, sidestepping around the body and pushing the back of his head with my other hand.

  It was easy to take him off balance, and I threw him face down on the ground with a standard arm-bar takedown. I’ve done the same move a thousand times on a thousand drunks.

  I came down on top of him with my knee on his back, wrenched his arm all the way up, and cuffed him as quickly as I could.

  It happened fast. As I slapped the other cuff on, I heard Arguello screaming at me, and I braced for the impact.

  He laid into me with his shoulder and sent me flying off the thing that used to be his father.

  The whole time he was screaming at me, but nothing I could understand. He was totally overcome with grief and rage and there was no reaching him.

  As I scrambled out from under him I saw his gun pointed at me. I slapped at him and with a lucky blow managed to knock the gun from his hands.

  He didn’t bother to go after it. He charged me, bear-hugged me, and threw me to the ground.

  We both went down, kicking and punching. He was all over me. Every time I got a grip on him, he was able to break it and turn my weight against me.

  He swung his elbow up and caught me in the bottom lip. I saw purple and tasted blood. Then he tossed me to one side and I landed hard on my back.

  As I hit the ground all I could see was a spot of ground lit up by my flashlight.

  He got to his feet first and charged me. I grabbed the flashlight and swung it at him, catching him hard under the jaw with a good solid stroke.

  He fell to his knees, bleeding, and I didn’t wait for him to get up again. I swung the flashlight again and hit him right behind the ear. He fell backwards, and stayed down.

  I staggered up to my feet, swaying all over the place. The yard was spinning so fast I had to double over and put my hands on my knees just to keep from falling over.

  “Holy crap,” I said, wheezing through the blood. A long rope of bloody spit fell onto the ground between my boots.

  I picked up both guns from the ground, holstered mine and unloaded his. Arguello had six rounds in the gun and a full magazine on his belt.

  I took the full magazine and put the magazine with the six bullets back in his belt. He rolled over and groaned, but was nowhere close to getting back on his fee
t.

  “Don’t you hurt him, Hudson,” he said. “I swear to God I’ll fucking kill you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I really am.”

  I threw his empty gun in the dust in front of him and walked back to the street.

  I could hear him yelling at me the whole time.

  There were zombies in the street. Not many at first, but enough to make a break for it into a suicide run. And there were more coming. Some of them stayed close to a nearby car, while others entered the yards on either side of me.

  I wondered briefly if Ken had seen this coming.

  I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it to the car. They had it surrounded. I could have dodged some, and shot some more, but there were so many of them they would have overwhelmed me long before I could get the car moving.

  I ran back between the houses. Some of the zombies were close enough to grab at me, but I was moving fast, and their reaction time was slow. I never let them get a solid grip.

  Arguello was on his hands and knees, trying to stand up. He had crawled part of the way across the yard, over to where his father was still trying to get back on his feet, but he hadn’t gone very far from where I left him.

  I ran by him and took the back fence at full speed, jumping onto it, and swinging myself over without bothering to look at what I was jumping into.

  As soon as I hit the ground, I froze. There were more zombies entering the yard from the next street, pouring into the backyard on both sides of the house. I looked to my right, prepared to move that way, but the next yard over was already overrun.

  I couldn’t go back, and I couldn’t go forward. Somehow I was surrounded and I hadn’t even seen it coming.

  My heart was hammering inside my chest. I backed up into the fence and looked around for I don’t know what.

  There was a small storage shed back in the corner of the yard. I ran to it and jumped up on the roof.

  From the roof, I could see the zombies pouring into the yard and surrounding Arguello. He was back on his feet, but he was still groggy and he staggered as badly as the zombies.