Zombie, Illinois

by Scott Kenemore

  Ben smiles at this idea. Then frowns at the tragedy before him.

  Three bloody, croaking breaths later, Jessy Knowlton is dead.

  “Oh no!” Ben says. “Who shot Jessy? Who were those people? What is going on here?”

  We give him the quick and dirty version. The city government trying to get a quorum at the Harold Washington Cultural Center; Marja Mogk trying to install herself as mayor; sending some guys out to kill my dad so there are no other people in line for the throne; Shawn Michael taking me inside the Cultural Center and tying me up.

  “See!” Ben says, a little too loud. “I told you that guy was up to no good.”

  I look at Ben and sigh, as if to say that this post-game analysis is not useful.

  “We need to keep moving,” Mack says. “How’s north?”

  “It’s fine, I guess,” Ben answers. “A few people. Nobody shooting at least.”

  “Let’s move before they realize which way we went,” Mack says.

  We leave Jessy Knowlton’s body in the gutter and s cuttle north like crabs, staying low behind cars and fences. I hazard a few looks back as we move up the block. There are figures in the distance that look like they might be with the group from the Cultural Center, but they’re not following. It looks like we just might escape.

  We reach a corner and turn down a side street. I risk one final look back. I see Jessy standing erect and resting an arm on the Toyota next to her. I stop and point this out to Ben and Mack. Mack just shakes his head no. We continue down the darkened street.

  Ben Bennington

  Maybe, if you’re reading this, you might not think Chicago is worth fighting over. Not worth the constant political j ockeying, the gerrymandering, the literal and figurative backstabbing.

  Well, it is.

  The City of Chicago has an annual gross metropolitan product of over half a trillion dollars. That’s trillion with a T. That’s more than the entire GDP of countries like Sweden and Poland and Saudi Arabia. And Chicago is only 228 square miles, which makes it significantly smaller than Sweden and Poland and Saudi Arabia. It’s a tight little funnel through which all of that wealth has to pass. And the people behind that half a trillion dollars all want favors, want to be taxed less, and want to be connected to whoever’s in charge so those things can happen. If you can get your hands on that funnel—or even just a teensy little part of it—then everybody wants to be your friend and make you rich. (I haven’t experienced it personally, but I have to guess this feels really, really good.)

  Most people who aspire to be leeches on the money-funnel get in line at an early age. They help a local politician get elected or re-elected. In return, they expect to receive an appointment or a job with the city. Something small at first, but larger as time goes on. Something where they can manage people, get supervisory experience. Then, when the party bosses bless it, they can run for office themselves. Above all, aspirants to the money funnel must prove themselves good soldiers who will do anything asked of them. This includes mercilessly attacking anyone who dares to stand against the party.

  You’ve heard of the way Scientologists go after anybody who criticizes them like it’s suddenly a fucking war—labels them “suppressive persons” and attacks their children and families and so on? I think L. Ron Hubbard got that idea from Chicago politics. You take a run at a sitting politician in this town, and they come at you with all the resources of the city. Suddenly, the city inspectors find your house out of code, and you’re hit with hundreds in fines and thousands of dollars worth of fixes to make. At the same time, the tax assessor may determine that he grossly undervalued your property last time around. Expect a new bill for the difference. Is the city sticker on your car in the wrong place? Have you parked more than six inches from the curb, or touching the curb? Are your windows tinted just a little too dark? Expect to find new traffic citations waiting underneath your windshield wiper every damn day.

  When you go to war against someone entrenched in this system, they will use every resource and connection they have to harass you. And it’s all nice and legal. Indeed, it is through laws that they will assail you. Everybody who got their phony-baloney city job because of the incumbent will come after you in any way they can. Why? What elicits such loyalty? The promise of a slightly larger space on the money funnel.

  It’s that good.

  A couple of blocks shy of 35th Street, Maria mentions that her feet hurt. We stop for a moment, and she sits on a building’s front steps and removes her shoes. I take the opportunity to review Jessy Knowlton’s bloody notes in the glow of a lonely streetlight. Like most reporters, her handwriting is atrocious. Even so, I am able to make out the gist of what she has recorded.

  Marja Mogk and a team ofher fellow aldermen are attempting to convene the city council and appoint a new mayor. When they have a quorum—over 50 percent of Chicago’s aldermen present—they will be able to operate legally and appoint the new mayor. Which, from what I can tell, will almost certainly be her. (I i magine every alderman who comes through the door is privately taken aside and informed of what is happening. Mayor dead. Vice mayor presumed to be. We’ve decided Mogk will be the one to take over. You can either support her and be rewarded—”How would your sister like to be the new head of Streets and Sanitation in post-zombie Chicago?”—or you can fight it, and lose, and gain nothing.)

  The preliminary proceedings which Jessy Knowlton has recorded may lack official power, but they are clearly intended to have the force of the law behind them. In noting the absence of the vice mayor—Maria’s dad—Mogk and Szuter use phrases that have almost certainly been prepared by a lawyer. Jessy has recorded some of them in whole or part. “Best efforts have been made to locate the vice mayor” and “It is reasonable for the council to presume him dead or missing” are my favorites.

  That’s why she was there, of course. Marja Mogk could give a fuck about the freedom of the press. Jessy was there to make it all look nice and legal. To write down the bullshit kangaroo court proceedings, while the real deals were being cut privately in the next room each time a new alderman arrived.

  “Do her notes say anything about Crenshaw Cemetery?” Mack asks, sauntering up to my streetlight.

  I quickly flip through the remaining pages.

  “No. What they’re doing inside the Cultural Center is creepy enough, though. Unless Maria’s dad pops up, Mogk’s going to be in charge by morning. This shit is like medieval times. House against house.”

  “Chicago wasn’t ever not like medieval times,” Maria says, rubbing her foot.

  Mack stares thoughtfully at the ground.

  “It’s all connected” Mack says. “It has to be.”

  “What do you mean?” I say, looking up from the notes.

  “Before I left Crenshaw, I spoke with the caretaker,” Mack tells me. “Shawn Michael Recinto had shot her.”

  “That’s no surprise,” Maria interjects.

  “The caretaker said that people had been paying her to hide bodies there,” Mack continues. “When I asked who, she said it was ‘All of them.’ I’m still trying to figure out what that means”

  “Maybe all the cops?” I say. “That was Burge Wheeler’s beat.”

  “What if it means all the aldermen?” Maria says, replacing her shoes and joining us under the streetlight. “Or everybody who works for the city?”

  “Would that include your dad?” I ask.

  Maria is apparently unfazed by this possibility and answers, “It damn well could.”

  “We need to find him,” Mack says. “My father?” Maria says. Mack nods.

  “From what you told me, it sounds like Mogk and her people believe he could be out west,” Mack says.

  “I have a cousin in Oak Park,” Maria tells us, invoking the suburb contiguous with the west side of the city. It’s probably best known as the home of Frank Lloyd Wright and young Ernest Hemingway.

  “But the note we found...” I object. “It said your father was headed to your aunt�
�s house.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Maria allows.

  We explain to Mack about the note we found on the shooter at Crenshaw. Mack rubs his chin and thinks some more.

  “What if it happened like this.” Mack begins carefully. “Your sister and mother arrive at your dad’s. He writes you the note, and then all three head over to your aunt’s house. But when they arrive, they can tell something’s wrong. They see Shawn Michael Recinto guarding the door. Your dad realizes he’s been second-guessed. So what does he do next? Where would he take his family?”

  Maria looks down and shakes her head.

  “Would they go to your cousin’s?” Mack presses.

  “I guess they might,” Maria says. “I can’t think of anyplace else. We have no other family here.”

  “At the very least, there are bad people headed there who will kill your cousin,” Mack says.

  “Franco,” Maria interjects. “His name is Franco.”

  Scott Kenemore

  “At the very least, they will kill Franco if he’s home,” Mack says. “If the rest of your family is there too, they will also be

  killed.”

  Maria walks away from us and flaps her arms in frustration.

  Then she walks back.

  “What do we do?” she asks.

  “It’s simple,” says Mack. “We get there first.”

  We stand atop the highway—where there is barely room to stand at all—and look west, out of the city in the direction of Oak Park. From our elevated vantage point, we can see for miles. The sight is enough to take your breath away.

  The highways leading west out of the city are blocked. Either clogged completely with traffic or barricaded i ntentionally. And it’s not just the highways and byways. The city streets also appear terminally blocked. Red taillights extend endlessly, like the blood seeping out of a corpse. The city’s living have left it—or tried to—and this is the final sign of their mass egress.

  “Now do you believe me?” I say to them.

  They both nod absently. Mack’s jaw has dropped.

  “Why would people barricade the roads like that?” Maria asks. She gestures to a swath of street right below us where several tanker trucks have been parked side to side, blocking off a three-way intersection.

  “To protect themselves, I’d say if I’m being charitable,” I tell her. “To create a funnel in which they could trap and rob people, if I’m not. Maybe they just did it because they could. Think about how many people who live along the main thoroughfares spend their time wishing they didn’t have to put up with rush hour traffic. With no cops around to stop them, they just went out and put up barriers.”

  “I say it was fear,” Mack opines. “When there’s a crisis, a whole lot of folks want to keep strangers out at all costs”

  I nod silently in agreement and look out again over the glowing stopped arteries of the city.

  Most people have abandoned their cars, but a few, against all reason, still have occupants. These people must have iron resolves and iron bladders. Are they hoping that somehow, someway the traffic will eventually start to move? Are they unable to bring themselves to leave their cars behind? Do they simply have no other idea about what to do—no place to go?

  “I think this gives us a chance to reach your cousin first,” I say to Maria. “Even if Mogk’s people begin the trip in cars, once they get near this they’re going to be on foot just like us”

  “What if they have motorcycles or bicycles,” Maria objects.

  “I don’t think it will help much,” I say.

  “I agree,” says Mack. “This is an obstacle course to end all obstacle courses. Even the sidewalks look impassible in most places. If I had a motorbike, I wouldn’t feel comfortable going at much more than a crawl. This is such a sight! I still can’t believe it happened so fast”

  “I dunno,” I say. “Traffic reporters can tell you how one accident—or one dog running around in the road—can create a rush hour jam that goes for miles. Add to that a bunch of shit that people throw on the roads intentionally? I’m not surprised that by—what is it now? 2:00 AM?—We’ve got complete blockage. Chicago already had some of the worst traffic in the nation. And that was before zombies.”

  We take another moment to gaze thoughtfully down at the tangled glowing highways leading off into the cloak-black night.

  “That’s where we’re headed,” Mack says, pointing northwest across the glowing lines.

  “So let’s go already,” Maria says.

  We do.

  Leopold Mack

  A dark idea starts to broil and burble in the back of my mind. It’s so dark that I don’t want to acknowledge it at first. I certainly don’t want to say it out loud.

  Why don’t I want to say it? That one is easy.

  Fear.

  I’m afraid. Very afraid.

  In a city filled with zombies and looters, I know a place that’s even scarier. I know a place that might have even worse things lurking in its depths. And I’m about to propose that we go there... if I can only summon the courage.

  Which, right now, I feel like I can’t.

  Bad pastor. Bad pastor. Bad pastor.

  Jesus . . . please help me. Good Lord, please give me the strength.

  We’re a couple of blocks west of the elevated expressway ramp by the time I get the guts. It’s like going to the doctor when you know you’re due for an unpleasant test. You just have to turn your brain off, everything except the part that can remember to tell the receptionist, “Leopold Mack. I’m here for my procedure.” And apparently, I am.

  “Hold on guys,” I say, raising my hand. “I want to bring something up before we go any further this way.”

  Ben is leading us directly west into neighborhoods where the last vestiges of the south side abruptly intersect with the beginnings of Chinatown. We’re a long way—hours yet—from Oak Park. Twice already, we’ve had to adjust our trajectory because we encountered streets sealed off by local residents. (One group had upended a school bus and used it to completely block the road.) We’re also near a police station that I know well, as I’ve had to identify bodies there. It has a huge parking lot that’s usually full of squad cars and cops’ personal cars. Tonight though, it’s empty— although the lights are still on inside the station building. Ben and Maria look at me.

  “What is it, Mack?” Maria asks. “Why do you look so scared?”

  “Uh...” I begin, my voice almost failing me. (This is unusual for a man who more or less speaks for a living.) “Do you guys know about the coal tunnels?”

  There is a moment of silence.

  Maria wrinkles her nose and shrugs. I’m guessing that’s a no.

  Ben has gone perfectly still. Frozen, in fact. I can see it in his eyes. The fear. The understanding. He does know. And he’s guessed what I’m about to propose.

  “Whoa.I don’t think we—”

  I cut him off.

  “The coal tunnels are a system of underground passages built in the late 1800s that stretch from the downtown Loop all the way out to the suburbs. They predate the El train. They were dug back when buildings were heated with coal. Every morning, train cars would bring in coal to heat the buildings in the Loop, and every evening they would come back to carry away the coal ash.”

  “Uh huh.” Maria says, not seeing the point.

  “Not many people know about them” I continue. “They stopped being used around 1950. I’m thinking Marja Mogk’s people wouldn’t remember them either. Most aldermen don’t know anything about the city’s history.”

  Ben stands by with his finger raised, waiting to get a word in.

  “Why are you bringing this up now?” Maria asks. “Old tunnels where they used to ship coal? Why does that matter?”

  “Some of the tunnels go straight to Oak Park. Straight there. Along a route that’s not encumbered by barricades and crazy people. There’s an old warehouse just north of that police station where my uncle used to work. That warehouse
had an access point into the tunnels. It might be worth trying to see if we can get in. If we can, it’d be a straight shot. I don’t see how we wouldn’t get there ahead of Alderman Mogk’s people.”

  Maria smiles. She likes that idea.

  Then Ben speaks, and he says everything I am not allowing myself to think.

  “Um, no. The coal tunnels? Are you serious, Mack? No! I can’t think of a worse idea! They were dangerous before a zombie outbreak. They’re condemned and unsafe. Shit might collapse on top of us. You know that as well as I do. The city can’t even seal the damn things up safely.”

  I assume that Ben is referencing an incident that happened back in 2009, when the city tried to fill one of the tunnels by pumping thousands of gallons of wet concrete into it. (After 9/11, Homeland Security told Chicago it didn’t like the idea of a major American city having a bunch of easily-accessed, empty tunnels running directly underneath all its tallest buildings.) But the city’s engineers misgauged the strength of the t unnel walls. The injection of concrete made the tunnel collapse and the ground above the tunnels buckled. It shut down traffic on the highway at rush hour, and everybody was pissed. (There have been no concrete injections since. Filling in the tunnels remains an expensive, lose-lose issue that the city doesn’t want to deal with.)

  “But that’s not even the worst part,” Ben continues. “There’s bad stuff down there, and everyone knows it. I mean. when you talk to a guy who works for the CTA—the regular subway system—and ask him what’s the most fucked-up thing he’s ever seen down in the subway tunnels, he’ll be like ‘A really big rat.’ But have you ever talked to a city worker who had to go into the coal tunnels? They’ve seen shit they don’t even want to talk about. Sacks of aborted fetuses; discarded murder weapons covered in blood; altars where people snuck in and did Satanic rituals in the 1970s; shafts where gangsters have been dumping corpses since thirty years before Capone. One worker told me that he saw a severed head stuck on a pike. It was old and rotted, but he could still tell it was a head . . . on a goddamn pike!”