Zombies! (Episode 7): Conflicts of Interest

by Ivan Turner

  Peter looked at her, deep into his own awe. "Hmmm? What did you say?"

  "I said I've seen enough." She was reaching into her purse.

  "You want to go? Now?"

  "We can't go," said Melissa. "Someone will notice."

  "We're not spies," Abby said as she pulled out her cell phone.

  "Who are you calling?" Peter asked.

  "The police."

  "What are we then?" Melissa asked.

  Abby threw up her arms and huffed. "Will you both please shut up?"

  So they shut up. Abby brought her phone down and began to thumb through her contacts list. She searched until she came to the Anthony Heron's private number. Then she pressed the button with the little green telephone on it.

  From up above, Marcus took notice.

  ***

  AT around 4:00 that afternoon, Heron finally had a chance to go down to the basement and have a look at Linda. Somehow, they'd brought in an old cage that had been used to hold perps temporarily while they were being processed. It was something out of Barney Miller, to be sure but it did the job. They'd pushed it into a corner and put Linda inside. The guards were ordered to hold position several feet from the door. When Heron arrived, there was one guard on duty. His gun was down, but his hand was on it. He supposed they'd get more and more lazy as the days went y. If Linda became a fixture there, they would simply grow acclimated to her presence. While it didn't seem likely that she could escape, vigilance was something he would expect maintained. He would see to it personally.

  "Take a break," he said to the guard. The man looked once at Heron just to make sure he'd heard right, then walked off.

  They weren't truly alone. The basement was mostly one big open space but there was so much going on elsewhere that it seemed like they were alone. She smelled. Even at this distance, he could smell the rot. It seemed so odd that they all had that smell of death on them and yet they tended not to just rot away like regular corpses.

  "Who are you?" he said to her. When he moved in one direction, her head turned to follow. He got the impression that it was her nose following his scent rather than her eyes following his path. In fact, her eyes hardly seemed to focus at all. Not for the first time, he wondered what senses were available to them. They didn't seem to react to any amount of pain so touch seemed unlikely. Sound attracted them for sure; or maybe it was just the vibrations. That would lead him back to touch. Naughton was right about one thing. Heron was no doctor and anything he surmised about Linda would be useless toward finding a cure. So what was he looking for? Why had he brought this poor dead soul to his headquarters?

  After about an hour of staring at Linda, Heron picked himself up, found a guard for her, and left. Heading back up to his office, he grabbed his coat, said good night to everyone who would be there for many hours yet to come, and started home. He called Alicia from the car to let her know that he was actually in the car and the promise he'd made that morning would be kept. When their conversation ended, he debated turning off the phone entirely, but conscience kept him from doing so.

  Dinner was a baked ziti that Alicia had learned to make from a high school friend's grandmother. Normally, she was not the cooking type, but it was a special occasion. For Mellie, they boiled up a couple of hot dogs, filtered all of the meat and cheese out of the baked ziti, and put the cut up hot dogs in. They sat around the table and talked about things that normal families talk about. They ate their food and laughed and made faces. At one point, Alicia reached across the table to touch Heron's hand. At that moment, he was surprised by the conflict he felt. It was what he wanted as opposed to what he'd accepted as his responsibility. He turned the touch around, instinct telling him to pull away. But his rationale overcame his instinct and he gripped her hand tighter.

  Afterwards there was ice cream and the latest Pixar movie to hit the home video market. Of all of the movies that were out there, those from Pixar represented the sum total of everything upon which the three of them could agree. Heron wasn't a big fan of animation, but something about those movies appealed to him. There was this scene in the Incredibles that made him look at his wife and say, that's you. In fact, he was sure there was a point in their relationship when Alicia had told him that she was the greatest good he was ever going to get. He was lucky to still have her. Saving the world was hard but he imagined that being married to someone who was saving the world was harder still.

  Mellie fell asleep during the movie, her little head resting on Heron's leg. He stroked her hair and her perfect face while watching the end of the film and then carried her to bed. As hard as he tried, he couldn't help but picture his little girl as a zombie, lurching toward him in her tiny Princess and the Frog nightgown. What would he do, he wondered? He hadn't even hesitated when shooting Stemmy in the head all of those months ago. Could he shoot Mellie or would he let her feast on his flesh. One last gift from Daddy.

  HELLO My name is Anthony. Please DON'T hurt me.

  Please, God, stop hurting me.

  Coming out of the room he heard the water running in the bathroom. He went back downstairs, gathered up the ice cream dishes, rinsed them, and put them into the dishwasher. It wasn't nearly full enough to run the wash so he left it. Then he turned off all of the lights, checked the lock on the front door, and headed upstairs. He didn't even notice that he had his cell phone in hand.

  Upstairs, Alicia was just coming out of the bathroom. She was in a long fleece robe and carrying the bundle of her clothing. She gave him a kiss as she passed him and told him to wash up and get ready for bed. So he did. Stripping to his waist, he let the water run hot and splashed it over his face. He marveled at just how tired a man could be and yet not fall over onto his face. He flossed, brushed, and rinsed. He swiped his shirt off of the floor and headed to the bedroom, prepared for a good night's sleep.

  Please, God, don't let the phone ring.

  Alicia was waiting for him in bed wearing a silky negligee. It was his favorite. He was almost angry at the fact that he was so tired, but it fell away. It had been so long since they'd had the opportunity to be intimate that he would have to have been one of the walking dead himself not to respond. With a tired smile, he stripped off the rest of his clothing, dropped his phone on to the dresser, and slipped into bed next to Alicia. They had just started kissing when the inevitable happened.

  "Can't you ignore the phone just this once?" she huffed.

  He wanted to ignore it. He desperately wanted to ignore it. "Let me just check."

  Getting out of bed, he grabbed up the phone and looked at the caller ID. When he hesitated, Alicia asked if it was work.

  "It's Abby," he responded. He didn't have to answer it. He really didn't. Why would she call him this late? Was something wrong? But she wasn't his responsibility and Alicia would be upset if he answered a phone call from Abby at a time like this.

  But maybe…

  But maybe not….

  He put the phone down on his bedside table and crawled back under the covers. Alicia grabbed him around the neck and began to kiss him again. For her, that small gesture had been proof of his love. He didn't need to prove it. Not really. But that didn't dampen the gesture.

  They were just getting comfortable again when the phone chirped a different ring tone.

  "God damn it, Anthony!" Alicia cried. "Can't we have one night?"

  It was a text message. Heron got lots of text messages. He got them all the time. And yet this one chilled him. Even before he looked, he knew it would be from Abby. Even before he looked, he knew it would remind him of the last message Shawn had sent him. After he looked, he knew what he would do.

  "I have to go," he said.

  Alicia gritted her teeth but held her response.

  "I'm sorry," he said as he grabbed some clean clothing. No suit this time. Just a pair of jeans and a pullover. "I know that…"

  "It's becoming too much, Anthony," she said to him. "When you first started with this it seemed so important for you to be
available. It was as if you were holding back the end of the world. But I don't feel that way anymore. All I feel is resentment. You need to choose."

  He nodded and said, "I know."

  ***

  HE called Smith on the way and dragged him out of a much needed sleep. In the background, he heard the man's poor wife complaining bitterly. She should meet Alicia.

  Groggy but amenable, Smith promised to assemble a squad and meet Heron two blocks from the address Abby had sent him. It didn't take that long to get there. The Bronx wasn't so far away from Queens and the Friday night traffic was light between the hours of going out sober and alone and coming home drunk and with a stranger. Heron pulled up to the curb, killed his lights and waited, fidgeting with his fingers as if he had a much needed cigarette.

  Zombie fights. That's what Abby had said in her message. He still didn't quite know what it meant but he had some ideas. Zombie on person. Zombie on Zombie. Degenerates betting on the winner, the loser. Did anyone win? Killing a zombie was easy but killing one without getting bitten was not. Unless the people were armed. He got this image in his head of a man in boxing trunks getting into the ring and punching it out with a stumbling, shambling monster. Ironic that his vision wasn't so different from the truth.

  A black van pulled up behind him shortly. It could have been anyone. In that neighborhood and at that time of night, Heron sitting in his car was as vulnerable to attack as an old woman on the street. But it was only Smith and his squad. Heron got out of the car, glad that the wait was over. Smith appeared from the passenger side of the van. He wasn't in uniform, but that was advantageous.

  "Do you have a radio?"

  Smith held up a small walkie.

  "Good," Heron nodded. "You and I are going to take a walk. Who do you have that can be in charge?"

  "Spinelli."

  Satisfied, they gave Spinelli a few instructions and walked down the street. The lights and the noise became apparent from a block away. Smith looked but did not voice the question on his mind. Heron had been sketchy about the details. As they closed in on the location, they saw a large abandoned warehouse, made whole and living again. Through the dirty windows, they could see lights. Through the rusting walls, they could hear the shouts of men. A lot of men.

  "What is it, a goddam spectator sport?"

  Heron looked over the area and tried to take in all of the details he could. Details had never been his strong suit, but tonight he was focused. There was one entrance in the front and it was manned by two young thugs. They were smoking cigarettes and having a loud conversation in a language that only bordered on English. They could call in the van and march up with their badges, but he wasn't sure about what was inside. A squad of zombie fighters wouldn't do well against a crowd of rowdy fight-goers.

  "Let's go around back," he whispered to Smith.

  Trying to be as quiet as possible, the two men snuck around the back of the building, well under the radar of the two guards. They were way too involved in their conversation to notice the officers. There was little cover on the grounds but the darkness. Behind the warehouse, they saw a small car park, a shed, and a makeshift compound which looked to be filled with people shuffling around. They didn't have to get close to know that those people weren’t people anymore. From inside the building, a huge crowd roared.

  "We're going to need a lot more cops," Smith whispered.

  Heron nodded and told him to send for backup.

  While Smith contacted Spinelli, Heron texted Abby.

  I'm outside.

  A moment later, there was a response. Thank God. What are you going to do?

  He thought about that. Honestly, he didn't have any idea. His instinct was to break the whole thing up right away. What he desperately needed was to get inside so that he could assess the situation.

  Just stay where you are, he texted back.

  Smith reported that they were scrambling about thirty more men at headquarters. It would be at least thirty minutes before they had the kind of manpower they needed.

  "Let's go inside," he said, indicating one of the back doors. At least they had the one squad at the ready in case of an emergency.

  "No problem" Smith said.

  The two men walked over to the door and tried it. It was locked, but Smith produced a small set of fine tools. Heron was impressed with the set, but even more so when the lock was picked and the door was open. While the lieutenant held it open a quarter of an inch, Smith packed his tools neatly and replaced them. Then the two moved inside.

  ***

  SO this was it. It hadn't lasted long, but the money had been good. Marcus had a talent for finding what was out of place and putting the pieces together. Between the two women, the phone call one of them had made, and the appearance of the cop who called himself St. Francis, there was little doubt that his business venture was about to come to an end. Right now, he needed to implement an escape plan. He also needed to figure out what to do with Shawn.

  Arrick appeared at his side, taking the place of PJ, who had been there earlier.

  "I need four zombies, John," Marcus said.

  Arrick's forehead crinkled. "What for? The ring is stocked."

  "There was a late comer."

  "You don't permit late comers."

  Marcus bit back his reply, surprised at the potential for temper. He was not a temperamental person. Stress, though, could bring out the ugly side of a person. "This is a special case."

  Arrick seemed like he was about to say something else, but held it back. "Do you want them by the ring?"

  Marcus shook his head. "Toby will meet you in the corridor and take custody of them."

  Without any further questions, Arrick walked off. As St. Francis stepped into the ring, PJ and Damon loading it up with four zombies, Marcus pulled out his phone and sent Toby a message.

  ***

  "HE’S here," Abby said to her companions.

  "Who? The cop?"

  She nodded.

  Peter was looking around the arena. They had a pretty good view of almost everything from where they were sitting, but it would still be impossible to pick out one man in the crowd.

  "Would you know him if you saw him?" Abby asked him.

  "What should we do?" Melissa asked. "Are they going to raid the place?"

  She shrugged. "He said to stay put so I'm going to stay put." What troubled her, though, was the answer she would have to give when he asked her why she was there in the first place.

  ***

  TOBY’S phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. There was a message from Marcus.

  Meet Arrick in the corridor and take 4 zombies. It's time for the exit strategy. Spread the word.

  What the hell? Things were going better than ever and now Marcus wanted to bug out? Toby thought about sending him a reply but decided against it. It would take Marcus too long to explain what was happening. Toby either had to trust him or not. His gut told him to trust. The money in his pocket begged him not to.

  Toby went with his gut.

  Before heading into the corridor to meet Arrick, he waited for PJ to come down from the ring. Pulling the younger man aside, he whispered exit strategy into his ear and then walked off. PJ's eyes bulged and the color drained from his face. He recovered quickly enough, though, and then went to tell Damon.

  ***

  THE noise from the crowd was deafening. Heron and Smith had entered under a set of bleachers. There was no passage into the arena from here but they could move around through the framework. There wasn't much to see. Beyond the bleachers were rows of floor seats. Essentially, all that they had was the view of legs and the backs of chairs.