by JJ Zep
She reached the end apartment, put an ear to the door, and listened. If there were voices from within, they were drowned out by the booming hip-hop. She balled her hand into a fist and banged on the door three times, waited and then banged again. She was ready to knock for a third time when the music was killed to a more manageable level. She heard movement on the other side of the door, shambling footsteps approaching. She stepped to the side, if someone decided to take a couple of precautionary shots, she didn’t want to be in the line of fire.
The footsteps came to a stop. “Who’s there?” a bleary voice said.
“I’m looking for Aldo.”
“Yeah, and who the fuck are you?”
“Justine.”
“That supposed to mean something to me?”
“Justine Goodwillie. Al’s holding something for me.”
Silence. Now the sound of deadbolts being disengaged. The door creaked open a crack. An eye peered through. “You’re gonna need to show me some green before you step inside.”
“Green?”
“Some Benjamins, bitch. Pesos, dinero, you dig?”
“Oh yeah, I dig,” Justine said. “Thing is I’m a little bit short right now and my Mastercard’s maxed.” She applied her boot to the door, crashing it inward into man’s face. He staggered back into the passage and she followed him through and crunched the heel of her hand into his nose. He wasn’t getting up from that.
She looked down the dimly lit passage, a blank wall to her right, three doors set into the one on her left. The last of these was open, a rectangle of light spilling into the corridor. The smell of piss was much stronger in here. She heard the hiss and gurgle of something cooking - crystal meth, Aldo’s primary business.
One of the doors flipped open and a bare-chested man with a scalp full of filthy, blond dreadlocks, stuck his head out. He flipped back the aviator goggles he was wearing and started to say something. Justine took a step towards him and he thought better of it and withdrew to the safety of his room.
She strode languidly towards the end of the corridor, leaving her gun holstered, stopping just before the door, listening. The monotonous four-four beat continued its loop, someone rapping lyrics that seemed to consist primarily of the words “bitch” and “homey.” She heard something else, too, something that made her finally reach for her 9-mil. She was prepared to forgive Aldo’s tardiness, even forgive the fact that he’d failed to make the delivery, and made her come down to this shit hole to collect. She wasn’t prepared to forgive being shot at. That would not stand.
She stepped into the room, the gun held in her left hand, concealed behind her. Aldo was sitting on the couch, his shirt unbuttoned, showing off his scrawny, hairless chest. There were two girls, one either side of him, neither much older than sixteen. One of the girls watched Justine with a glassy, disinterested stare, the other, despite the commotion, was passed out, her head resting on Aldo’s lap.
“Al,” Justine said. “How you been?”
She did a quick sweep of the room, a couple of collapsed couches, a burn scarred coffee table, a dead TV, a boombox on the floor under it. There was an overflowing ashtray on the table, beer bottles on the floor, a glass bong, the dried-out remnants of a dozen half-consumed meals. None of this interested her much, what interested her was the telltale shape bulging the threadbare drapes away from the window.
“I been pretty good, seen as you ask, bitchin’ as a matter of fact.”
“Glad to hear it. Where’s my stuff?” She angled her body so that she’d be ready to move when the guy behind the curtain tried to get a shot off.
“Hey be cool, babe,” Aldo said. “I got your shit. No need to get your panties in a bunch. You know I wouldn’t stiff ya. Well, I’d stiff ya, but you know –”
“My stuff, Al?”
“We’ll get to that in a minute princess, first let’s parlez a little business you and me.” He rubbed thumb and forefinger together, grinned at her through a mouthful of rotten teeth.
“I already paid you.”
“So you did,” Aldo chuckled. “Thing is, I been doin’ myself a little thinking.”
“Thinking Al? Now there’s a thing.”
“I got to wondering what a foxy, little lady like yourself would be doing with twenty pounds of plastique. I got to thinking maybe the boys down at the mayor’s office might be interested to know too.”
“You blackmailing me, Al?” She showed the gun now, bringing it up in a fluid arc. “You blackmailing me, you piece of shit?”
“Whoa!” Aldo said, throwing up his hands and bringing his knees into a defensive posture. “I was just fucking with ya. Your stuff’s in a bag under the table. Under the table, for Christ’s sake!”
Justine angled her head and saw a black gym bag sitting on the floor. She crouched and reached for it, and that was when the man behind the curtain made his move. He pushed the drapes aside with the barrel of his shotgun, rather than firing through it. That movement cost him a valuable second, and that second cost him his life.
Justine dropped into a crouch and fired two rounds, one of which crashed into the gunman’s eye socket. He got off one shot, aimed impotently at the ceiling, and then collapsed through the drapes and slumped to the floor, his face a bloody mess.
Justine pulled the bag out from under the table, unzipped it and peered in. A few, off-white slabs of innocuous-looking putty were stacked inside. At least Aldo had done that part.
A smoky pall hung over the room, the smell of cordite in the air. She could hear running footsteps approaching. The girl on the couch was screaming blue murder, the rapper on the boombox talking about busting a cap in someone’s ass.
Justine stepped over the fallen man and pushed the window open. Before she climbed out onto the fire escape she turned and fired a single shot, ending Aldo French’s miserable life.
eleven
“Fucking outstanding,” Dave Bamber said. “Fucking excellent.” He was standing in the former pro shop of the golf club, now converted into a situation room. A large map of Staten Island was fixed over one window. On it, the areas they’d cleared had been shaded out with crosshatched lines.
“Fucking excellent,” Bamber said again and despite himself Chris had to agree. He still had his doubts about Bamber’s zombie fighting tactics. But against these Z’s, and in these weather conditions, they had proven highly effective. They’d cleared ten city blocks today, and suffered only a single casualty, a friendly fire incident according to reports. Just as important, at least according to Bamber, there’d been minimal damage to property, a cornerstone of the Rosenthal Plan.
“Pointless clearing out the Z’s only to leave folks with a burnt out city,” Bamber had said, and Chris guessed he was right on that score.
“Gentlemen,” Bamber said now, “and ladies,” acknowledging the presence of Julie Flynn and Ana Lima. “Today we’ve laid down a marker. We’ve tested our strength against the enemy and we’ve gotten a fix on how aggressively we can pursue our objectives. My take on this is that we were too conservative in our planning. My take is that we need to get intentional, smaller teams, more ground covered in the same time.”
“Wait a minute,” Chris said. “Smaller teams?” We’re running teams of eight now. How much smaller are we talking?”
“I’m thinking four, Chris. Two men with flamethrowers, two riflemen. The flamethrowers are there to nuke the Z’s, the riflemen are there to cover the flamethrowers.”
He fixed his eye on Chris, no doubt looking for support.
“That’s too thin,” Chris said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Four men to a squad is spreading ourselves too thin.”
“How so?” Bamber said. He seemed genuinely confused. “You were out there today, you saw what we’re up against. These Z’s are lethargic, it’s a turkey shoot, its –”
“Too risky. The reason we succeeded today is because the makeup of the teams gave us an advantage, cut the teams and you take away that a
dvantage. Plus the rover units will have too much ground to cover. My understanding is they pulled a couple of teams out of tricky situations today. Spread them too thinly…” He didn’t need to finish.
“I’m with Chris on this one,” Julie said.
“I’m with my wife,” Eddy Montague said.
“I ain’t your wife.”
Dave Bamber searched the faces in the room, the enthusiasm seeming to drain from him with each blank stare that was returned. “You all feel this way?” A couple of nods and a few “yes sirs,” sounded from the assembled leadership.
Bamber’s brow knitted together in a frown, his mouth became drawn. For a moment Chris thought he was going to overrule them and push on with his plan anyway.
“Okay,” Bamber said eventually. “You’re the one’s out there risking your asses, so I guess I owe it to you to take your concerns on board. We’ll keep things as is for the time being.”
He stressed the second part of the sentence. Chris felt sure that the four-man team idea would resurface at some point.
***
“Ruby, right?”
Ruby looked up from cleaning the blade of her Katana and saw Chico approaching, a smile on his lips, an exaggerated swagger in his walk. She ignored him and continued drawing the soft cloth across the smooth expanse of steel. She wasn’t in the mood for company right now.
He’s cute, her annoying internal voice whispered. Shut up, she told it silently.
Chico dropped into the seat beside her, and looked out on the snowy field before them, fast fading towards an early twilight. He shook out a cigarette from his pack and offered one to her.
“Smoke?”
“I don’t smoke,” said Ruby.
“Probably a wise choice,” Chico said. “Smoking gives you cancer.”
He lit up anyway, drew deeply, blew out a vaporous stream.
“So that was some action out there today, huh? We kicked some Z butt.”
Ruby didn’t think such a pointless comment warranted a reply. She held the sword up, angled it to the fading light and liked the glimmer she saw.
“That’s some sticker,” Chico said. “Where’d you get it?”
“This is not a sticker,” Ruby said. “This is a Katana, a Samurai sword, 16th century.”
“Cool!” Chico said. “You kill Z’s with that thing?”
Again Ruby didn’t think any response was necessary. She sheathed the sword. She was done now. She had no reason to sit here and listen to this boy and his stupid chitchat. Except, she didn’t get up. She didn’t leave. For some reason, that she couldn’t quite fathom, some part of her seemed to want to stay.
They sat in silence for a while, an uncomfortable silence, unlike the silent time she and Ferret spent together, when they could go hours without saying a word. Chico eventually broke the deadlock. “How old are you?” he said.
Ruby didn’t think that was any of his business, but she was relieved to have something to say. “I’m sixteen,” she said.
“Cool!” Chico said. Was that the only expression he knew? “I’m eighteen.”
The sky had faded towards black, a gentle flurry of snow was falling. From the clubhouse came raucous shouts, laughter. Chico cleared his throat.
“So Ruby,” he said, a slight quiver in his voice. “Have you got a boyfriend back on the island?”
The question caught her by surprise. “No!” she blurted, then added (somewhat stupidly she’d reflect later) “Of course not.”
“Because, I was thinking. Maybe if I could, you know, get a day pass to Manhattan, we could…you know…”
Ruby didn’t know, but she had a good idea. She thought he might be trying to ask her out. She felt suddenly flushed, short of breath. She was certain she was blushing, sure that she was standing out like a red beacon in the dark.
“I don’t think so,” she said and sprang to her feet. Her face felt like it was on fire.
She scurried across the veranda as though Colonel Gareth Stone and his zombie army were after her.
twelve
Marin Scolfield let himself into the darkened second floor office. He crossed the floor, treading with caution. It was pitch dark in here and he didn’t want to crash into anything. There was broken glass and other debris underfoot. A fall would probably be bad news. Neither could he turn on his flashlight, which would almost certainly be seen by the soldiers over the road.
He shuffled along, back to the wall until he reached the window, a big sliding pane that led out onto a balcony. The glass had been shattered, letting in a shard of frigid air. He briefly considered climbing out onto the balcony and then decided against it. The sentries down there might have night vision scopes. If they looked up and happened to spot him he’d be cooked. He was better off in the shadows of the office. Besides, the balcony looked unsafe. The front wall had collapsed. It gave him a clear view of the small strip mall in front of him, a dilapidated cluster of building arranged in an L around a square of asphalt and bounded by streets on the two open sides.
Whoever was in charge down there had a good idea about profiles and the low keeping thereof. He hadn’t tried to tidy the place up and bring it to order as most military men might have done. There were no tents, no wire enclosures, no sentry posts. Instead the lot was a mess of wrecked cars and debris.
He figured there were forty men down there, all except the two roving sentries, concealed within the buildings. A tad paranoid perhaps, Paterson was devoid of humans. Who was going to tattle about their position? The Z’s?
That struck Scolfield as funny and he sniggered as he raised his binoculars to his eyes. A flicker of light at the left of his vision drew his attention and he picked out a figure standing in the shadows. The figure pulled on a cigarette and in its red glow he saw that it was a woman. He instinctively scanned down to look at her feet and was disappointed that they were hidden in shadow. When he scanned up again, he spotted someone standing beside the woman, a huge, black man who he recognized. He was surprised to see Bobo Benson. He’d heard that Benson was dead.
“Well, well, well,” Scolfield muttered. It seemed his informant had been right, after all. The Corporation had come east.
thirteen
The second day of the operation to clear Staten Island of zombies (Operation Popsicle as the volunteers were jokingly calling it) started on a sour note. Chris was on his way out to the trucks when Dave Bamber called him into the converted situation room and closed the door. Bamber looked displeased.
“What’s up?” Chris asked as Bamber turned towards him, although he already knew what was up. Bamber had been made to stand down in front of his men yesterday. It wasn’t something any officer relished.
“I could have done with your support in here last night,” Bamber said without preamble.
“I’d have given it if I thought it was warranted.”
“Want to tell me why you believe it wasn’t?”
Chris thought about that for a while, trying to put it in a way that didn’t sound like a criticism. He liked Dave Bamber, believed him to be a solid soldier and a good planner. Which made it all the more difficult to understand his tactics.
“I don’t like losing men, Dave,” he said. “Simple as that.”
“And you think I do?”
“It just seems to me that we’re in an awful rush here. Seems some unnecessary risks are being taken.” He saw immediately that the words stung Bamber, wished he hadn’t said them.
“As the officer in charge, I believe risk assessment is my call.”
“Fair enough,” Chris said. He didn’t want to take this any further.
“I just want to know that we’re on the same team, Chris,” Bamber said, his tone softening.
“We are,” Chris assured him.
Bamber seemed to consider that for a moment, seemed to be about to say more. Instead he reached out a hand and gave Chris’s shoulder a squeeze. “Good man,” he said. “Good luck out there today.”
By the time Chris got to
the truck, his team was already aboard. Chico gave him a hand up and then banged on the cab, instructing the driver to move out. The snow had stopped falling during the night, but the temperature still hovered in the low single digits. Chris stamped his feet, blew on his hands, looked across the cab. Ruby wasn’t sitting beside him for once, she was sitting between Julie and Chico, her face flushed. She looked across at him and gave him a wan, almost embarrassed, grin.
Their objective today was further away from the base and by the time the driver let them off, it was snowing again.
The street was a near facsimile of the one they’d cleared yesterday, a white shrouded expanse that might have decorated a Christmas card. Chris appraised the terrain, scanned the street for possible fallback positions and then set up his perimeter and sent Ruby and Chico to deploy the claymores.
That was when the first volley of gunfire disturbed the still of the morning.
“What the hell?” Julie said. “Are we late? Did we miss the signal?”
The others had turned towards him. They looked confused, fearful. Now came a low percussion, causing several of them to duck involuntarily.
“Hold your positions!” Chris barked. “Heads up!” The gunfire had risen to a crescendo, a clatter that sounded like a stick being drawn across a sheet of corrugated iron. The radio squawked into life. Bamber’s static-laced voice blared from the set.
“Bravo team leader. Come in.”
