by Nick Cole
It had been a long week.
His eyes closed and finally, he slept.
Ash woke to the sound of a distant, painful cry.
She slept with her window open. They weren’t running the air conditioners for fear the noise might attract zombies. Most nights held a nightmare at some point for Ash.
Always the same nightmare.
But tonight, she awoke and wasn’t sure if the cry had been part of the nightmare. It was silent out there in the still of the night as she sat up in bed, sweating, heart pounding.
Then she heard it again.
She went to the window.
She listened.
Again the cry. Almost a mournful wail, a plea. It came from up the hill, in the burned neighborhood of McMansions that once rose above the Vineyard, beyond their wall of shipping containers. Up the hill. It sounded like a child. A lost child.
Sometimes a cat can sound like a child, she told herself.
And then...
But you don’t know if it’s a cat or a child.
She dressed, hearing it again. And again.
Outside, the moon had gone down. She took her medical bag, slung it over a shoulder and retrieved a small OD green flashlight from her canvas bag of the same color. She turned it on. It only threw red light. As it should. She unscrewed the lens cap, removed the red filter and flicked it on again. White light.
She left her aid station townhome quietly, watching Skully’s chest rise and fall for a moment as she passed him lying on the twin bed downstairs. Outside, she went to the nearest wall and placed a ladder they kept on the ground nearby against one of the containers. She climbed it, then drew the ladder up on top of the hollow metal containers that made empty bass notes as she walked across the top of them.
Standing still, she listened again.
Nothing.
And just as she was about to give up and go back down and into to her townhome aid station, she heard the cry again. It was a sad wail. A painful cry, and there was some soul-deep hurt in it that Ash knew the medicine she had in her bag could never heal. Up above her, up in the shadowy burnt stick figure charcoal remains of the McMansions, as Holiday had called them, someone was lost and in pain. She let the ladder down on the far side of the wall, and then climbed down into the shadows at the bottom.
She started up the hill, crossed the wide road at the top, then climbed another hill into the burnt-out remains of the first line of houses. The smell of burnt plastic and rubber, along with the smoky char of wood, still remained amongst the ash and stubble. She waded through piles of ashes and wove around debris where bathtubs and sinks and the remains of couches and beds, their blackened iron springs jutting wildly in the night, sat as though oddly placed in empty spaces. Slowly, she made her way up the hill, climbing blackened terraces and vacant concrete foundations into the heights of the devastated neighborhood, following the intermittent wail of whoever it was that was crying out in pain, alone in the night.
At the top of the hill, she climbed up through the half burnt out vegetation of a once palatial property, using exposed sprinkler piping to haul herself up the last few feet onto a tiled patio of immense proportion. Paving stones spread away toward the foundation of what had once been a small mansion. A pool lay between Ash and the remains of the house. Charcoaled wood and bits of debris floated on the surface in collections of junky flotsam.
And...
On the other side, near the blackened remains of an immense fire pit and the tortured sculptures of melted patio furniture, sat a large man. He wore a cape and a mask. His hands were covered by thick oversized work gloves. About his sizeable waist was a police utility belt. On the ground next to him lay a small backpack.
“Daddy!” he bellowed again into the night, raising his head from his downcast sobs, turning to look all around as though what he called for must surely be nearby and coming soon. “Daddy, where are you?” he wailed, not seeing Ash. Then he lowered his head and wept, sobbing thickly, massive shoulders shuddering.
Ash wiped her hands and got to her feet. She crossed the fire-blackened poolside, cautiously, and sat down next to Cory who continued to weep even as he laid his giant head on her shoulder and sobbed into her slender neck.
Chapter Seven
Before the world ended...
Cory was born. They didn’t know at first. But later, it was his mother who knew.
“He’s not right, Colin,” she told her husband.
“He’ll be fine,” his father, a rookie cop just out of the marines explained as he left for the night shift. A long night of driving the alleys and quiet streets of their town with his officer-trainer. “Boys are always slower to come along.”
Except Cory stayed slow.
And one day, when Cory’s dad, Colin, was on patrol, his mother left him with Mrs. Swinton to go to the market, “real quick” she said, and never came back.
Never.
Ever.
Colin couldn’t blame her. He never did. He just took over. He just took over everything. And of course, there was Mrs. Swinton... and some others who came and went throughout the years.
When Cory was twelve...
... well, when he was twelve, he still went to elementary school with the other “normal” kids. The school system, good teachers and a caring principal, felt it was not just good for Cory, but good for the other kids too.
Kids like Bryan Ratigan...
... well, you know... there’s always a Bryan Ratigan, isn’t there? One day Cory found himself being pushed down again and again out on the football-baseball field behind the bleachers. Where the teachers couldn’t exactly see what was going on. All the cool kids watched. Sort of laughing.
It was okay to laugh at Cory. He did a lot of funny things even though he didn’t mean to be so funny. After all, he was “special”. And, of course...
... well of course, there was his whole Batman thing.
Bryan Ratigan had lured Cory out there. It was May. School was almost over. Elementary school was almost over. The end of the sixth grade. Then they would all be off to junior high. Real adults. Makeup for girls. Fights for boys.
Boyfriends.
Girlfriends.
Dances.
Except Cory. Cory would be going to a “special” school.
So, it was their last chance to have fun with Cory. Bryan’s last chance. Most of them had known Cory their whole time in elementary school. If you’d asked them, they’d have told you they’d known Cory their whole lives, which was, as far as they considered the length of lives, the sum of themselves. Don’t we say that when we’re young? Don’t we think that all our years in elementary school are the sum total of our lives?
Didn’t we?
Such a small part, isn’t it? Now that we know how long a life can be.
Bryan Ratigan pushed Cory down again.
And again.
And again.
And every time, Cory would say, “I am vengeance. I am the night. I am Batman,” as he struggled back onto his clumsy feet, sometimes just barely before Bryan would push him, or hit him, and down he’d go again.
It was funny, wasn’t it?
Not so much.
Again.
“I am vengeance...”
Again.
“... I am the night...”
And again.
“... I am Batman.”
“Just stay down this time, Cory!” someone said. A girl named Tara.
The fun was over now.
Bryan had to start hitting Cory right in the face, y’know hard, to keep him down. See, because Cory kept getting back up, saying, “I am vengeance...” and Bryan couldn’t just stop because somehow that would be letting Cory win. Cory couldn’t win because he was... y’know, “special”. If he beat you at anything then you were worse than him. You were worse
than “special”.
Cory’s nose was bleeding now.
“Just stay down, Cory!” Even Bryan almost pleaded the next time.
“I am vengeance...”
Bryan socked him in the eye when a girl, a girl Bryan liked, told him to stop bullying Cory.
If it helps, at that moment, even Bryan Ratigan hated himself. If it helps.
Cory thought it was all just a game. Grunting, he struggled to his feet again. Blood ran down onto his chin. His eye was very swollen and turning blue.
“Ewww,” someone screamed. A girl. “He’s bleeding a lot.”
Kevin Casell who was playing soccer nearby saw what was happening and ran to get a teacher. When the zombies attacked the hospital Kevin Casell would later work at as a physical therapist, he would die trying to help a family get to the roof everyone was being evacuated off of. He was that kind of boy. He would become that kind of man.
But, back on that day in the last May of Childhood, later that afternoon, Colin Banks, Officer Banks, showed up at the school. Cory was sitting in the front lobby, next to the door of the principal’s office.
No, Officer Banks didn’t want to press charges. Yes, Cory was staying in school for what remained of the year. What other choice did he have? Cory’s special school didn’t have room just yet, and when it did, it was going to break Officer Banks, who was a single parent, financially and emotionally.
They drove home that afternoon.
Cory ran to the front door, flung it open, and threw himself in front of the TV. Waiting. Colin entered. Turned on the TV with the remote. Hit play on the DVD.
Remember that Batman cartoon from the early nineties?
That’s Cory’s favorite show.
Hence, “I am Vengence. I am the night. I am Batman.”
Later, once Cory had finished the one episode he was allowed to watch after school, the one in which... the Scarecrow made Batman very afraid... as Colin sat in the kitchen dealing with his rage, which was to just sit and drink a glass of water and look at a calendar that had a picture of Hawaii on it...
Later...
... he took Cory into the backyard. It was almost summer. Daylight savings. Colin brought out his old punching bag, setting it up under a gnarled olive tree.
“Cory,” said Colin softly.
Cory never looked at Colin. Always away. To the side. Somewhere else. He didn’t really look at anybody when he didn’t need to. But he was listening. Cory always listened.
Not being paid attention to sometimes upset people.
Not those who knew and loved Cory. They just accepted the way he paid attention, which was different than how others paid attention.
“Yeah, Daddy,” said Cory who was big for his age.
“You had a fight today,”
“Bryan and me were just playing.”
Colin paused. He ground his teeth. He took a breath.
“He was hitting you,” said Colin.
“Yeah, Daddy. We were just playing.”
There is no modulation in Cory’s voice. No inflection of emotion. Every spoken word is a statement. He never asks questions. He only makes statements. Everything is delivered flatly.
“Yeah, Daddy. Just playing.”
Colin is afraid. Not of the thugs and gangbangers he busts regularly. No, he’ll chase them down a blind alley, often leaving his older partner far behind. He’s not afraid of them, or guys who beat their wives or other guys with guns looking to settle a score. No, Colin is afraid of the world and how it treats Cory. He won’t always be there for the kid. His son. He won’t always be there. He knows that and it frightens him to death. Every day. Every night.
All good parents know the feeling.
“Cory?” Colin bends down. “I want to teach you how to play with kids like Bryan. Kids who want to play too rough. Would that be okay?”
“Yeah, Daddy.”
Before Colin joined the marines, back when he’d been a poor kid from the poor side of town, he’d been a golden gloves contender. Not a champion. Just a contender. He’d even boxed in the marines. From that first evening of early summer as the world changed despite Colin’s efforts to make it stay the same safe place it had never been, that whole long summer, he taught Cory how to “play” when others like Bryan Ratigan wanted to play.
Cory wasn’t fast. If you’d taken any kind of marital arts, or been in enough fights, you could easily beat him. But if you didn’t watch out, his left hook became a devastating haymaker, and on occasion, he could land an uppercut that once knocked Colin out cold. Lights out. When Colin awoke, sitting up in the grass, he thought that day might just be the happiest day of his life. Because now he knew Cory could at least defend himself.
Now, Cory could do something in all Colin’s darkly imagined scenarios. The ones where Cory’s cornered as he walks home to an adult assisted living facility long after Colin’s been killed in the line of duty by some drunk driver late one night. He knows Cory’s life won’t be one where Colin’s always there. Colin was still a cop after all. Carrying a gun. Going into every situation where someone else might also be carrying a gun. But now Colin knows, hopes, that on that dark night when someone wants to mess with Cory, that Cory has something he can use to defend himself.
When Colin thought about his life and the bad breaks he’d had, he still loved Cory’s mom though she’d been gone for years, he wasn’t mad or sad or even angry. When he thought about his life he was just worried. A lot. Cory’s knockout uppercut that day helped Colin not to worry so much.
Colin was very brave. All the other cops knew that. He took risks out on the streets just to make sure everyone got home safely each night. That was a big thing to him, “just get home safely” he’d say, or remind everyone else to, when he made sergeant. Watch Commander. His only worry until that afternoon when Cory laid him out in the grass with a nice uppercut into Colin’s jaw, was for Cory. That someone, that someones, that all the Bryan Ratigans of the world, might try hurt him one day.
But now... there was that uppercut.
He still worried...
... but the uppercut helped.
Chapter Eight
“I’m going now, Cory,” said Colin Morris the night the world began to end. Sergeant Morris. Cory sat in front of the TV. He was nineteen years old. Still just a boy, though. It was three o’clock in the afternoon. Cory attended an advanced adult education center in the mornings and early afternoons. Then he came home and it was time for Batman.
How does a young man, a simple man, come to be so devoted to the Dark Knight? It happened when Cory was very young and it started with a question.
Cory had asked a question.
As his father dressed for work, Cory would often watch from the floor where he played nearby. But you see, he really didn’t watch. I mean, you never really knew what was going on in Cory’s mind. Maybe nothing, is what most people supposed. A few liked to imagine something akin to a deeper symphony they could not hear. Happy to know that it was Cory’s and Cory’s alone. And so on that day, as his father dressed for work, ironing and pressing his own uniform because if Colin could save just that much in dry cleaning, it would go right into the trust he’d set up to take care of Cory in case anything ever happened. On that day, Cory asked a question.
Colin burned himself on the iron. Not thinking about what he was doing because he was thinking too much about money and worry and the state of the world and Cory. Not feeling very “Super Cop”-like at that particular moment. Not feeling very heroic. Feeling a little down, defeated, unable to catch a break. Wondering what he’d done...
And he stopped right there.
Because he couldn’t take that out there on the streets tonight. Every traffic stop, every domestic violence call, every crime in progress was a potential confrontation and he was not the biggest and baddest dude on the street. But, as every c
op knows, when it comes down to it, it comes down to one thing. One simple thing when a drunk the size of a mountain wants to tangle. It comes down to who wants to make it home more.
Colin Morris knew he couldn’t take his baggage out there tonight. He knew he needed to be something bigger than what he felt like at that burned hand moment. Something, someone heroic.
One of the sergeant’s wives had given her husband a photocopy of an email she’d received. It was some little girl’s letter to a soldier over in the war. The little girl had written to the soldier, knowing his life was in danger in a foreign country, instructing him to be careful, and then, the little girl gave that unknown soldier a piece of solemn advice.
“Always be Batman.”
You see, Batman can handle anything, and to a little girl and a sergeant’s wife, any cop’s spouse, Batman always comes home. Which is important when you love someone. Coming home is real important.
The sergeant posted it near the lockers. Just a piece of paper and a strip of tape. The important part underlined in red, circled by the sergeant’s wife. “Always be Batman”.
And no one said anything. No jokes like there always were about advice from wives. No one defaced it. No one tore it down or even laughed as they walked by.
“Always be Batman”.
And Cory, playing in Cory world, hearing that unheard symphony or some such, looked up from the closet where he was petting one of his Dad’s sneakers and said, as Colin Morris belted his utility belt around his waist checking the fit, he’d been losing weight lately because he’d been skipping lunch. Saving just that much more for Cory, y’know. Cory looked up and said, “Who are you, Daddy?”
Colin looked up suddenly. He’d been thinking about the burn to his hand and how it had to be right where he would grip the steering wheel all night. Right in the web of his hand. And, just like all of us when small things send us down the well of self-pity again, and our larger issues rear up and mean so much more in the light of tripping, or dropping a plate, or putting salt in the coffee instead of sugar, Colin had no answer other than an existentially deep and unspoken “I don’t know some days” that seemed on the tip of his tongue, but was really deep down in his heart. Or at least, that’s where it felt like it was.
