Dead Man Running (31 page)

Becky Sings heard the door to their prison opening – a couple others had also survived and were being kept in cages.

In a moment she was
again
face to face with
Secretary
Ben Wiley. 
He crouched beside her cage.  He wore a black suit and white shirt and a large smile.  His bulk blotted out the sparse light in the room.

"We have had a wonderful conference,
" he
said.
 
"Let me get you out of there.
"

He waved a woman over – young, dark haired and pretty like Becky Sings – who
unlocked her cage
.  S
oon
her arms and feet were freed and
she was standing with the help of Wiley.  He gave her some water and she felt herself capable of speech.  "What is happening here?  Why was I placed in that cage?"

Wiley patted her arm as they left the barn where she had been held.  It was dawn – the sun transited over distant snow covered peaks.

"What you witnessed is the beginning of a new age of mankind," Wiley said.  "You see, your coworkers were transformed into zombies."

Becky Sings stopped, stared at her leader.  "Zombies? 
I thought they were make-
believe."

"They're as real as you are, Rebecca.  In fact, I'm a zombie myself."

"But…but…I thought zombies wandered around eating people's brains.  I thought they looked all disgusting and crude."

"We fixed all that," Wiley said.  He nodded at the dark haired woman and she smiled,
and then
wandered away.

They started walking again.  They appeared to be heading to the main house, which seemed to Becky Sings
to be
a very great distance
away
. 

They were quiet for a minute before she spoke again. 
"
But
I don't understand, Secretary Wiley. 
Why ever would you
make people into zombies
?"

"Because
, Rebecca,
the world is in trouble.  We are destroying the planet, crumbling into a moral abyss where we are incapable of saving ourselves.  The most vulnerable – the elderly, poor or sick – have no chance in the world we have created.  I plan to create a new world.
  I am the instrument of God's plan for mankind.
"

Wiley continued his pitch as Rebecca had breakfast.  The more he spoke, the more reasonable it sounded.  It really was hopeless, wasn't it?  This world was only going to get worse – more violent, more immoral, more diseased, more polluted.

"I need your help," he said as she sipped her coffee.  "I read your performance reviews and you would make an excellent
department lead
.  We have roles for humans in our organization and you could be a tremendous asset."

Rebecca Singler felt a strange disappointment that he did not choose to kill her and transform her into one of the "new vanguard".
 
Why was that fat excuse for nothing Cynthia Robinski killed and not her?  Why did Cynthia get to be a zombie?

She agreed to join him, extracting only the promise that once he had completed the monumental task of transforming the world, he wouldn't forget to make her into a zombie.

SEVEN
TEEN

The following is a script
excerpt from the 60 Minutes report
"
Master of Change
" which aired on
October
30
, 2011. Scott Pelley is correspondent, Bob Anderson and Nicole Young, producers.

Scott Pelley stands in the day room of Bleak House, a HUD sponsored housing unit for the elderly located outside
Boston
.  A group of residents, arrayed in five neat rows, shout as they practice judo moves.  A middle aged African American man can be seen up front leading the group of mostly Caucasian seniors.

Scott Pelley (voiceover):
Goaded by the impact of the Great Recession, never before have there been so many voices calling for change in how the federal government goes about its business
.
  The incumbent president ran on a platform of change.  The amorphous Tea Party has emerged as voices of radical change, a scaling back of the government's role in the lives of everyday Americans.

It would surprise the Tea Party and most Americans to discover that radical change is occurring in the Federal government, in the most unlikely of places – th
at
hidebound relic of the Great Society, the Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD.

The architect of that change is HUD Secretary Benjamin Wiley, the impromptu leader of this self defense class at the property named Bleak House. 
Wiley has been in charge of HUD since
April
. 
The secretary and I took a walk around Bleak House.

Scott Pelley: This place really was bleak, wasn't it?

Ben Wiley: HUD management let a group of criminals
ironically
named The Guardians run this place.  They beat, robbed and generally harassed the residents
.   So, yes, it was a bleak place to live.

Scott Pelley:  What did you do to fix it?

Ben Wiley:  First, I fired the management.

Scott Pelley:  You've fired a lot of HUD managers.  I've seen reports that HUD has downsized about thirty percent of its management workforce
in the six months since you've taken over
.

Ben Wiley:  Driftwood, bums and criminals, allowed to squat in federal jobs by past administrations.  Not on my watch.

Scott Pelley: How did you deal with The Guardians?

Ben Wiley:  I brought in a reduced staff and told them to give the residents the power.  The residents told The Guardians to leave and my managers had their back.

Scott Pelley: That simple?  The Guardians left on their own accord?

Ben Wiley:  At his core, a bully is nothing but a coward.  If you stand up to
him
,
he
will back down pretty quickly.

Scott Pelley
(voiceover)
: And this situation is not unique.  Across the nation there have been reports of a sharp reduction in criminal activity, including drug dealing and prostitution, on HUD sponsored properties.  We spoke to
Newark
's Mayor Corey Booker.

Mayor Booker: 
My police department has reported a sharp decline – in some cases an elimination – of violent crime in and about HUD subsidized properties.  We have actually begun to redirect police resources to other parts of the city which in the past have suffered from a lack of police attention.

Scott Pelley:  Any idea what has lead to this decline in violence?

Mayor Booker: An abrupt cultural change.  Secretary Wiley has cleaned house, getting rid of the old HUD management and replacing them with energetic people who listen to the people, including people like me.

Scott Pelley:  You're smiling.  It feels good to be listened to?

Mayor Booker:  Yes it does.

Scott Pelley:  So, the culture was changed.  That pushed the criminals out of the buildings?

Mayor Booker:  That and Wiley's Warriors.

Scott Pelley (voiceover): 
In a HUD sponsored property outside of
Dubuque
Iowa
, I asked the secretary to define Wiley's Warriors.

Ben Wiley:  This is a core group of residents that are accountable for their building.  They run their building, every aspect, in cooperation with the HUD managers.

Scott Pelley: What are some of the things they do?

Ben Wiley:  They manage building security.  We no longer need security guards in our buildings.

(Scott's mouth opens,
and then
closes.  He is momentarily speechless.)

Scott Pelley: You
're
let
ting
go every security guard HUD employs?

Ben Wiley:  That's what we're doing.  As we extend Wiley's Warriors to every property sponsored by HUD, we don't need guards.

Scott Pelley:  Most Americans see HUD properties as dangerous places, hotbeds of crime and violence.

Ben Wiley: Not anymore.

Scott Pelley (voiceover): 
Still disbelieving we traveled from the north to the
Deep South
.  We found ourselves in
Clarksdale
Mississippi
speaking to Republican Mayor Henry Espy, a man you would expect to have not very kind words for anything emanating from the Obama administration.  We stood outside HUD sponsored housing in
Clarksdale
.

Mayor Espy:  I wouldn't spit in Obama's mouth if'n his teeth were on fire.

Scott Pelley:  But he got public housing right.

Mayor Espy:  I hate to admit this but yes, he did.  He brought this feller Wiley in and he turned the whole shebang around.

Scott Pelley:  What did he do?

Mayor Espy: 
He brought in new managers who actually did their jobs.  The first thing they did was to get the low-
life's
out of the buildings.  Next, they fired up the residents to care for their buildings.  Anytime I ride past here I see someone out tending their lawn.  I never saw that
'fore
.

Scott Pelley:  You sound like the big city mayor we spoke to, Cory Booker of
Newark
New Jersey
.

Mayor Espy:  That's probably the only time me and a feller like that will ever agree on anything.

Scott Pelley (voiceover): 
Indeed there were people outside on a blazing hot day tending to their gardens.  We spoke to one such person, Eula Boteen.  She greeted us with a very wide, very white smile.

Scott Pelley:  You have a very beautiful garden.  I understand it didn't always look this way?

Eula Boteen: 
No sah. 
This is my home and I take pride in it.

Scott Pelley:  Is this a change?

Eula Boteen:  Yes, we've been taught by Mr. Wiley that this is our home, not HUD's.  He told us that we should show pride in where we live.

Scott Pelley:  (Wipes his brow.) Is that why you're out here in this heat?  You're not even sweating.

Eula Boteen:  (Smiles the wide smile again.) I'm lived here for near seventy years, Mr. Pelley.  I guess
dat
I'm done all sweated out.  (Big smile.)

Scott Pelley:  You look like you want to get back to work.  One last question: what is it about Ben Wiley that makes people like you so devoted to him?

Eula Boteen: 
He has changed us – we are no longer people.

Scott Pelley:  What do you mean?

Eula Boteen:  We are Wiley's Warriors,
new
beings full of pride.

Scott Pelley (voiceover): 
I spoke to Secretary Wiley back in his DC office.

Scott Pelley:  Some
might say it sounds like a cult.

Ben Wiley:  It is a cult, Scott.  We're changing mindsets from failure to success, from despair to pride.

Scott Pelley:  Where does it stop?

Ben Wiley:  (Shrugs and smiles.)  Not until we've transformed every American.

Scott Pelley:  Can you do that?

Ben Wiley:  Watch me.

EIGHT
EEN

HARLEM
NEW YORK
– NOVEMBER 2011

The day before the special election for Wiley's congressional seat, Elias Turnbull stood in front of Hakeem's Market on a beautiful
mid
fall
afternoon greeting voters.  The grocery store's owner was a supporter and encouraged Elias to greet post workday
Harlem
residents as they shopped on their way home.  Frankly, Hakeem had said, business was down and perhaps Elias' presence c
ould
draw more people into his
small grocery store.

Elias Turnbull, after
nearly two
decade
s
as
Benjamin Wiley's sidekick, had discovered himself to be a consummate politician – slippery
as an eel and as changeable as a chameleon.  He had a warm handshake and encouraging words for every
Harlem
resident within arm's length.

As
he
schmoozed
the multitude
s
that
shopped and socialized on
Harlem
's
Main Street
–
Lexington Avenue
– it dawned on him why business was down for his supporter.  It was clear that
Harlem
was
fertile ground
for Wiley's zombies.  Out of every ten people who
m
he
greeted, one
'person'
was a zombie.  If you reduce the eating population by ten percent, a grocery store would
naturally
suffer.  Zombies did eat, of course, but Hakeem could not very easily stock live human beings for their purchase and consumption.