Dead Man Running (55 page)

"'Ben's people'?  Ain't they
s
your
n
people?
"  She narrowed her street hardened eyes.  "A
re they
s
here to keep people out or keep you in?"

Jan grabbed her
aunt
's hand and squeezed.  "Please,
Aunt Celia
."

The women exchanged looks and
Celia
Sugerfoot sat down at Jan's place.  She began to dig into Jan's meal as
a
female zombie watched from a corner of the room.

"You
go get the box brought upstairs.  I'm feeling kinda hungry after all
,
"
Celia said between bites.

After dinner the two women retreated to Jan and Wiley's bedroom.  Jan suspected that there were listening devices so her first act was to hand her
aunt
pen and paper so that they could communicate.

"Cameras in each corner of the room
," she wrote, careful to let the box and her body shield her writing.

Jan opened the box and examined her wedding dress.  "It looks perfect," she said out loud.

"I'm glad you told me to take it to Winslow's.  They did an excellent job."

"I better put it back so it's protected," Jan said.

Her
aunt
scribbled a note
, doing her best to hide her activity from the cameras
: "Aren't you going to open the other part of the box?"

Jan froze.  "Other part?" she wrote in reply.  Her
aunt
was not to be told about the hidden weapon.

"I'll help you carry the box into the closet," her
aunt
said out loud.

The two women carried the box into the walk
-
in closet.  They purposely failed to turn on the light.

Celia
Sugerfoot wrote: "The guns are below the dress in a hidden compartment.  Let me show you."

Jan struggled to read the note in the semi-darkness as her
rough hewn aunt
proceeded to open the box from the bottom.  The old
er
woman pulled more than the expected shotgun from the box: there was a machine gun of some type, several grenades,
along with the
shotgun.  The weapons were not metal but fiberglass.

"How'd you find out what I was doing?" Jan wrote.

Her
aunt
carefully printed her reply.  "I wasn't gonna come all the way down here without looking over the job them niggers did.  I discovered the shotgun and knew you
be
in trouble."

Jan read the reply and wrote back: "Who gave you the rest of this stuff?  I didn't ask for a machine gun
.
"

Celia
looked at
her niece
for a long moment.  "
You got a rough and ready rep child.
" she said.  "You
think you the only Sugerfoot woman like that?
"

Celia
Sugerfoot wrote:  "What them niggers gave you was no good.  I wanted my
niece
to be well armed for whatever.  I got my Ronnie to get his hands on the machine gun, flash bang
grenades
and
wide yield splinter grenades, and the shotgun.  Everything is non metallic to escape
them
detector
machines
and be
easier for a girl to carry
."

Jan Sugerfoot opened her mouth, shut it.  "Thank you,
auntie
," she said.  She walked to the back of the huge closet, took a corner of the carpet and peeled it back.  Under the carpet she removed several floorboards.  In this hidden space she placed the weapons.

"How can I repay you?" Jan asked.

"With twenty-five large in small bills," replied Celia.  The woman's eyes told Jan that she was serious.  Jan nodded to indicate her agreement.  She had more than enough cash on hand to pay
her aunt
.

The two women exited the closet and sat facing each other on the bed.  They looked at each other for a long while.  Both wiped away tears.

"So,
niece
, tell me about this baby of yours.  Have you and Ben decided on a name?"

Jan looked around the room.  She smiled for the cameras.  "Ben
jamin
Junior, of course."

"You know it's a boy?"

Jan nodded.  "A healthy boy and I can't wait to see his father hold our son in his arms."

"I can't either,"
Celia
Sugerfoot replied.  "Maybe one day you can bring your son to visit me in
New York
."

Jan shook her head.  "After giving birth I think Junior and I will take some time to bond, especially with Ben being away so much."

Her
aunt
smiled.  "I think that is best, child.  Find a quiet place and be with your son, somewhere no one can disturb you."

"That's my intention,
auntie
, that's my intention."

Ben Wiley walked into his office followed by Mookie Sills. 
Inside the building, away from prying eyes, he carried his new scepter featuring the dead
Latina
's head.  He gently propped the strange object in the corner.

He sat at his desk and Mookie sat opposite.

"Tell me about Obama's Secret Service detail," he said.

"Eighty percent of the presidential detail has been converted.  There are times when the president is entirely protected by our people."

"His military escorts with the 'football'?"

"Entirely converted – the
escorts
, their back-ups, their
immediate
superiors and all family members."

"You're telling me that we can convert Obama any time we want?"

Mookie nodded.  "Yes, sir."

Ben Wiley smiled.  "That is excellent new
s
.  Give my congratulations to all your people."

"Of course, sir.  Would you like to discuss timing?
"

"Yes.  What is the true morbidity rate for the zombie bomb?"

"We kill and are not able to raise about one percent of the subjects."

"So, for discussion's sake, I would have a one in one hundred chance of not being able to convert Obama."

"Correct."

"Is that an acceptable risk?"

"In my opinion, sir, I say it is not.  Currently he is no threat to you or your plans.  He has named you his running mate and
tomorrow in
Charlotte
you will
be
formally
nominated as vice president at the convention.  His untimely death would place everything at risk.  A Biden-Wiley ticket could lose the election.  Biden is very unpopular and is
widely
seen as incompetent."

Wiley thought for a few moments.  "I cannot find any holes in your argument old friend. 
We postpone Obama's conversion until after the inauguration in January.  He will conveniently resign due to health reasons – perhaps we'll give him AIDS in deference to his beloved gays."  He smiled at his joke.  "Then we can proceed with our plans."

"We'll have the military
command structure
converted by January.  It would be excellent timing, sir."

"I agree," Wiley said.  He stood, looked out the window.  "In less than six months this country will belong to the undead, Mookie."

Sills took his place at his boss' side.  "They won't realize what's happening before
it's
too late, sir."

Wiley clapped Sills on the shoulder.  "No my friend, they won't.  And that's just the way I like it."

Elenoa Mary heard the rain fall on the thatch rooftop of her small three room hut on the
island
of
Levuka
.  It was not supposed to rain today, according to the Fijian national radio network, an admittedly unreliable source.  After several minutes of very intense downpours, she took a break from feeding her one year old, Ashmita Ruth, and looked out the window.  What she saw shocked her. 

Several of her neighbors were on the ground, most shaking as if they were having seizures, being drenched by a
golden
rain.  She closed the shudder
s
and ran to the front door of the shack.  She opened the door and was
startled
as the rain flew
sideways
into her home. 
She slammed shut the front door. 

Inside
,
fat
golden
drops fell from the
ceiling
, despite the fact that her husband, Jenou Joseph, had recently installed a new roof.

Instinctively, Elenoa ran over to her child and took her out of her highchair.  The child immediately wailed at the prospect of being separated from her strained peas and bananas.  The rain was entering the home in greater amounts and, stranger yet, it seemed to be collecting or pooling into one or two large puddles.

Was this a toxic rain?  Is that what had struck down her neighbors?

Elenoa watched as the rainwater began to move.  First, two puddles became one large puddle, with individual drops hopping across her floor to join the main body.  Second, this main puddle began to move in her direction.

She moved to the right.  The puddle adjusted course and
tacked toward her
.  When she moved back to the left, it followed.

Elenoa, with tiny Ashmita in her arms, ran into the
bathroom.  There, she was greeted by another puddle of rainwater, this one smaller than its cousin from the main room.  Like a snake, the puddle whipped out and struck Ashmita,
golden
water drenching the tiny child from head to toe.

Elenoa shrieked as tiny bugs crawled over her child's body.  She frantically brushed them off but
could not stop them all
. 
Elenoa watched in horror as the bugs, or whatever they were, crawled under her child's skin, all seemingly headed for the child's head.  She ignored the same creatures now transiting her own body. 

In seconds her child convulsed violently, her gyrating body difficult for Elenoa to hold.

In minutes little Ashmita stopped moving, her eyes frozen in death.

Elenoa hugged her child to her breast and let out a wail that would
have been
heard across the island, if there was anyone left
alive
to hear anything.

The sound had not died away when Elenoa felt a pinch in her skull.  She gently placed her baby in the bathtub, out of harm's way.  In seconds, her body was convulsing as she had seen her neighbors. 

A half hour later, zombie Elenoa lifted her undead child out of the tub and the two continued their day as if nothing at all
had
happened.

Thousands of miles above Levuka,
Mira
Hidar
rode in the C-130 transport.  She sat with the others and heard the eyewitness accounts of the successful deployment of the zombie atomic bomb. 

She was among them but apart nonetheless. 
She
was human, a sheep among wolves, and could not pretend to be
happy, excited
or
proud of their accomplishment.

S
he was none of those things
despite the fact that most of the 'credit' for the events on the island below fell upon her slender shoulders
.  She was ashamed that she had given such a frightening weapon to a madman.  This, on top of the greater shame
:
ultimately the
Hidar
's were responsible for the madman's existence in the first place.
  It was a selfish act, creating Ben Wiley.  It would take a selfless act to destroy him, one neither she nor her grandfather had been able to perform thus far.  It was a bitter irony – two people capable of
conjuring
wonders – incapable of that most
basic
act
, ending one's own life.

Tonight Elias Turnbull would come to her.  She would be ready.  Either she would die or she would take the first step toward ending this
abomination
. 
At the very least her death would stop hundreds of these creatures, the ones she directly created.  The problem was Wiley was converting
thousand
s
of humans a day.

He would make up the losses in a matter of hours.