Fiend (9 page)

I ask her where she is.

She pauses. It’s a pause I know well, one that is the precursor to bad news, and I ask her if she’s okay, where is she? She tells me Jared’s apartment.

This stings.

I know it shouldn’t. That I should just be happy that the only girl I’ve ever cared about isn’t dead or reanimated and that there’s a chance for some hand-in-hand-happily-ever-after shit, but I’m not. I’m thinking about that dickhead Jared. Jared with his slicked Jersey hair, all reciting the Seventh Step Prayer, stalking the meetings for all the wrong reasons, fronting like he gave a fuck about sobriety, all the while just trying to pound newly sober girls’ pussies.

Jared’s? I say.

Yeah. On Summit.

At Jared’s?

Jesus, I knew it was a mistake to call.

No, stop, stop. KK?

Yeah.

Are you safe? I mean away from
them
?

She pauses the same pause. Finally, she says, I can hear them in the hall.

But the door’s locked? They haven’t broken through or anything?

Yet.

What?

Haven’t broken through
yet
.

I’m standing and my world is making more sense because
I have a purpose and that’s all I’ve ever really wanted. I’ll save her, that much is certain. I’ll be the motherfucker who rides in on a white Civic and my sword will be Buster the shotgun and that shit will be a fairy tale, me the hero.

I ask about Jared having any weapons. A gun or something?

KK stammers and I want to tell her to spit it out. I picture the apartment door being ripped apart, the little girl with umbrella socks giggling at the easy prey.

What?

He’s not … I think he’s …

What?

He won’t wake up.

She’s crying and I want those tears to be for me and I think that maybe he’s dying and this isn’t the worst thing ever. I can hear mucus in her throat. She’s not talking, just crying. I want to tell her it will be okay. I want to tell her not to worry. But then I think about Jared maybe turning. Maybe his not breathing is the precursor, just like that trucker Travis said about people going to bed and not waking up unless they were Chucks. I ask KK if he’s breathing. She says yes. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing and I ask if he’d been bitten and she tells me no, they’d been locked in his apartment shooting shi—

She stops.

It takes a second for me to realize: she’d been using. I ask her what the fuck and she tells me she can’t do this right now, that she’s scared, that she didn’t know who else to call. I want
to yell at her because she’s such a fucking hypocrite, breaking up with me because I couldn’t stop, and there she is blasting her veins full of meth with that cocksucker Jared.

I’m sorry, she says.

If Jared starts to giggle, cut his throat, I say.

She’s crying. I tell her to barricade the door. To remain silent. That I’ll be there in a few hours.

I tell her I love her.

She says, Please.

I don’t want to hang up. She does. My phone goes black. Typewriter asks if she’s okay. I tell him yes. I tell him no. I say, We need to get the fuck out of here. She needs me.

And this is different from a minute ago
how
?

I don’t respond. I look at one of our two exits. There are at least six hands swiping through the metal shelf in front of the window. I jog over to the door and I hear more of the same. I’m telling myself to think. This is your one fucking shot, Chase, think, goddamn it, use your fucking brain. I do jumping jacks to rid the cough syrup fog. I’m telling myself that I’m a problem solver. I figure shit out. I make it happen. I’m thinking about being unemployed over the last two years. How I was able to keep a roof over my head. Able to smoke hundreds and hundreds of dollars’ worth of dope a week. These are the marks of a
problem solver
. And maybe all of us drug addicts are? Give a motherfucker a carrot at the end of a string and we’ll do whatever it takes to nibble its end. I’m seeing the love of my life sitting with her back to the wall and a butcher knife in hand waiting either for the door to break down or for Jared to reanimate. I know she needs me. I know
this is my shot. I walk back to where Type sits. He’s smoking a cigarette. The smoke travels straight up. I follow the smoke and it’s being pulled into a metal AC duct and I scream because it was right there the whole time.

Fucking got it.

Huh?

The vent, man, the fucking vent.

Typewriter looks at the ceiling. It takes him a second to understand. Then smiling, he struggles to his feet. Fucking shit, he says.

Fucking shit is right. Help me push this shelf over.

We move the rack so it’s directly under the vent. I tell him I’ll go first, that it’ll be easier for me to maneuver and clear the way. I gather Buster and climb up the shelves. I push the vent upward and slide it out of the way. I look down at Typewriter. He’s holding the duffle bag full of Sudafed. I guess it’s stupid to go to all this trouble and walk away empty-handed. I take the bag, shoving it ahead of me into the rectangular air duct. I slither in. It’s tight as hell and there’s barely room to crawl, both width- and heightwise.

I yell back for him to come up.

I hear him climbing. He curses when he pokes his head in.

There’s no way I can fit, he says.

No other option.

Bro …

I can’t see him but I hear the whole thing—labored breathing, gasps,
fucks
, thin metal meant to transport air being dented and pounded. He grabs on to my ankle. He yanks like hell. I start to slide back so I jam my elbows and knees
against the confining walls. The duct sags and makes a groaning sound. I know it won’t hold us for long so I start crawling. Typewriter keeps telling me he’s stuck and I tell him to shut the fuck up and hurry.

After about fifty feet, I come across another vent. I can see through the cracks. There are hordes of them. Everywhere, naked, decaying flesh, and giggling.

Don’t look down there, I say.

I make my way across the vent and I can feel the fragile metal give under my hundred and fifty pounds. I try not to think about what will happen when Typewriter crosses. He’s like, Jesus, there’s got to be hundreds, and I tell him not to look, that we’re getting close. Typewriter can’t stop saying, Holy shit. I’m thinking about rescuing KK, about blasting the Chucks outside her door, about blood dripping from my brow, maybe my shirt’s off, and she comes running, throwing herself at my feet and I pull her up by the chin, tell her she’s the best thing to ever happen to me, that all is forgiven.

I’m at another vent and I can see fewer Chucks down below so we must be getting close to the exit. I haven’t really thought this through. Like what if the vent doesn’t go all the way outside and I have to drop down into the store? No way out and shit? My forearms sting. They’re getting wet. I dab the wetness with my finger then bring it to my mouth. Blood. I can’t imagine what Typewriter’s body will look like after he squeezes through this shit. Just behind me, he keeps calling out that he’s stuck and I keep saying shut the fuck up. I can see light at the end of the tunnel—literally. The light’s coming in from a dead end. I reach it. It’s a metal vent leading outside.
I feel around and it’s pretty sturdy. I pound it with my fist. It doesn’t move. Type is right behind me now. He says to use my gun and I tell him the sound would be deafening, that it would attract all the walking dead outside. And it’s me searching for a screw or nut and there isn’t anything, just solid metal.

Sometimes life is a cruel joke.

And sometimes, life is a real motherfucker, because now I feel something start to give, like the earth is dropping out from under me and I realize it’s the duct we’re in ripping from the ceiling. I hear Typewriter screaming, not like before, but like he’s about to die. I crane my neck just in time to see him sliding down the vent, which is gaping open behind him.

Fuck!

Only his upper torso and head and arms remain inside the vent. The rest of him must be dangling from the ceiling and I think about the walking dead standing under him trying to tear into his legs and I’m about to lose my only friend. I grab Buster and I fire into the metal vent leading outside. My eardrums explode and it’s nothing but a high-pitched wail. I fire again and again. The vent falls off. I yell for Typewriter to grab my leg. He does. I feel his nails digging into my calves. I grab the square where the vent was and pull with everything I’ve got and I flex and maybe I’m shitting my pants and blowing out my asshole and maybe I’m an Olympic squatter and maybe I’m making up ground and pulling us to safety.

Keep going, keep going, Typewriter yells.

I think about KK. Back to us first meeting each other and back to us in the closet in the psych ward, knowing right then and there that we’d be together and I’m pulling, I’m close, my
head’s out of the vent, I see trees and sky and the sun, like the world’s still normal, and Type keeps yelling
go, go, go
.

Suddenly I fly through the hole and onto the pavement. The duffle bag lands on my head. I’m disoriented. I grab my gun. The Chucks haven’t figured out where we are yet but I know it’s a matter of seconds. I stare at the vent opening. I’ve never been so happy to see Typewriter’s fat face. He pulls himself through. I grab his arm and we run toward the car. When I look back I see them coming now, their mouths open, giggling.

We’re pulled over a few minutes from downtown St. Paul. There’s still nobody around, no sign of struggles, no abandoned cars or broken windshields or anything that would indicate survivors. We see a few reanimated. They walk around looking bored as hell. We’re splitting one of two loaded rigs from the Albino. It’s not to get high, just to get straight, kill off the remains of the opiates. We need to be in tip-top shape for this rescue shit. Type gives himself half a plunge and I think about possible diseases. A motherfucker like that at least has to have some letter of hepatitis but I tell myself it’s for a greater cause.

I find my vein on the first try.

Fuck, that’s good.

We start the car back up. KK texted me the address and told me Jared was still hanging on but has a terrible fever. I
call her and she picks up before one full ring. She asks if we’re here. I tell her a block away. She’s crying. I tell her not to. She says, He’s not going to make it. I want to tell her that’s the point. I tell her that we’re almost there, that we can take care of whatever is waiting for us in the hallway, and then she says it again—
he’s
not going to make it—and I realize her tears are for Jared.

Just be ready, I say.

She tells me to be careful.

Typewriter parks. His face is scratched from the vent. Blood collars his shirt. I don’t even notice his one pick spot. It blends in.

Keep this shit quick, I say. In and out. Shoot anything that moves, long as it’s in our way.

He nods, staring at his shotgun.

I wonder if he’s had too much. Like just today, he’s faced certain death twice, and here I am asking him to do it again, for KK, for myself, and I tell him he doesn’t have to come.

Bro, saved my life. He pumps the shotgun.

We get out. I lead the way. I run, holding on to Buster. I’m remembering her directions as I near the squat brownstone—two stories up, turn left, first door on the right—and I stop at the door and give it a jiggle. It’s locked. I blast the handle with my shotgun and kick the splintered wood. The door creaks open. Typewriter is at my side with his gun raised. He kind of looks like a badass, all blood and guns. We take the red-carpeted stairs three at a time. I’m straining my eyes for movement, my ears for giggles. KK had told me there were at least three of them outside her door. She’d been able to
differentiate them by laugh pitch. I run up those stairs and I’m feeling good, like life is a videogame, and there are so many chemicals coursing through my food- and sleep-starved body that the paisley carpeting is slithering, the streaks of gold growing vines, and the walls pulsating to each breath.

Up another flight.

Then I hear one. Judging by the cackle, it’s a woman pushing middle age. I see her before she sees me. She’s wearing a long black T-shirt over bare legs. There’s blood all over her thighs and I think maybe she died giving birth or forgetting a tampon. I take the stairs like I’m a god skipping over planets, and she turns just in time to see Buster feet from her face and then it’s that familiar explosion—both sound and sight—and I don’t even stop, just keep running, spitting out what might be a bit of her earlobe.

This is everything I’ve ever wanted.

Maybe not the exact circumstances, but the situation—me saving KK, me proving that my inability to quit smoking shit a year before doesn’t mean I’m useless. The vines on the carpet try to ensnare my feet. Like everything always has—drugs and jobs and friends and family, all holding me back, and I see that now, me running to save the only thing I still care about. I’m Chase Daniels the motherfucking hero, and I’m on the third floor and there’s a group of them trying to break into
my
girl’s place, trying to claim
my
girl as one of their own.

Pump, shot, pump, shot.

Typewriter is doing the same. We’re both screaming. I wonder if he’s having the same trip—a two-person shooter arcade game versus the entire world.

They’re stumbling and I’m yelling, Who’s giggling now?

I see my first fully exposed ribcage. The boy can’t be but ten. He’s just white ribs and Scooby-Doo underwear and a twitching left foot.

Typewriter and I stand over four bodies.

I am Tarzan.

The door opens before I can knock and there she is, KK, my Jane, KK, the most perfectly imperfect woman I’ve ever seen. She’s standing there with a chopping knife. She’s wearing a white cami, tighter than hell, and her breasts make the smallest of bumps. She runs toward me. Or maybe I run toward her. We’re hugging, crying, telling each other, I’m so glad you’re alive. Her perfume has changed to something murkier but when I press my face to her neck, it’s still KK—her breath, her skin, her sweat, all of it sweetly grounded in an earthy base—and I don’t know if I’ve ever been this happy.