The Dishonored Dead (2 page)

He thought about everything he had been able to provide for his family, how they had never been forced to go without, and how his simple mistake this morning could change it all.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to them, closing his eyes and touching his forehead to the pictures. “I’m so sorry.”

Captain Norman Rydell’s
office door was open when Conrad made it to the top floor. He knew it was an invitation but still he waited just outside the threshold and knocked on the frame. Norman didn’t even look away from his computer monitor when he motioned him inside.

“Shut the door, too,” he said.
 

Conrad sat in one of the two chairs facing the captain’s desk. Aside from the humming computer on the desk and the ticking clock on the wall, the room was silent.

After a moment Norman turned away from the computer. He looked at Conrad and tapped the stack of papers in front of him. “Do you know what this is? It’s your file. Every single thing about you since your time at Artemis until this very moment is in here. Every kill, every commendation,
everything
, I’ve printed it all out and here it is. And unfortunately today I have to add something to it. So I’m going to ask you just once. What happened this morning?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“You don’t.”

Conrad shook his head.

“Would you like to know what Philip told me?”

Conrad waited.

“He said you froze. That you approached the zombie and raised your sword but did nothing else.”

Conrad shifted his eyes away. He thought about the day he’d graduated. About how up until that point nobody knew who his father truly was—not even Denise—and how on that day his father had embraced him for the very first time in front of the world and told him to make sure the sword always tasted blood and now today for the very first time it had not.

“Well?” Norman said.

“I …”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“That’s not an acceptable answer.”

The computer on the desk continued to hum, the clock on the wall continued to tick.

Conrad said, “Sir, if you would like my resignation, I would be more than willing to—”

“Stop. Just stop right there.” Norman leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “Yes, what took place this morning shouldn’t have happened, but it’s not the end of the world. You’re my first lieutenant and I have never questioned anything you’ve ever done. But what happened this morning, I want to know
why
.”

Norman was fifty-two, twenty years older than Conrad. He had short gray hair and a thin gray mustache. He came from a line of honorable Hunters—his father a Hunter, his father’s father a Hunter—and the fact that the line would end with him had always been a sore point. Norman and his wife (Beth, who’d expired three years ago) had never been able to conceive after their first child, a boy who’d expired when he was two, and though nobody had ever come out and said it, the truth was always there: Norman had let his family down.
 

“It’s Kyle,” Conrad said.

“What about Kyle?” An expression of worry creased the captain’s decayed face. “Is he okay? He hasn’t …”

But Norman didn’t continue. He didn’t have to. The unspoken question was whether Kyle had become infected with some kind of parasite. It seemed children were most likely to become infected, and it was almost impossible to extract a parasite once it had taken hold. That was why children were given more shots and vitamins than adults, who took half the amount. That was why parents were encouraged to give them the proper lotions for their decayed skin, to keep flies from laying maggots, to keep any other parasites at bay. Because when a child became infected its body began to decay at a very rapid rate, first the hair falling out, then the skin, until that child expired completely, leaving a very fat and well-fed parasite.

Norman and his wife had witnessed this firsthand with their own child, watching their son withering away and not being able to do anything about it.

“No,” Conrad said, “nothing like that. It’s just that, well, his animation day is coming up. In two weeks.”

“It’s his tenth, isn’t it.”

Conrad nodded.

“Yes, I can see why that would make you worry. But it should be okay. Kyle’s a good boy. Nothing’s going to happen to him.”

“I hope so, sir. But when I went to kill that zombie this morning, I looked at the boy and for some reason it made me think of Kyle.”

“Speaking of the boy”—Norman glanced at his computer monitor—“it appears the zombie managed to infect him with a parasite. It doesn’t look like he’ll make it through the day.”

Conrad closed his eyes, placed a hand to his head.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. You did everything you could.”

Conrad knew the captain was right. An anonymous tip had come in, giving them the location, and they had made it to the suburbs in record time, managed to track the zombie’s trail into the woods, and as far as Conrad had seen the zombie hadn’t once touched the boy. Still …

“Has the boy been questioned?”

“You mean regarding the hole?”

“Yes.”

“He said he and his friends had buried something there a year ago, some money, and he wanted to dig it back up. Then he said the zombie came out of nowhere and tried to attack him.”

“Are you sure? Because it sounded like the zombie had been talking to him for a while.”

Norman squinted at the computer monitor again. “Well, yes, the boy did say the zombie said some things, but he couldn’t remember much of it. You have to keep in mind, the parasite in his body is already eating away at him, and he … he wasn’t very lucid when he was interviewed. Awful, awful thing for his parents.”

“What about the adult zombie?”

“What about it?”

“There hasn’t been an adult zombie attack for months.”

“We’re looking into that too.”

There was a silence.

Conrad said, “Are you sure you don’t want my resignation? The other men, they …”

“Yes?”

“I don’t think they can trust me after this.”

Norman didn’t answer right away. He sat there a moment, watching Conrad closely. Finally he said, “You’ve always been fighting a losing battle. It’s because of your father, who he was, what he was. Henry the Hunter, the world’s greatest Hunter, who will forever exist in movies and TV and video games.”

Norman grinned at the absurdity of it all—he knew Conrad saw it as an embarrassment, his father selling out so that nobody would forget him when he expired—and then quite abruptly the grin faded.

“Everyone’s expected so much from you, and believe me, you’ve delivered. Over nine hundred kills since you became a Hunter, and that’s not counting all those you killed when you were training. Not quite up to the five thousand on your father’s belt, but I’d say you’re the best Hunter in the world right now.”

“If you don’t want my resignation, sir, then why did you call me here?”
 

Norman closed Conrad’s file and set it aside. He picked up another, held it up for Conrad to see. “Can you read what’s written on this?”

The words TOP SECRET were printed on the white folder.

“Not very conspicuous, I know. But this is the real reason I wanted to speak with you. I think … well, I think it’s time for you to move on.”

Conrad shifted in his chair. “Move on?”

“To whiter pastures. It’s a program that’s been around for decades. Only those men who are Hunters can do what this job entails, and it’s not just any Hunter. They have to have honor, integrity, intelligence. Your name actually came up a few years ago for this program, but there was no way we were going to give you up. Now”—Norman shook his head sadly—“now it looks like I have no choice.”

Norman placed the file on the desk, tapped the two words with a decayed fingernail.

“But this right here? This isn’t a joke. Even before I show this to you, I must have your word you will never tell anybody about it. You can never tell Denise, you can never tell Kyle, you can never tell anyone. I’ve been involved in it for nearly twenty years and never once told my wife, even when she was on her expiration bed. Do you understand?”

Conrad, staring at those two words on the file, nodded.

“I need to hear you say it. I need you to say you understand.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Because if you think being a Hunter is the most important job there is, I’m sorry to say you’re wrong.” He tapped the file again. “It’s this. This is what truly keeps the world safe. So if you’re prepared to take on that responsibility, take the file. But keep in mind that if you do, there is no going back. If you have any hesitation at all, it would probably be best that you do resign right now, leave this building, and never look back. Understand?”

Conrad did. His fears of losing his job, of not being able to provide for his family, had quickly left his mind. Still, as he kept his gaze level with Norman, as he leaned forward to take the file, his thoughts returned to his son. Kyle would turn ten in less than two weeks, and it was at that age when children were the most susceptible to turning.

And despite Norman telling him he had nothing to worry about, that Kyle was a good boy, the simple truth was this: if his son turned, Conrad would have no choice.

He’d have to kill him.

Chapter 2

By the time
he left Hunter Headquarters it was nine o’clock in the morning. His usual routine when he headed home was to first stop and pick up a bouquet of flowers, then weave his way through the city streets of Olympus, drive over the bridge, merge onto the Shakespeare Expressway. But before he left the city he noticed he was low on fuel and decided to stop at the first station he came to.
 

He pulled up to one of the pumps and got out. He had just swiped his credit card when he heard someone yelling.
 

“Hey, buddy, what the fuck?”

A large man was heading his way. Behind him was a black pickup truck, a child about Kyle’s age in the passenger seat. The child’s lifeless eyes were wide as she watched.

Conrad looked around the pumps. A convertible had pulled up to the pump directly opposite his, the driver having just gotten out. He was wearing a gray baseball cap and had his head down, and Conrad figured the large man was talking to him.

But then the large man came right up to Conrad and said, “Well? What you got to say for yourself?”

The driver in the baseball cap walked past them, his head still down, headed toward the store.

Conrad said, “Excuse me?”

“I was here first,” the man said. A large finger suddenly appeared an inch from Conrad’s face. “You cut in front of me.”

“I did?”

The man nodded, jabbed the finger a half-inch closer. “You’re fucking right you did. Now what are you going to do about it?”

Conrad knew exactly what he could do about it. He could pull out his Hunter’s badge and hold
that
in front of the man’s face. It would be a shock to the man of course—the man seeing him as no threat, a guy dressed in street clothes, driving a sedan with a bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat. The man no doubt figuring Conrad was just another citizen out for a Saturday afternoon drive and not someone who hunted down and killed zombies.

“Hey, asshole,” the man said. He wore mechanic’s clothes, some dried oil on the pants. “You deaf or something? You got five seconds to move your sorry ass or I’m gonna move it for you.”

So yeah, he could pull out his badge, show it to the man, watch the man quickly back down, apologize, probably offer to pay for his gas. He could then make the man do anything he wanted—kneel down and lick his shoes, make a fool of himself in front of everyone watching them now—but truthfully that had never been Conrad’s style.

“Five.”

He had no problem letting this man go first. He had an idea he could take him even without his Hunter’s badge—he was about this man’s size, after all—but the sight of the girl watching them made him pause.

“Four.”

Still, he wanted to give it a couple extra seconds, so he glanced around the pumps again, at the people watching, at the convertible parked on the other side of the pump. It made him think of the driver he’d at first mistaken as this man’s sudden rival, and he glanced toward the store where he’d last seen the man headed.

And watched just then as the very same driver jumped into a van and slammed the door shut.

“Three.”

Conrad glanced at the convertible, glanced back at the van now screeching away.

“Two,” the man said, curling both of his hands into fists.

Conrad said, “Get the fuck out of here.”

The man cocked his head and frowned, clearly surprised Conrad had said anything to him at all. But Conrad barely noticed this as he turned away, opened his door, climbed in and pulled his pistol out from the glove box. He was required to carry it but had never used it except at the shooting range, and now he got back out of the car—the large man holding up his hands, saying, “Don’t shoot, man, it was just a joke”—he turned back toward the fuel station exit, where right this moment the van was headed.

He stepped around the car, got into a shooting position, aimed … but the van was moving too fast, pulling onto the highway.

He turned back to the man, said, “Get your daughter out of here.” He stepped back, shouted, “Everyone, get out of here, now!”

Then he ran toward the highway, the gun in hand, and got only forty yards before the convertible exploded.

The blast was small but enough to knock him to the ground. He tried his best to hold on to the pistol but it skittered away. His hands scraped the macadam and tore off flesh. He rolled over and looked back at the pumps, saw the billowing cloud of smoke, his own car on fire and tilted on its side, a woman crawling away from the flames and screaming and screaming, though he couldn’t hear her—he couldn’t hear anything except a high-pitched whine—and didn’t know why. By then he was getting back up onto his feet, turning around and staggering forward, picking up the pistol, continuing on.