The Sunshine Dame of Doom (3 page)

Hector and Vince were walking down dark alleys, passing by run-down buildings, most of them abandoned. But such situation was not new in that neighborhood, which never knew prosperity, not even when the world was breathing the comfortable breezes of normality.

Technology, new inventions, opportunities and ultimately money seem to never reach certain places, fated to stay the same forever, never mind what happens. In a near apocalypse situation, poor areas don’t change much, only prosper areas are devastated to become poor areas, like the ones they usually choose to ignore. And we are all the same again. Finally, we are one, as we always were. 

“Do you think we can trust him?” Vince asked.

“Who?”

“That Phil guy.”

“Never mind. We just share a workplace and some tools with him, nothing more.”

“That’s right, we don’t him that well. You shouldn’t talk the way you talked in front of him.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean? I talk the way I talk. I did this my whole life.”

“Gee, you can be really hardheaded sometimes!”

“That’s how I made my fortune. That’s how we made our fortune. You’re hardheaded too, bro.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what the heck do you mean?” Hector said impatiently.

“Things are totally different now, can’t you see?! Now the whole world is the same crap! This thing of
we are in America, everybody can make a buck if they put their minds on it
is over! We have to accept the new situation and adapt to it.”

“Oh, you’re wrong. You’re so wrong. The world is different, but it’s still the same world, with the same people in it. Things change. It’s part of the game.”

“Not like this!”

“It doesn’t matter!”

“Yes, it matters! Did you take a good look outside the city? We came from there for crying out loud! We almost died to get here!”

“Big deal! It’s not very different from the old routine in Hell’s Kitchen. But we made it, didn’t we? Yes, I know that a goddamn virus spread worldwide, turning people into rotting freaks who eat everything in their path and our leaders don’t seem to care, but then we had World War One, Two, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the freaking plague on the Middle Age, but the world kept on going!”

“Those events you mentioned are nothing compared to this one, but you just can’t accept it.”

“Well, I’m not the accepting kind of guy. There’s always room for industrious folks willing to rebuild and that’s us. And very soon, we’ll be right on top one more time, bro!”

Hector opened his big white smile again, but Vince was uncomfortably looking at all sides, as if waiting for thugs to come any minute.

“Keep your voice down, man!” Vince advised.

Hector’s trademarked large smile was quickly replaced by his also trademarked scary frown.

“I talk as loud as I want!” He retorted. “You don’t tell me how to talk! This is still a free country! I won’t hide how I feel!”

“You’re going to get us both killed! You saw what happens to those considered troublemakers!”

“They disappeared, that’s all. Maybe they just went to the beach.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

Hector soothed his expression and faced his brother.

“Jesus.” He said. “When did you turn chicken, man?”

“It’s not that.”

“It is. Where’s my little brother I could always count on? Remember the old neighborhood? All other kids walking the streets, panhandling money they later used to buy drugs, embarrassing their parents, sometimes even following orders from their parents?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Then, you also remember that mamma dragged our asses to school every morning so we could get some education, while she and sister worked hard to make an honest buck. Daddy let us down bad, but mamma never gave up. And we all helped her, you, me and sister. We never had plenty, but we always had enough. And you were always there for me, man.”

“And I’ll be there for you till the day I die. But this is not the old neighborhood. Mamma and sister got sick, died, resurrected and tried to eat us, and we had to stick knives in their heads. I bet this kind of shit never happened in World War One, Two, Hiroshima, Middle Ages, whatever. Face it, bro. We’re fucked, as in really fucked.”

“Trust me. I’ll get us both out of this one, like I got us out of Hell’s Kitchen.”

They arrived at the construction site.

“Another day, another dollar” Vince said.

They went into the small cabinet to pick up jackets and hats.

“Hi Phil.”

“Hi guys.”

Hector and Vince walked to their respective sidewalk spots and jackhammers, to take up where they left off. But before they could put on their thick gloves, protective ear muffs and glasses, two men in impeccable black suits came to them.

“Excuse me,” The tall one spoke “I’m agent Muldoon and this is agent Dressler, we are from the Center of Refugees. Are you Hector and Vincent Dryland?”

“Last time we checked.” Vince replied.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” Hector queried.

“Don’t bother powering up the jackhammers, boys.” Dressler, the short guy, answered. “You’ve just been relocated.”

“What?” Vince asked.

“What do you mean relocated?” Hector asked.

“It means you’re going from this place to another place.” Muldoon responded with irritating arrogance.

“Yes, I realize that, but are you sure this is right? I mean, we’ve been given this job by your people when we first came in here with the other refugees.”

“That’s correct, and now we’re giving you new jobs.” Dressler said also a little too pompous.

“And when are we supposed to start these new jobs?” Vince asked.

“Right now.”

“Right now?! You mean today?!”

“Yes, right now usually means today.”

“Now, you listen to me!” Hector raised his already loud voice. “Can we at least check with Mister Hanson? He’s the foreman.”

“That’s right.” Vince also spoke. “We got a lot of work to do here. We can’t simply leave our posts without telling anybody!”

“I know who Mister Hanson is and I’m telling you everything is in order.” Dressler informed. “You’re coming with us.”

“I’m sorry, but this seems highly irregular to me.” Hector said firmly. “For starters, how can we know you’re really from the Center of Refugees?”

“I don’t think I made myself clear, boys.” Muldoon retorted. “This is not a request.”

Muldoon and Dressler drew stun guns from their jackets pockets and hit the brothers in the waist, not giving them time to make a single move. Electricity seized their nervous systems and they fell cold on the hard ground, paralyzed.

As if coming from nowhere, two other men in black suits came and helped Muldoon and Dressler carrying the petrified brothers to a van parked across the street. Burning rubber, the vehicle disappeared down the avenue in a matter of seconds.

After watching the whole scene, Phil dropped his welder and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

“There goes two more.”  

Lily and Clark kept on going. The sunset horizon before them would be a very romantic and comforting view if it wasn’t for the fact their world was slowly becoming a catwalk for living cadavers.

“We’ll have to stop for some diesel soon.” She informed.

“No problem. I can pick up some snacks while you fill it up.”

“Just be careful not to become a snack.”

He smiled.

“I didn’t catch your name.” Clark pointed out.

“You’re right, sorry about that. My name is Lily Master.”

“Lily?!”

“Yes, as in
Lily Allen
.”

“Or in
Apocalily
! Hot dang, I knew I had seen you before! You’re the kindergarten hero, the one who saved all the children! That was really something!”

“Oh, I can see you’re into newspapers too.”

“What’s left of them anyway. And you were not only on the papers, but mainly on the web. When you left the kindergarten carrying that paraplegic girl on your shoulder, a teenager also filmed you with his cell phone and he uploaded it to YouTube. The video got more than seven million hits in five minutes.”

“Then, it’s a good thing all communication means are going down because of the plague. They could at least pay me one dollar for each page-view of this YouTube video.”

“Well, I don’t think money will do us much good in the not so distant future.”

He faced her and said:

“Is it me or you’re not proud of what you did?”

“I’m not.”

“Why? That was great, the bravest feat I’ve ever seen! Ten minutes and hundreds of children were spared from a horrible death! I’m kind of honored to ride with you.”

“Then don’t be so honored.”

“For God sake, why not?”

“Because it’s not fair with the real heroes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“For starters, cops died trying to save those children, but their faces didn't show on the news. Nobody gave them nicknames! Nobody gave them any name.

“Yes, but the fact you saved people in the end made their effort count. They didn’t die in vain.”

“You’re awfully misinformed,
boykie
.”

“I don’t think so. It was all there, in the papers and the web.”

“First, it wasn’t a kindergarten, it was an elementary school! Second, I spent a good fifteen minutes trapped in that hell, not ten!”

“Well, fifteen minutes is how long fame lasts, according to some.”

“And my fame should’ve stopped right there, according to me.”

“If I had done such thing, I’d be walking on cloud nine right now!”

“Fine, do you want to know why I did it, how things happened? I tell you. I was riding my rig, depressed and bitter. I had just lost my dad to this plague and life had lost all meaning. Then I saw this school coming. I noticed all the fuss of course, the police cordon, the press, folks screaming, I knew there were people in danger. Do you want to know what I thought of all that?”

“Yes!”

“Too bad, I thought. That’s right, I was planning to just pass by and overlook the whole mess because I got enough problems. How brave is that? But my truck broke down. Yes, that’s why I stopped, my freaking car stalled on me! The engine overheated or something. One more headache for me! I went into the school because I got nothing else to live for, secretly hoping I died in there, putting an end to my miserable existence. Some hero, huh?”

“Well, the outcome was the same. And to me, you’re still a hero.”

“I’m a fraud with a bad radiator.”

“So sorry Lily, but I don’t believe you went into that school just because you got nothing better to do with your life. I have this feeling you did all that because you are a great person.”

“I don’t care what you believe.”

An uncomfortable silence followed. Clark broke it:

“Who fixed your truck in the end?”

“The father of the paraplegic girl happened to be a mechanic and he got some spare cables.”

“Good. It’s the least he could do.”

Lily shook her head.

“Then I tried to hit the road, but the bloody press was all over my rig, the flashes of their cameras blinding me. But I didn’t talk to them, wasn’t in the mood. Later, one damned reporter found out my name and I guess his editor came up with this silly Apocalily thing, a combination of the word
apocalypse
with my name
Lily
, such a stupid playing with words.”

“Maybe, but I bet this event changed your life.”

“In a way, it did.”

“Have you been on the road since then?”

“Even before that.”

“Why are you wearing those fingerless gloves?”

“Because I don’t like to get my hands dirty. See, I’m no hero after all.”

“Then why they are fingerless?”

“Because I especially like to keep my palms clean.”

“You don’t talk much about you and your past, do you?”

“Why should I?”

“Well, the more you hold information about yourself, the more you look like a badass road warrior.”

“Fine! What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about your father. You and your old man were pretty close, right?”

“We had to be. We only had each other. My mother died when I was four, giving birth to my baby sister, but she also didn’t make it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It was just the two of us. My father became my world and I became his world. He taught me martial arts, some defense techniques, a lot of those kung-fu, taekwondo, kickboxing thing… At first I thought that was silly, but now it’s paying off.”

“And what did your father do for a living, I mean, besides being the Australian version of Bruce Lee?”

She smiled.

“He worked in a large telecom industry. Actually, it was the Australian branch of a big American company. He was a competent bloke, that’s why he was given this opportunity to work here. Actually, I was even more excited than him. As you can imagine, I went where he went.”

“What about the plague?”

“It was starting in Australia. We had news of a new fatal disease spreading countrywide like mad, rumors about folks rising from the dead and eating the living. Of course we didn’t take such talks seriously, but we were glad to leave the country on those conditions.”

“And then you got to another country in even worse conditions.”

“Something like that, yes. We heard some folks coughing and sneezing on the plane, but nobody died during the trip. But things were different once at the airport. Chaos was already all over the place, dead people running around trying to dine the living. We heard the locals liked barbecue, but that was a little too much!”

Clark smiled.

“I know what you mean.” He said. “Anyway, something tells me you made it out of there alive.”

“Daddy could be pretty resourceful when he had to. He was also a kind, loving man, but regretfully some people mistaken this for lack of nerves. Some of his work colleagues who also came to America made fun of him because of that. But my father always knew how to deal with extreme situations, like the one we’re facing now. He even modified this truck to make it what it is now.”

“Yes, I’ve been meaning to ask you exactly this, I don’t suppose you brought this car all the way from Australia, right?”

“No, we did not. It’s a good old American model we acquired in here.”

“Then how come the steering wheel is on the right side?”

“My father changed it too.”

“Your father changed it?!”

“He could never get used to this driving on the left thing. Honestly, neither could I.”

“But how he did it?!”

“He never told me all the particulars on how he did it, but you got to admit, we’re sitting on the results.”

“That’s for sure.”

He took a deep breath.

“How did your father die, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Daddy and his colleagues were getting some grub in a snack bar, trying to figure out what was going on, how come dead people were simply rising to eat the living. I was with them. Eventually, the place was overrun by zombies, and they cornered some kids. My father wanted to save them and he asked his workmates to help him. But the same ones who mocked him for his sobriety were too spineless to do it. They just hid behind a table, crying like babies and screaming for help. My father had to save those kids on his own. I begged him not to go, it was too dangerous, but nothing could stop him. He was just that kind of man.”

“And the zombies killed him.”

“Not quite. Because he was the Australian version of Bruce Lee, he managed to keep the beasts at bay for awhile, giving the children time to run back to their parents. But there was this one little girl who was too scared to move. My father got distracted comforting her and a zombie bit him.”

“Oh no!”

“He eventually took the child to safety, but we both knew it was all over for him. We had already learnt that whoever got bit by the dead also turned into one of them, and we had to destroy their heads. And my father didn’t want me to see him as those things and I was the only one who could stop that. He asked me to bust his head somehow.”

“It must’ve been terrible.”

“One of the customers in the snack bar was a hockey player and he fled leaving his bag behind, with a new kind of modular stick inside. Now you can guess what happened next.”

“So, your father was the first one you killed like this.”

“My world finished that day.”

“You had to do it. There was no other way.”

“I wasn’t so sure, I died with him.”

“But you were born again after what you did in the elementary school.”

Lily didn’t answer.

“Yes you were.” Clark insisted.

“I guess daddy would’ve liked to see me doing something like that.”

“Of course he would!”

“So, how did I do in the department of talking about me and my past?”

“Extremely well!”

“Oh thank you.”

“But you still look like a badass road warrior.”