Zombie D.O.A. (56 page)

“What the hell happened back there?” I asked Joe Thursday.  Joe gave me a look that suggested I should save any questions for later and then spun me a line about corporate assets and strategic deployment and mission critical factoring.

The convoy was now heading back to Beverly Hills, with Roland continuing to take pot shots at any Z’s we encountered.  We arrived at the hotel, cleared the checkpoints and had just come to a halt in front of the main entrance when a man in a suit came running towards the lead Humvee. He said something to Roland who vaulted from the vehicle and ran into the hotel foyer.

“This is not good,” Joe said as we left the Humvee, “not good at all.”

In front of the hotel, there was a flurry of activity with black clad soldiers disembarking from military transports and being formed up on the tarmac.

We reached the foyer and were frisked and disarmed. In contrast to the activity going on outside, the interior of the hotel had the ambiance of a mausoleum.

“What’s going on?” Joe asked the same man who had spoken to Roland earlier.

“It’s Senator Pendragon,” the man said. “He’s…”

“My father is dead.” Roland said striding across the room with his bodyguards in close attendance.

“How?”

“Does it matter?” Roland said, “We all know he wasn’t well.”

“Yeah, and we all know he wasn’t exactly at death’s door either.” Joe said.

“Are you implying something, Thursday?”

“Just wondering who benefits most from this unexpected little turn of events.”

“Oh, I think we all know who that is,” Roland said grinning.

“We’ll need to call a meeting of heads…”

“We don’t need to do shit. Or at least you don’t. I’m relieving you of your position, effective immediately.”

Pendragon nodded and I felt myself being grabbed, my arms forced back and cuffs being clipped into place. “You and your little monkey boy are checking out of the Beverley Hills Hotel,” Roland said. “But don’t fret, I’ve reserved a suite for you at the Pendleton Hilton.”  

At the rear of the foyer the lift doors opened with a ‘Ping!’ and Doctor Gish walked purposefully towards us,” “You bastard!” she shouted at Roland, “I told you Justin wasn’t ready! Two months, I told you, two months before he’s ready to go out again. Two months, at least!”

“Someone shut this bitch up,” Roland said without looking at her.

“I won’t stand for it,” the doctor said. “These children…”

“In case you haven’t heard sweet Lilith, daddy’s gone bye-bye. I’m calling the shots now.  So if I say Justin goes out every day, then he’ll go out every fucking day, capice? Who knows maybe I’ll even be able to coax a performance out of that burnout Ruby, that you’re so fond of.”

“But, but…that’ll kill them,” Doctor Gish said.

“Like I give a fuck. Your little freak show’s just about run its course anyway. Once the trigger’s ready, we won’t need your demon kids anymore.”

“You bastard,” Doctor Gish repeated.

“Oh please, if you’re going to try and get a rise out of me, at least be original.” He turned his attention to Joe then and any levity evaporated from his voice. “My father may have thought you were some kind of whizz bang hot shot, Thursday, but to me you’re just a washed up actor and a fifty dollar murderer for hire. I’m going to enjoy breaking you.”

“Don’t hold your breath, pecker wood.”

“Get them the fuck out of here.” Roland said.

By the time we left Beverley Hills it was almost dark. Joe and I had been held in separate rooms and as they dragged him out to the chopper I could see that Roland Pendragon had taken an advance on his threat. Joe’s face looked puffy and battered, and there was blood on his nose and lips.

There was a second chopper on the tarmac too, and I saw Dr Gish directing operations towards that one, with Justin being carried in strapped to a stretcher.

The helicopter lifted off into the late evening sky. Out west the embers of the day were etched in gold and crimson against the deepening blue of the heavens.  We approached the cluster of skyscrapers where we’d been earlier and I could see the black helicopter reflected in the mirrored façade of the building.

On the bench opposite me Joe Thursday started coughing, a hacking cough that soon developed into a spasm.

“Sir?” one of the guards said uncertainly, “you okay?” Joe didn’t answer but the cough became more intense, he seemed to be in the grip of a seizure. Then his head slumped forward and he hawked a mouthful of bloody bile onto the floor.

“Jesus!” the guard said, “ Sir, are you okay?” He leaned forward, putting a hand on Joe’s shoulder. As he did, Joe brought his head up, catching the guard under the chin and knocking him out cold. Even before the man had fallen, Joe was on his feet and had taken his carbine from him. The other guard raised his weapon and I threw myself into him, pushing him off balance. He got off a burst that rattled through the cabin before Joe put a bullet in his brain.  The helicopter lurched sideways and its tail seemed to clip the building sending it into a spin.

The lifeless body of the guard slammed into me, throwing me against the wall of the cabin. From the front I heard Joe shout, “Shit!” and climb the seat into the cockpit. The helicopter suddenly plummeted and I felt my stomach lurch. Then it seemed to stabilize and Joe shouted, “Hold on back there, amigo! This bird’s going down!” There was a sudden burst of machine gun fire that sounded like a stick being drawn across a corrugated iron sheet. One second I could see the chopper reflected in the mirrored glass of the building and the next the glass seemed to explode and the helicopter accelerated forward.

“Brace!” I heard Joe scream and with my hands cuffed behind me I grabbed a handful of bench as we punched through the plate glass. There was a deafening screech of twisted metal and the engine raced to a crescendo before spluttering and dying.

The chopper slid across the floor in slow-motion and I heard Joe shouting, “Get out! Get out!” as flames began to crackle from the fuselage.

I pulled at the door, still working with my hands behind me, and felt it begin to slide and then jam. “Get the fuck out of there!” I heard Joe scream, but the door simply would not budge.

“What the fuck’s the problem, Collins!”

“Fucking thing’s jammed!”

“Get out through the cockpit and fucking move it, this bird’s going to blow!”  To the fore I could now see flames casting shadows on the wall and I moved quickly towards the cockpit, clambered over the dead pilot and out.

The office space was quickly filling with smoke as I followed Joe down a corridor and into a reception area. Suddenly an explosion rocked the building and I was thrown to the floor and sent crashing into a counter. I surfaced with my ears ringing and my throat and eyes burning from the smoke and dust. Somewhere I heard Joe cursing. When the dust cleared I could see all the way back to the gaping hole where we had entered the building.

“Bet they heard that back at the Hotel California. Which means we’d better get out of here,” Joe said getting to his feet and slapping the dust from his clothes.

“Wouldn’t that explosion also have brought every Z for miles running?”

“Yeah, well you’re damned if you do and your damned if you don’t. Story of my life.”

Joe opened my cuffs with what he called his ‘skeleton key’, a ladies hair clip. Then, we worked our way down the darkened fire escape moving as fast as we dared. There probably weren’t any Zs in the office tower, but the last thing we needed was for one of us to take a tumble in the dark.

And once we got out on the street, we had another problem. The M-16 carbines Joe had taken off the guards only had about thirty rounds between them, and that wasn’t going to be enough if the Zs mobbed us. I said as much to Joe.

“We got more to worry about than the Zs,” he said, “Roland knows by now that his chopper isn’t on route to Pendleton, and he’ll have seen or heard the explosion. He’ll put two and two together, which is about the only math he knows by the way, and send out a few squads to investigate. Fortunately for us Zs are dumb ass fuckers and Corporation squadies are not far behind, so all we have to do is let our two problems cancel each other out.”

We’d made our way down to the ground floor now and pushed through from the stairwell and into a walkway with elevator doors to either side. Even from here I could see we had company. The reception area was glass walled on all four sides and pressed up against every inch of glass were the hungry faces of hundreds of Zs.

“Looks like Halloween came early this year,” Joe said. He walked towards the glass and ran his hand along its surface while the Zs snapped and clawed on the other side. “Ugly motherfuckers,” he said and then took a few steps back, dropped his pants and mooned them, wiggling his ass like the world’s least accomplished exotic dancer. “Yeah, baby, you like that,” Joe said and slapped his butt.

Frightening as the scene was outside, I just couldn’t help myself and I collapsed onto a couch laughing.

“So what do we do now,” I asked Joe once I’d regained some composure.

“Now we wait,” he said slumping into a chair and placing his hands behind his head, “Now we wait.”

“You ever wonder if this is it?” Joe asked. “If this is the new world order. If we’ll be running from Zs for the rest of our lives?”

“I’ve never really thought about it. Guess I’ve been focused so much on getting through the next day, the next hour, the next minute sometimes. I’ve been focusing so hard on getting back to Ruby, that I’ve never allowed myself to think about much beyond finding her.”

Joe was quiet for some time and then he said, “You ever consider that you might not like what you find?”

I had thought of that. Many times. “You have any kids, Joe?”

“None I’m aware of compadre, maybe one or two I’m not.”

“Then you probably won’t understand this, but no, I’ve never considered the possibility that I might love my daughter any less just because she’s different.”

“I’m not talking about love here, Chris, of course you’re always going to love Ruby. What I’m talking about is whether or not you can settle down to a life with her, raise her as a normal kid.”

“I guess I...”

“You saw what Justin did out there today.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Ruby is a hundred times more powerful than Justin, a thousand times. Ruby could probably clear L.A. County of Zs all on her own if she wanted to. Ruby is like a nuclear bomb to Justin’s hand grenade, Chris.”

“Jesus, Joe how did this happen? She’s just a kid, my kid.”

“You trust me, Chris?”

“Yeah, I do.” 

“Then I’m going to ask you to hear me on this. We’re going to do everything we can to get your little girl back. And when we do we’re going to do the best we can for her. But you’re going to have to start preparing yourself to let her go.”

At the window the Zs were becoming restless. Some of them were pounding on the glass with the palms of their hands, others were running their tongues across the surface, others squabbling among themselves.

I could now hear the heavy thrum of Humvees approaching. “Showtime,” Joe said and walked towards the rotating door in the middle of the glass wall. He pushed at the door and it moved slightly and he gave a satisfied grunt.

“You mean that thing was open all the time?”