Zombies! Episode 1 - Shawn of the Dead (6 page)

"Yes."

"I'm very sorry, Anthony. I wish there was
more that we could do."

"You should test everyone in the apartment
building. You should test everyone at the gym."

This time Naughton shook his head. "We can't
mandate the testing without a state of emergency and we don't have
near enough of a problem to warrant that."

"Did you check with other police forces
around the country?"

"For zombies?" the captain declared
incredulously. "If the mayor caught wind of it, or God forbid the
governor…"

Heron interrupted him smoothly. "We need to
do the right thing here, Lance. This plague may not be airborne but
it still has a very effective way of travelling from person to
person. And the Koplowitz family didn't get the disease from a
bite. They got it from each other and one of them got it from
somewhere else. That means it's out there and this blood test
(accentuated by the fact that Dr. Luco was just then sticking the
needle into his arm) is more than just a precaution."

Lance Naughton leaned back and thought for a
moment. There was silence as Dr. Luco finished the test and took
the vial of blood back to her microscope.

Naughton wasn't a stupid man but he'd never
had the sense to be a really good detective. Like Heron he had
people skills. Solid if not spectacular police work had earned him
the respect of his peers. Savvy had gotten him the rest. Not that
he didn't deserve it. Naughton didn't lose any sleep at night
wondering if he was truly cut out for the job. He could very
effectively lead and had won the respect of most of those
underneath him as well as the press that hounded him.

"I'll put in a call to the CDC," he said
finally. "At the very least, it will make them aware of a new
disease."

"Is there anything else?" Heron asked.

Naughton shook his head. "You've been through
enough. Why don't you take a load off while we wait for the test
results?"

This time Heron shook his head. "I'm going to
go and be with Stemmy."

At this, Luco looked up. There was an
expression on her face that was both definable and yet
indescribable at the same time. At that moment, Heron saw things
through her eyes. He saw Zoe Koplowitz and Stemmy and he saw
himself. He did not like what he saw.

"It could be a long wait, Anthony," Naughton
said to him. "Are you sure you want to put yourself through
that?"

"He shouldn't be alone."

Whether by design or instinct, the captain
didn't even give consideration to the simmering Luco when he gave
Heron his permission. There was really no other option. They were
partners, Heron and Stemmy. They had been partners for years. They
were friends.

***

HERON
was given a folding chair and
strict instructions to stay out of the room.
Of course
, he
thought.
I wouldn't want to get the zombie plague.

As he approached Stemmy's room he couldn't
help but notice that the little girl was still curled up on the
floor by the bed. She looked up at him as he passed, made that
curious sniffing motion again. Heron shivered a bit, then moved
past.

Stemmy was back in bed, seemingly asleep.
Heron spied his phone on the nightstand.

"I'm with you, buddy," he whispered. "I'm
with you."

He unfolded the chair and set it in front of
the window. Sitting down, he put his head in his hands and began
his long wait.

He didn't know how long it was before he
looked up. He must have dozed off, Stemmy's presence bringing him
slowly to wakefulness. The detective was standing up against the
window, his hospital gown hanging oddly off of his frame, his IV
stand tipped over on the floor behind him. The tube still trailed
from his arm. Stemmy's head was cocked at an odd angle and his eyes
seemed vacant.

Heron went cold.

"…
anthony
…"

The voice was so low that he wasn't sure he'd
heard it.

"Stemmy?"

The eyes seemed to come back into focus
beneath a film of sweat. His neck muscles bunched and he
straightened. When Heron looked at him he saw pain. Agony.

"Stemmy…"

"…
my family
…"

Now he could see the lips moving, ever so
slightly. Stemmy was still alive. There was still air in his
lungs.

"I'll look after them," Heron promised.

Stemmy nodded, the tiny motion an exercise of
will. "…
more
…"

"What? What more?"

Stemmy's eyes locked onto Heron as he summed
up the very last of his reserves. "I don't want to be like that.
You'll see to it."

"Like that? Like what, Stemmy?"

He cocked his head to the left. "Like
her
."

Heron looked over toward the little girl's
room but she was no longer inside. She was right next to him, her
eyes and nose focused on his living flesh. Her mouth opened and her
rotting teeth gleamed in the half light. Heron let out a cry and
toppled back and out of the chair. Somewhere an alarm was
blaring.

He came to with a start, finding himself on
the floor with the turned over chair next to him. There was no
alarm blaring in his ear but there was something, a long steady
whine. His heart was beating a mad rhythm in his chest and he had
to look at the girl's room just to be sure. If she'd been in her
regular position, he'd never have been able to see her from where
he was. But she'd moved. She was now pressed up against the glass,
looking directly at him. Her nose wasn't twitching anymore, as if
she no longer needed to smell him to know that he was food.

Getting to his feet, he looked for the source
of the whine. Stemmy still lay in his bed, his IV stand next to him
and the monitor showing his flat line on the other side. There was
the source of the whine. Johan Stemmy had passed.

Heron had moments to make his decision. He
didn't have any idea how long it would take for Stemmy to pass from
death into undeath but he knew that his monitor would alert
Naughton and Luco. With the decision making power that had made him
an effective police officer, he hit the button that broke the seals
on the door and pushed his way into the room. Stemmy looked
peaceful in death. There was still some sweat glistening in his
hair and on his brow. Heron drew his gun, feeling silly aiming at a
corpse. But he didn't hesitate. Whether subconsciously or in
reality, he had made Stemmy a promise. He would never become one of
those things.

The gunshot was loud in the closed space.
Stemmy's head jerked to the side and his body twitched once as the
bullet entered his brain, protecting him from the fate that had so
terrified him in his last moments. The echo had not left the
chamber when it was joined by an exasperated gasp from Denise
Luco.

Naughton came in behind her, much more calm,
as if he'd known all along that this would happen.

"Damn you! I needed to observe a subject
turning."

"He's not a subject," Heron said with far
less venom than he felt.

There was a moment of silence, but not for
Stemmy. Everyone just breathed, Heron and Luco each trying to stare
down the other. Under the circumstances, Luco never stood a
chance.

"You'd better put that
thing
in a
stronger cage," Heron said, jerking a thumb toward the other room.
"And put a guard on it."

Naughton didn't say anything at first, seeing
just how unnerved Heron was. "You'll go talk to Eileen?" he finally
asked.

Calming down at the very relevant question,
Heron nodded. Neither Naughton nor Luco even mentioned the results
of his blood test. He supposed it really
had
been just a
formality.

"Go home after that."

Heron picked up his phone from the
nightstand, spared a glance for Luco, and left the room.

***

IT
had taken Stemmy a long time to die
and Heron, much to his own shame, had slept through most of it. The
memory of those last moments still pulled at him. He could see
Stemmy, clear as day, his body pressed up against the glass as he
dictated his final wishes. And then there was the girl…the
monster
. She was right there and then she wasn't. Heron knew
it was dream, the whole of it. Stemmy couldn't have picked up his
IV and gotten back into bed so quickly. Not in his condition. And
the
thing
. It would never have just gone back into its cage.
So it was a dream. All of it. But it felt like a memory. And he had
not made those promises to Stemmy in vain. Whether they had been
asked or he had conceived them, Heron would honor the first and had
honored the second because he knew it was what Stemmy would have
wanted.

It was two o'clock in the morning.

It had taken Stemmy a long time to die.

When Heron arrived at his partner's
brownstone, he hesitated outside the door. There was a soft glow
coming through the glass in the front door. Of course, Eileen would
be unable to sleep. He didn't know how long they had spoken for or
what about but the battery on his cell phone was dead. He imagined
her sitting in the kitchen, just the counter light on, sobbing at
the loss of the man who had been more her partner than he could
ever have been Heron's.

Stepping up to the door, he knocked
lightly.

She came to the door in a rush, hoping,
hoping. But when she saw him there, saw the disheveled and
frightened look of him, she knew it was over. Tears burst from her
eyes and she fell into his arms. Only now able to cry himself,
Heron held his friend's wife. They shared their pain on the stoop
until they could collect themselves. Then they laughed a little
bit. They laughed together in Stemmy's memory. Finally, when they
were drained of all emotions, they went inside and sat for a
while.

***

THE
dawn light was cresting when
Anthony Heron finally reached his own home in Queens. He and his
wife lived in a small two bedroom house with their daughter. Mellie
was just five years old. She had creamy brown skin and thick tight
hair with bouncing locks. She was his pride and joy. Alicia was a
stern woman who expected more from him emotionally than she herself
was willing to give. But somehow it worked between them. Heron was
never one to hold back and never one to demand more from a woman
than she could give.

When he got home, Alicia was awake and had
been all night. She was sitting at the table and there were tears
in her eyes. It was only at that moment that he realized he had
never called her. He had been gone all night and never even called
to tell her why. She looked up at him with dark eyes. There was
relief, followed by anger, followed by concern. She knew right away
that some part of him was missing.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Stemmy," he told her. "Stemmy died."

"Oh, my God!" Her hands came to her face in a
classic demonstration of shock and anguish. She came and embraced
him and he held her tight more for himself than for her. He never
really understood what she was feeling. Stemmy and Heron were
partners. If something miniscule had gone differently, it could
have been Heron who had died and not Stemmy. Alicia had loved
Stemmy but she loved her husband more and all she could think about
was just how close she had come to not having him anymore.

Heron pushed away from her and went to the
kitchen. He filled a glass with water from the tap and sat at the
table. There was some mail scattered about but he ignored it. What
caught his eye was the phone message scribbled on a piece of yellow
paper.

"What's this?" he asked.

Alicia, still badly shaken, said, "I'd
forgotten. The doctor called. They have the results of your biopsy
and they want you to come back in to discuss it."

Heron didn't even bother to react. The
biopsy. It had seemed so important, dominated his thoughts up until
the moment they had encountered the Koplowitz family. He thought of
Stemmy and what he had gone through. He thought of Zoe Koplowitz,
Dr. Luco's undead
subject.
Maybe cancer wasn't so bad. After
all, there were worse fates, worse fates even than death.

***

THE
coming of the zombies to the world
is not necessarily the coming of the apocalypse.
Shawn of the
Dead
is the first of a series of episodes that focuses on the
more personal aspects of people as they face their regular lives
against the backdrop of a zombie infection.

This first installment has introduced to
several important characters and the disease itself. Unlike typical
zombie stories, the world has not and does not come to a crashing
end. The reality of plague involves humanity's attempt to control
and eventually cure it. While researches stand at the front lines,
regular citizens think very little of a war that is not at their
doorstep. Their day to day lives and the problems that go with them
are enough. Wives and husbands. Girlfriends and boyfriends.
Children. School. Money. These are the things that occupy reality.
And even with zombies marching the streets of the city and the
country and the world, people will pay it no more mind than they do
the news stories they hear on TV.