Zombies! (Episode 7): Conflicts of Interest (7 page)

Who were they?

Why were they doing this?

As the first fighter, Red Rover, was ushered into the ring, a thin man began walking over three zombies. That was also a job Abby couldn't understand. She could understand cleaning the toilets in a subway station, but she could not understand being the keeper for the undead. Especially if that man was already an English teacher in New York City public school system.

***

AS
Red Rover stepped into the ring, Marcus scanned the crowd. He was seeing a lot of familiar faces. People just couldn't get enough of the violence. His thoughts were much the same as Abby's thoughts. If civilization fell today, he'd probably still be in business. And then he noticed Abby Benjamin. And Melissa Benford next to her. He didn't know either of them, had never seen them before in his life. Still, the presence of women in the crowd set him on edge.

He nudged PJ, still standing next to him, and pointed.

"No shit," PJ said, when he finally homed in on the two women. "What do you think? Wives, girlfriends? Mothers?"

"I don't care," Marcus answered, his eyes on the two as they nudged and spoke to one another. "I don't like it. With women in the crowd, there's the threat of exposure. Is that guy with them?"

"The one on the left?"

"No. The one on the right. Look at his face."

PJ shrugged. "Young guy. Clean cut. A piece of whitebread. So what?"

"He's not glad to be here."

PJ shrugged. "Then what's he doing here?"

As he said it, the young man, Peter Ventura, leaned in to say something to Abby. It confirmed that they were together. "I don't know. We need to watch them and that cop. St. Francis. Spread the word."

PJ hesitated. "You sound like one of those villain type guys, you know that? Like, from Batman or something."

Marcus didn't even look at him. "Fuck off."

***

THE
pain in Shawn's side was starting to ease up. After a week of living on aspirin and ibuprofen, it was nice to be able to take a breath without biting his cheek. Throughout the course of that week, he had had few lucid moments. He knew he'd been shot. He knew Marcus had shot him. Why he had bothered to save Shawn's life was a mystery. Clearly, he hadn't been taken to a hospital where the infection would have been stopped immediately and the bullet would have been taken out by a surgeon and the wound properly stitched. Though he was perpetually wrapped in bandages, Shawn had gotten a chance to look at the injury when someone had come in to clean him up and change the dressing. It wasn't pretty, probably made worse by the "medical" attention he'd received immediately following the incident. It was going to be some scar.

While in his fever induced state, he had considered a lot of things, not the least of which being his feelings for Marcus and his reason for seeking out the confrontation in the first place. He chastised himself for being so foolish. Covered in the blood of zombies and fresh from his successful bout with Lodi, Shawn had felt emboldened. It's funny how, no matter how stupid your actions, you only
feel
stupid after it's all done. Marcus had come to see him many times. At least a few of those times had been real and not fever induced hallucinations. Like the kind that had shown him Mr. Arrick, his English teacher. What, of all of the crazy things in his mind, had made him dream of his English teacher?

Marcus had sat beside him and held his hand. There were times when he thought Marcus was weeping and other times when he caught him laughing hysterically. He shouted at people that interrupted them, and, one time, Shawn was sure that Marcus was climbing on top of him. That one was
definitely
a dream. Mostly, Marcus just talked. He talked about their relationship and about how much he loved Shawn and wished they could go back. It was difficult for Shawn to hear, even though much of it echoed his own thoughts. In fact, much of it probably
was
his own thoughts projected onto a mirage.

There was an IV hooked up to his arm. He tested the slack on the tube and found he had a decent range of movement. The tubes had been removed from his nose. He could see several tanks, presumably used up, standing idly in the corner to his left. He tried to sit up just once and then learned his lesson. He could scream, but what would be the point. Judging by the noise filtering in through the door, he guessed that it was either Friday or Saturday and the house was packed with people who wanted to watch zombies fight.
Jackals!
If it was fight night, that meant he'd been there at least a week. He doubted that Marcus had had the decency to tell his parents what had happened. And what about Heron? He'd texted Heron from
Angus Construction
when he'd been hunting the zombies, but had left before the lieutenant had shown up. With no sign of Shawn and no leads, what could Heron have concluded? What would he have told Shawn's parents?

Outside his room the crowd roared. Settling back into his cot, he tried to drown out the noise by filling his head with the memory of music.

***

DESPITE
her utter revulsion at the display, Abby marveled at Red Rover's ability to keep the zombies off balance and at a distance. It was almost as if he was
dancing
with them. For the first few minutes of the fight, she just watched in awe. The lurching steps of the zombies as they tried to close in on Red Rover worked in perfect concert with his own surprisingly agile movements. It was when he finally moved in for the kill that she was shocked back into reality. Though he approached it without rage, almost without emotion, it was still mired in such brutality that she felt herself becoming sick. Even at that distance, she could still see the blood splash as the zombie's head collided with the turnbuckle. Red Rover's hand became thick with the gore. And yet he took no notice of it. He simply removed it as the zombie fell to the mat, wiped the slick stuff onto his pants, and continued the ballet.

"I've seen enough," she said.

Peter looked at her, deep into his own awe. "Hmmm? What did you say?"

"I said I've seen enough." She was reaching into her purse.

"You want to go? Now?"

"We can't go," said Melissa. "Someone will notice."

"We're not spies," Abby said as she pulled out her cell phone.

"Who are you calling?" Peter asked.

"The police."

"What are we then?" Melissa asked.

Abby threw up her arms and huffed. "Will you both please shut up?"

So they shut up. Abby brought her phone down and began to thumb through her contacts list. She searched until she came to the Anthony Heron's private number. Then she pressed the button with the little green telephone on it.

From up above, Marcus took notice.

***

AT
around 4:00 that afternoon, Heron finally had a chance to go down to the basement and have a look at Linda. Somehow, they'd brought in an old cage that had been used to hold perps temporarily while they were being processed. It was something out of
Barney Miller
, to be sure but it did the job. They'd pushed it into a corner and put Linda inside. The guards were ordered to hold position several feet from the door. When Heron arrived, there was one guard on duty. His gun was down, but his hand was on it. He supposed they'd get more and more lazy as the days went y. If Linda became a fixture there, they would simply grow acclimated to her presence. While it didn't seem likely that she could escape, vigilance was something he would expect maintained. He would see to it personally.

"Take a break," he said to the guard. The man looked once at Heron just to make sure he'd heard right, then walked off.

They weren't truly alone. The basement was mostly one big open space but there was so much going on elsewhere that it seemed like they were alone. She smelled. Even at this distance, he could smell the rot. It seemed so odd that they all had that smell of death on them and yet they tended not to just rot away like regular corpses.

"Who are you?" he said to her. When he moved in one direction, her head turned to follow. He got the impression that it was her nose following his scent rather than her eyes following his path. In fact, her eyes hardly seemed to focus at all. Not for the first time, he wondered what senses were available to them. They didn't seem to react to any amount of pain so touch seemed unlikely. Sound attracted them for sure; or maybe it was just the vibrations. That would lead him back to touch. Naughton was right about one thing. Heron was no doctor and anything he surmised about Linda would be useless toward finding a cure. So what was he looking for? Why had he brought this poor dead soul to his headquarters?

After about an hour of staring at Linda, Heron picked himself up, found a guard for her, and left. Heading back up to his office, he grabbed his coat, said good night to everyone who would be there for many hours yet to come, and started home. He called Alicia from the car to let her know that he was actually in the car and the promise he'd made that morning would be kept. When their conversation ended, he debated turning off the phone entirely, but conscience kept him from doing so.

Dinner was a baked ziti that Alicia had learned to make from a high school friend's grandmother. Normally, she was not the cooking type, but it was a special occasion. For Mellie, they boiled up a couple of hot dogs, filtered all of the meat and cheese out of the baked ziti, and put the cut up hot dogs in. They sat around the table and talked about things that normal families talk about. They ate their food and laughed and made faces. At one point, Alicia reached across the table to touch Heron's hand. At that moment, he was surprised by the conflict he felt. It was what he wanted as opposed to what he'd accepted as his responsibility. He turned the touch around, instinct telling him to pull away. But his rationale overcame his instinct and he gripped her hand tighter.

Afterwards there was ice cream and the latest Pixar movie to hit the home video market. Of all of the movies that were out there, those from Pixar represented the sum total of everything upon which the three of them could agree. Heron wasn't a big fan of animation, but something about those movies appealed to him. There was this scene in the
Incredibles
that made him look at his wife and say,
that's you
. In fact, he was sure there was a point in their relationship when Alicia had told him that she was the greatest good he was ever going to get. He was lucky to still have her. Saving the world was hard but he imagined that being married to someone who was saving the world was harder still.

Mellie fell asleep during the movie, her little head resting on Heron's leg. He stroked her hair and her perfect face while watching the end of the film and then carried her to bed. As hard as he tried, he couldn't help but picture his little girl as a zombie, lurching toward him in her tiny
Princess and the Frog
nightgown. What would he do, he wondered? He hadn't even hesitated when shooting Stemmy in the head all of those months ago. Could he shoot Mellie or would he let her feast on his flesh. One last gift from Daddy.

HELLO My name is Anthony. Please DON'T hurt me.

Please, God, stop hurting me.

Coming out of the room he heard the water running in the bathroom. He went back downstairs, gathered up the ice cream dishes, rinsed them, and put them into the dishwasher. It wasn't nearly full enough to run the wash so he left it. Then he turned off all of the lights, checked the lock on the front door, and headed upstairs. He didn't even notice that he had his cell phone in hand.

Upstairs, Alicia was just coming out of the bathroom. She was in a long fleece robe and carrying the bundle of her clothing. She gave him a kiss as she passed him and told him to wash up and get ready for bed. So he did. Stripping to his waist, he let the water run hot and splashed it over his face. He marveled at just how tired a man could be and yet not fall over onto his face. He flossed, brushed, and rinsed. He swiped his shirt off of the floor and headed to the bedroom, prepared for a good night's sleep.

Please, God, don't let the phone ring.

Alicia was waiting for him in bed wearing a silky negligee. It was his favorite. He was almost angry at the fact that he was so tired, but it fell away. It had been so long since they'd had the opportunity to be intimate that he would have to have been one of the walking dead himself not to respond. With a tired smile, he stripped off the rest of his clothing, dropped his phone on to the dresser, and slipped into bed next to Alicia. They had just started kissing when the inevitable happened.

"Can't you ignore the phone just this once?" she huffed.

He wanted to ignore it. He
desperately
wanted to ignore it. "Let me just check."