Dead Mann Walking

32

“Misty.”

Her lips parted, but without a word, she fell. Too shocked to catch her, I threw myself onto the cold floor beside her. A long, stringy trail of saliva dripped from the side of her open mouth.

“Misty?”

I’d already exhaled most of the gas. There was only a little left, not even a full dose. Maybe she’d be okay. Right? She had to be.

I slapped her hand, felt her forehead, pulled back an eyelid. Her pupil was a pinprick, a distant black star surrounded by hazel. I said her name a few times more. She started twitching. I couldn’t tell if she was responding or having some kind of seizure.

I hooked my arms under hers, pulled, and half crawled. After what seemed a million years, we reached the dolly. The timer was beeping its little head off, like an oven screaming that the cookies were ready and about to burn.

Fuck it. I grabbed the round plastic thing and jabbed the first button. I thought the next thing I’d see would be a flash followed by a whole lot of nothing, but the beeping stopped. No ka-boom. If only everything else were that easy.

I pulled the bomb off the dolly and yanked Misty on. My right foot was no longer good for much except dangling from my ankle by a flap of skin and muscle, so I grabbed the handle and hopped as I pushed. As we moved, I listed and groaned just like a zombie should.

After all, that’s what I was, right? A grade-B monster.

The wheels wobbled, crunched on plaster, loud now that the vacuums were off. I pushed Misty from shadow to light, shadow to light. At the end of the maze, I pounded the elevator button like it was Turgeon’s head. He had to be dead by now, but nerve gas had been too good for him. I should find his body and use the cash he’d given me to bring him back just so I could kill him again. For Lenore. For Misty. For Nell, Frank, and Colin.

For the hell of it.

By the time the doors opened, Misty didn’t look like she was breathing. I wheeled her in and slammed the button marked ER. The door didn’t close fast enough, so I pulled it, so hard I nearly took it off its guide. Stupid. Fucking stupid. If I’d broken it, we’d have been stuck down here.

The car jerked, then moved up, slower than a snail. Misty looked still. A kind of body memory kicked in. I pressed on her chest three times, held her nose, and blew into her mouth. It was CPR, but at the time I didn’t remember the initials or what they meant.

How had she found me? Of course. I’d called her on the phone, and she tracked me through the GPS in it. I was sorry she had talked me into getting the damn thing. Did she bring the cops? No. They wouldn’t have let her in here at all. The phone, where was it? Back in the parking lot. I searched for hers, but couldn’t find it.

I stared at her face. She looked like she was sleeping, sleeping without air. Poor thing probably inhaled enough asbestos to kill her all over again in a year just by coming down here.

But I had to remember she wasn’t like me. She was alive, still alive. She could heal. That meant there was hope. And she was strong. Crack hadn’t killed her; maybe the gas couldn’t, either. I kept up the compressions, the breathing.

Did it help? I didn’t know. I only knew I couldn’t risk doing nothing.

Forever passed before the doors opened on an empty ER hallway. There was less dust in the air here, but still enough for the sunlight to illuminate. I did my grunting one-legged dance, got the dolly to a desk, and grabbed the phone. Dead, to coin a phrase.

I had to find help. There had to be something someone could do. I wheeled her toward the Exit signs, stopping twice for more compressions and breathing. We passed the examination area: two rows of cold hospital beds, white and silver. Some had sheets so tight it was obvious no one had ever used them. Others had curtains drawn around, like they were hiding something ugly. I thought about laying her down in one to make her more comfortable while I tried to get help, but I realized no one living would want to come in here.

Windows. A way out. Or if I shouted, someone might hear. I scrambled to the nearest one and found myself looking down on the central plaza. There was a crowd, not just big, huge. It covered the brick field, the sidewalks, the streets.

Jonesey’s fucking rally. I’d forgotten all about it. It was in full swing. I saw an army of chakz, clothes gray and torn as their bodies, moving along the wide avenue toward the plaza. Marching would be the wrong word. With so few being “lucky,” they listed and bumped into one another. They bounced, got turned around. Then they’d walk against the crowd until they hit something else that pushed them the right way. They were like a bunch of giant pinballs heading slowly in the same general direction.

Another mob had also gathered, the gawking livebloods, all sharing a single expression—terror. Parents pulled their children into the imagined safety of the nearest store, nearly yanking their arms off in the process. If it’d looked less real, more like a wild Halloween party by night, the living might not’ve been so frightened. As it was, it was August and the sun was bright, illuminating every patch of gray, every stub, every missing piece of flesh.

Some of the chakz held signs, but the ones I could see weren’t Misty’s work. The handwriting was so bad the letters looked more like multicolored blood splattered against oak tag than words. And, damn, there was Jonesey, right at the head of the disheveled parade. He stood on a rickety float made up to look like a cemetery of broken hearts. He was using a rolled-up piece of cardboard as a megaphone, and whatever he was saying seemed really important. To him, anyway.

The police were out in numbers too big for Fort Hammer regulars. Overweight and unshaven, a lot of them looked stuffed into their uniforms like sausage into pig intestines. The town must have called in reservists, extras, retirees, circus seals, whatever, for backup. From the looks of things they’d even deputized their sanitation people.

Male teens bobbed among the crowd like lower primates, dodging and swinging around obstacles, jostling for position, looking for a way to get past the police and in among the chakz. Some held bottles and bricks.

Misty. I snapped myself out of it and opened the window, but the sound that rushed in made me step back. At first I thought it came from the chakz. It did sound a little like moaning, but it wasn’t them at all. It was the livebloods , their collective disapproving grunts. They were murmuring, gasping, wondering why someone didn’t do something, wondering why they all didn’t do something. But it hadn’t gone south yet. It still might not.

My tongue still hurt like hell, but I screamed, “Help! I’ve got a liveblood in here and she’s dying!” I thought I was being clear, but I didn’t know if I was being loud enough. “A liveblood! Help!”

A few people in the crowd turned and looked up at me, but said nothing. At last a blond woman, curly hair, expensive summer blouse, pointed and screamed.

“A feral!”

“No!” I shrieked, but I wasn’t sure what I sounded like. I probably looked just like a crazed killer corpse.

A cop turned from the line, thirties, fair hair, not one of the reservists. I think I recognized him from the station. Bradley? I waved, thinking for some insane reason that he might recognize me, and that it would be a good thing.

“I’m Hessius—”

“He said he has a liveblood hostage!” someone screamed. The cop pulled out his gun and fired. Good shot. The bullet took out a chunk of plaster right near my head.

I don’t know if that was what started the riot. Given my track record in supporting chak rights, it wouldn’t surprise me, but I later heard a different story. Apparently a couple of the teens with baseball bats went after an old woman chak because her hair looked particularly freaky. When the other chakz tried to protect her, the LBs stepped in to help the kids. That’s what I heard, anyway. The truth is as hard to pin down as it is to remember. Maybe it was one or the other; maybe it was both, or neither.

I fell backward. Screams and more gunshots, followed by some genuine zombie moans, rose from the street.

I lay on my back, staring at empty fluorescent fixtures, listening to the waves of noise. I felt that funny urge to leave my body, to desert my stupid fucking broken hunk of flesh, my long-dead piece of meat, and call it a day. If Misty hadn’t been there, I would have. But she was on the dolly.

She was still twitching, but not nearly as much as she had been. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do about what was happening outside, but there had to be something I could do for her. I was in a fucking hospital, after all. Maybe I could find an EpiPen. Lenore used to carry one of those because of her allergies. Maybe it would jump-start Misty’s heart.

The ER was pretty cleaned out in terms of supplies, so I wheeled her down the hall, looking for something to shock Misty into breathing on her own again. There were oxygen tanks in the hall. Useless without a mask, and I doubted they’d help. Near the tanks was an open door to an MRI room. The giant white doughnut-shaped machine was still sitting there. Better yet, hanging in the center of one white wall was a plastic box marked DEFIBRILLATOR.

Hoping to hell it had instructions, I wheeled Misty as close as I could and ripped the box open. Two paddles tumbled out and dangled by their coiled cords. Inside the door, bless it, were five steps printed in big type, so simple even a chak could follow them.

I yanked Misty onto the MRI platform and flipped the switch to power the paddles. Nothing. No power. I wanted to punch the freaking wall, but I had to keep my head. All those security lights in the basement were on and the elevators worked; there had to be power.

I looked around as if expecting the answer would be hanging in the air. It wasn’t, but it was clinging to the walls. Thick cables led from the top of the defibrillator up to the ceiling. There they joined with a set of even thicker cables from the MRI machine. All of them headed for a junction box on the far wall. It had a single red lever, so I pulled it.

The ceiling fluorescents flickered feebly. Green and red lights glowed on the MRI. I slammed the button on the defibrillator again. This time it hummed and crackled. I didn’t think there was enough time to undress Misty like the instructions said, so I jammed the paddles onto her chest and pressed the second button.

The loud gzt that followed reminded me of the bug zappers back at Green’s mansion. Misty’s whole body, thin and bony, contracted like someone had thrown a bucket of ice water on her. Her chest rose and collapsed. Then she fell silent again, looking as fragile as glass. I watched for any sign of movement. Not seeing any, I charged the paddles again.

Gzt!

Again she contracted, looking like a broken doll being yanked upward by her chest. Again I watched for some sign of movement, but none came. And then . . .

A giggle.

“The dead trying to bring the dead to life. Isn’t that redundant?”

Turgeon stood in the doorway.

In one hand he held the duffel bag, its contents twitching. In the other he held the clippers. He looked like a headhunter returning home from a tough day at the office. He lowered the bag, put his arms out, and said, “Surprise!”

Got that right. How had he survived? He looked none the worse for wear. There was nothing different about him I could see, except . . . one of his eyes wasn’t blue anymore. A contact had fallen out. What was behind it had no color at all.

In a repulsive flash, I understood why the gas hadn’t worked. “You’re a chak.”

He nodded. “I wanted to know what Daddy knew, so I had myself killed and immediately resuscitated. There was no decay at all, just a little complexion problem. And this way I can continue my work forever.”

I flipped through what there was of my memory. “Didn’t you ask me what it was like to be dead?”

“All the better to fool you. You’re really very stupid, you know.”

I’d certainly had better days. He held up the open blades. My eyes darted around for a way out, but I was up against the MRI, as backed into a corner as you can get.

Two steps and he was within striking distance. Some remaining body instinct made me hold up my arms to protect my neck.

Disappointed, Turgeon shook his head. “Come on, now. I win. Don’t be a baby about it.”

Look who was talking. I didn’t think I was getting out of it, but I didn’t drop my arms. If I timed it right, I could make a desperation move, shove my arms between the blades and try to twist the clippers out of his hands before they got through the bone.

He gave me a second chance. “Do you really want to lose your arms first?”

I held my ground. With a little shrug, he jumped.

That was when Misty, lying on the MRI table, maybe a foot from Turgeon’s ear, bolted up and let out the longest, most bloodcurdling scream I’ve ever heard, in life or afterward.

“Gyaghhhhhhh!”

My ears were ringing, but it was a sweet, sweet sound. She was alive.

Turgeon gasped. I dodged right. The closing blades nearly sliced my ear, but I landed on the floor behind Misty. Above me, the lights from the MRI control panel glowed red.

With a loud, rattling wheeze, she inhaled and screamed again. “Gyaghhhhhhh!”

I heard Turgeon coming, but I was down on my chest, no room to roll, no way to flip or kick. I reached up to lift myself, but my hand hit the controls. There was a loud crashing whir, like a miniature construction site had come to life inside the big white doughnut of the machine.

Misty screamed for the third time. “Gyaghhhhhhh!”

Still facing the floor, I felt something slip from my pocket. There was a clatter. A loud thunk.

Turgeon began cursing like a big boy. “No! Fuck! No!”

Pushing Misty out of the way, I flipped over and saw that the clippers were held fast against the buzzing, clanking machine. MRI—magnetic resonance imagery. I’d read once about a kid who’d been killed when some idiot left an oxygen tank in the room with the machine. The MRI pulled it through the air and into his body. This time it’d drawn the choppers to it.

Turgeon yanked at the handles. They wouldn’t budge. They weren’t the only thing the magnet was pulling. The dolly shook by its metal handles, rattling like a rocket ship ready for liftoff.

I grabbed Misty and dragged us both back to the ground. Like an animated corpse, the dolly stood on edge. It waddled a half a foot, then flew over the MRI platform toward the machine. The only thing keeping the metal bar from the magnet was Turgeon.

I’d like to say it hit him at the neck, but it was a little lower than that, around the shoulders. A lot of what looked like fat turned out to be padding, part of his liveblood disguise. As the dolly handles pressed into him, pulled by the machine, the stuffing puffed through the openings in his clothes. He was always a little pale, but the slightly pink tinge to his skin that helped fool me turned out to be some sort of skin dye. As the dolly handle tore through his clothes, patches of gray chest appeared.

Turgeon was pinned, helpless, as the powerful magnet drew the bar of the dolly deeper and deeper into his body. It took ten, twenty seconds for the handle to travel all the way through him. When it was finished, most of his torso stayed up, held in place by the handrail. What I guess you’d call his bust tumbled to the ground.

There it twisted its head and looked around, confused.

I killed the power. The dreadful sounds of the machine stopped. Cart, torso, and choppers fell in a heap. In the sudden quiet I could hear Misty panting, the heads hissing in the duffel bag. I even heard, though it was muffled by the hospital wall, an ocean of cries from the riot outside.

Misty looked at me. Tears were streaming down her face. Her eye makeup was running. “Hess . . . what the fuck?”

I put my hand to her cheek, forced myself to speak with my hurt tongue. “Long story.”

She saw me wince. “What’s up with your tongue?” She scanned me. “And your foot!”

As I thought about how to explain using the fewest, shortest words, the heads forced their way out of the bag. Once they saw it, they marched toward Turgeon’s split body, looking like soldiers buried up to the neck in linoleum.

One didn’t join them right off. Daddy wriggled its way up to us. Misty stiffened and looked ready to scream again. I put my arm around her. It was trying to tell me something, but her teeth were rattling so loudly, I couldn’t make out what.

Bbbbmmm . . .

“What?”

“It can talk?” Misty squeaked.

“Shh!”

Bbbbmmmm.

Boom? Bomb. Crap. “He set the timer again?”

Daddy nodded. My hand tightened on Misty. “Hess, you’re hurting me.”

“We’ve got to get out! Now!”

She was weak, I was on one foot, but we gave it our all. Arms around each other’s shoulders, we made for the door.

Behind us, the heads surrounded Turgeon. I thought maybe they were going to greet their new member, razz him a bit. When I looked back, though, they were chewing on him. Most of them were feral. I could see it in their eyes. They’d gone fast, as if they’d held on long enough to get to this moment.

Turgeon spoke pretty clearly. Maybe it was easier because he had more neck left. “Stop! Please stop! I only wanted . . . only wanted . . . company. . . .”

“Hess . . .”

“Misty, don’t look.”

Daddy struggled along the floor to join them. Before it was out of earshot, I had to ask. “How’d you keep them in order? What was it you promised them?”

With perfect enunciation and a look of pride, as if for one moment it were human again, it said, “Revenge.”

As it squirmed off to join the gory feast, the light of intelligence faded from its eyes.

I hoped that when the bomb went off, the collapsing building would crush them to powder, destroy them permanently. But there was always the chance there’d be just enough left beneath the rubble for something, human or not, to feel pain.

Leaving yet another bit of hell behind, we limped down the hall like contestants in a three-legged race, dogged by the sound of chewing and Turgeon repeating his last word like it was a pained prayer: “. . . company . . . company . . .”

Before we reached the exit, the sound stopped, probably because there wasn’t anything left that could speak.