Dead Mann Walking

4

The closest was a real walking-dead poster child—a gleet in a construction jumpsuit with a juicy hole in his forehead the size of a golf ball. Arms out Frankenstein style, he looked as if he was leading the others like a parade marshal.

There’s a song in there somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.

As they came forward, I was more worried about Turgeon. He held his ground, but shook so badly I felt a breeze at my back. I was afraid he’d do something stupid that’d require quick thinking on my part, or at least a phone call to Misty to say good-bye.

If the shambling didn’t freak him, the moaning would. It rose above the crackle of the car fire, one sandpaper-dry voice overlapping another, making a steady rush, like the ocean on a white-noise machine.

When a chak moans in torpor, I take it for sorrow, profound sorrow. That doesn’t explain it in a feral. At that point, why moan at all? There’s also the weird fact that when a feral shambles, he moans louder, as if there’s a gear connecting the diaphragm and the legs, like the way a pigeon’s head bobs when it walks. Human body is a complicated mother. The dead ones more so. Sometimes my left leg shakes like it’s hooked up to a vibrator.

Sure enough, soon as Frankenstein was three yards off, Turgeon went for his gun. I grabbed his elbow. It was a breach in living/dead etiquette, but too fucking bad if he didn’t like a chak touching him. The fat moved loosely aside under my fingers, as if I hadn’t gauged my own strength correctly. The elbow was surprisingly bony.

He yelped and tried to pull his arm free.

“No!” I said. “Listen to me. If they’re feral, it won’t help. Kneecap one and you’ll only piss the others off.”

His face went blank. “You said to bring a gun.”

“For the hakkers!” I said. “But I guess we should have gone over that in the car, huh?”

“What do we do?”

I was about to tell him to dive for the Humvee, but something caught my eye. The minute I’d said “hakkers,” Frankenstein blinked. Blinking is not something ferals do. It could’ve been a trick of the light, but I didn’t think so. Plus, they were already close enough to charge, but hadn’t.

I raised my voice so anyone listening could hear me. “Mr. Turgeon, I know you’re scared, but please put the gun away for now, nice and slow.”

The moment it disappeared into his pocket, the crowd slowed. I heard a relieved hiss.

Damn.

I rolled my eyes. “Who the fuck do you think you’re playing with?” I yelled.

“What? I did what you asked!” Turgeon said.

“Not you, them!”

I took a step toward the crowd. “I already said I was one of you!” I shone the flashlight up into my face. “You think I need this crap?”

When Frankenstein stopped and squinted, it was obvious even to Turgeon they’d been faking. It was a setup. They’d taken us for hakkers and hoped a mass of ferals might scare us off. If we’d been a bunch of drunks on motorcycles it could’ve worked. Nice.

Frankie held up his hand. “False alarm! Everyone back to places!”

More moans. Not desolate, just annoyed. He jerked a thumb at the burning car. “And somebody put that thing out!”

I stuck my hand out open palmed and took our new friend’s paw in my wrinkled mitt.

“He’s just nervous,” I said, pointing back at Turgeon.

“He’s not the only one, Mann. I’m Thornell. Word is Bedland’s getting hit tonight.”

I let go of his hand and punched the air. “Shit! Shit! Shit! That’s what all the theatrics are about?”

“Hell, yeah,” Thornell said. “It’s not like the cops are going to help.” As if it itched, he rubbed the rim of the hole in his head, then wiped his fingers on his arm. “You’re so worried about it, what’re you doing here? We figured you had to be hakkers. Who else?”

I’d hoped to play this close to the chest, in case anyone working for Boyle’s siblings was here ahead of us. But with the hakker odds ramped up, my strategy shifted.

“Long story short, I’ve got some good news for a chak I heard stays here.”

Thornell laughed. That meant that he was high-functioning, and that he was easing up on us. “Good news? Didn’t know they made that kind.”

“Yeah, there are probably snowballs in hell, too.” I pulled out the photo. “Frank Boyle. Look familiar?”

Thornell stared and scratched his forehead hole again. “We’ve got a Frank, but that’s not him.”

Maybe he wasn’t all that high-functioning. You never know which parts of the brain are working, and that hole meant at least some was missing.

“Look again. Picture him dead a few months.”

He squinted, shook his head a while, but finally nodded. “Yeah, yeah. That is Frank. One of our community organizers. Lives in a room off the front hall of the admin building. Shares a space with Ashby.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Shares? I didn’t think we went for roomies.”

Thornell gave me a good-natured shrug. “I don’t, but he does. It’s company, I guess. Rumor is the kid reminds Frank of someone, maybe a younger brother.”

“Kid?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Ashby’s a juvie. They tried him as an adult for shooting a cop with his own gun during a convenience-store robbery.”

Having been a detective means I heard a lot of the local RAR stories. This one rang a bell because it sucked so much. “Right. Didn’t bother with ballistics, then found out the cop’s gun misfired. He’d accidentally shot himself. Hey, I do remember things sometimes.”

“Good for you,” Thornell said. “Good for Boyle, too, I guess. Hope he stays. This whole thing was his idea. He’s one of the smart ones. We don’t have many.”

That bit of news lowered my threat level from panicked to anxious. Not only was Boyle here, but we’d be able to talk to him. I nudged Turgeon, but he didn’t look as happy as I thought he should. He was probably still thinking about the hakkers.

Thornell looked over his shoulder at the smoldering car fire. “Better get back to my spot. Whatever business you’ve got with Frank, be quick.”

He trudged off, calling the names of a few stragglers. Some tripped, bumped into one another, backed up, and bumped into one another again.

The smart ones are pretty rare. It must have taken hours for them to set that trap up.

Turgeon still seemed out of it, so I said, “We could come back in the morning.”

Stunned as he was, he shook his head no. Right answer. One, we were too close to give up now, and two, by morning, after the hakker attack, Boyle might not be one of the smart ones anymore.

I didn’t feel good about leaving the Humvee behind, but the smoldering car was blocking the road. Pointing the flashlight at the broken asphalt, I nodded for Turgeon to follow. He stayed so close behind me, if I so much as slowed down, he’d smack into me. I had to tell him twice to give me some space.

Like the dead, the place had yet to be completely reclaimed by nature. We made our way along a concrete path shattered and cracked a thousand times by years, neglect, and pretty thick weeds. Whenever we passed some chakz, they’d moan, not stopping until I pointed the light up at my kisser and mentioned Thornell. Then they cursed us out.

Admin was a smaller building sitting to the right of the massive factory, the upscale Bedland neighborhood, compared to the middle-class factory and the makeshift shelter ghetto. By the time we reached it, all the fires inside had gone out, leaving the place as pitch-black as it gets.

Back when I lived here, I’d managed a spot in the factory, but admin was where I’d want to hole up in case of attack. The concrete walls were so thick and strong, they seemed smug. The windows were tall and narrow, more for light than air, not wide enough for a man to pass through. The only spot that might be vulnerable was the front entrance.

Still, even as we walked up to it I couldn’t see inside. The dirt on the glass doors was so thick it sent the flashlight beam bouncing back empty-handed. There could be an army or a toy store in there and I wouldn’t know until it was too late. Good for Boyle. If he was really lucky there’d be a rear entrance and a basement.

Turgeon was getting too close again. I put a hand back to restore some distance, then pushed the door open with my foot. It swung in noiselessly. Someone kept the hinges oiled.

I turned the beam to the four corners and crept into the tomblike reception area. It was surprisingly intact, with a front desk, still-life paintings on the wall, and one or two plastic potted plants. There was a big cracked coffee table surrounded by cushioned seats and couches. Some chak who was either anal or had kept his sense of humor had put a few magazines out on it. Far to the left there was a wide hallway with closed doors. Offices, I figured.

But no sound came from anywhere.

Turgeon whispered, “Now what?”

“Call him?” I suggested. I was going to try it myself, but he beat me to it.

“Is Frank Boyle here?” His thin voice didn’t even echo.

“Connect the dots,” I whispered. “Give him details. Little louder wouldn’t hurt, either.”

“Mr. Boyle, I have a message from your father!”

Nothing.

“More.”

“Your dead father. I mean . . . I’m sorry to say that your father passed away. That’s why I’m here. It’s unusual, considering your condition . . . but he’s left you a lot of money. His name is Martin Boyle. That’s your father, yes? I’m his attorney. Actually, I work for his friend. . . .”

Turgeon sounded like a bank manager from Ghana who wanted to transfer $62 million directly into Boyle’s bank account if he’d only kindly supply his social security number and blood type. I guess I should’ve done the talking.

He was about to say something else, but he didn’t have to. A sound like crinkling paper, but heavier, slower, came from that left-hand hall. The third door down, barely visible from where we stood, opened.

I aimed the light and caught a chak stepping out. My flashlight beam made his dilated pupils glow. He had a shock of curly hair I recognized from the photo. Half the skin on his face was gone, though. From the look of the other half, it may have been what scared it off.

He was of average height, good shoulders, and definitely Frank Boyle.

“My father’s dead?” he said in an even tone.

Turgeon smiled widely, way too pleased with himself to realize it’s not particularly appropriate to wear a shit-eating grin when you say, “Yes. Lung cancer.”

Before I could tell if Boyle cared, a string-bean shadow appeared behind him, shorter body, longer hair. It had a nasal, whiny voice that was even more annoying than Turgeon’s.

“Okay if I come out, Frank? Heh-heh.”

Boyle looked at Turgeon, then at me. I gave him a nod.

“Yeah, Ashby, it’s okay,” Boyle said.

Ashby stepped into the flashlight beam. He was a good half foot shorter, blond hair and aquiline nose. His smooth features made me think his bones hadn’t fully matured at the time of death.

“You tell ’em I didn’t shoot that cop? Heh-heh,” he said. I could tell by the way he twitched as he spoke that he wasn’t one of the smart ones.

Boyle grimaced like he was embarrassed.

“Yeah, we know all about that,” I said. “We know it wasn’t you.”

“Good. Heh-heh. Because it wasn’t. Heh-heh.”

“Sometimes he thinks he’s still in prison, waiting on his appeal,” Boyle explained.

“Good of you to take care of him,” I said. I meant it.

He looked at Turgeon. “What’s this about my father?”

Baby Head cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but he passed on a week ago. You were named as the sole heir.”

Boyle twisted his square head. “Nothing for Marty Junior or Cara?”

“No. I don’t know the details, but it seems they had a falling-out.”

“They must be pissed.”

“Oh, they are,” I added. “But what with the hakkers coming, maybe we could all hop into Mr. Turgeon’s Hummer and continue this conversation anyplace but here?”

“Can Ashby come?”

“Heh-heh. I’m going, too? Heh-heh.”

Turgeon hesitated, maybe annoyed by the laugh. Bugged me, too, but I figured he couldn’t help it. Probably just as eager to leave as I was, after a beat he said, “Certainly.”

“Cool, oh, cool. Heh-heh.”

As Boyle stepped toward us, I felt a weight lift. For a second there, I was stupid enough to think the evening might end well. Maybe the good guys could win sometimes. Maybe that bank in Ghana really did transfer millions into your account now and again. But then Boyle stopped short.

“I’ve got some notes I have to give to Thornell. Come on back with me. It’ll take a second.”

“You mean the maps, heh-heh. He makes maps. He’s a mapmaker. Heh-heh.”

“Yes, Ashby. The maps.”

Not wanting to slow him up with any questions, I followed them down the hall. A few more doors creaked open, chakz sticking their heads out.

A woman with one eye hanging from the optic stalk, a dangler, said, “You’re not leaving us, are you, Frank?”

“Just for a little,” he told her. I couldn’t tell if she thought he was lying.

The kid straightened. “We’ve got some business, heh-heh.”

He sounded proud about the heh-heh part.

I was afraid there’d be a big social scene, or someone would want to throw a farewell party. But chakz are slow thinkers, so we made it to Frank’s room without much ado.

It was pretty big, an L-shaped deal with a couch, a couple of beds, even some shelving with old photos. Ashby threw himself on the couch and bobbed his head. Boyle headed straight for a big drafting table set up against the wall. On it, I made out plans for the factory complex, full of notes in colored Magic Marker. Boyle wasn’t just one of the smart ones—he was doing better than some livebloods.

I pulled out my recorder, thinking I’d make an entry, then forgot what I’d wanted to say. Wouldn’t be the first time. Instead, I looked over Boyle’s shoulder. Using thumb and forefinger, he peeled up the masking tape holding the paper.

Curiosity got the best of me. “Still got a lot of dexterity in those digits, too. Grave diggers’ strike? Kept refrigerated until use?”

“Uh-huh,” he said. “My IQ only dropped fifteen percent. I could work a real job if someone would hire me.”

Turgeon cleared his throat. “You won’t have to work anymore, Mr. Boyle.”

Still peeling, Boyle asked, “How much are we talking?”

“Roughly? Forty million.”

“Whoa! Heh-heh!” Ashby said.

The kid was happy enough, but something about it bugged Boyle. “And not a penny for Marty and Cara?” Was he regretful? Certainly confused. “What could they have done?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Turgeon said.

Boyle straightened, ready to go, then slumped into the chair in front of his drawing board and muttered, “Forty million.”

“Buy a fast-food place! Heh-heh!” Ashby said. “Lickin’ Chicken! Merger Burger and Fries and Lies! Heh-heh.”

Turgeon blinked with every heh.

Frank was more contemplative. “I could open a home for chakz. Someplace safe.”

“If that’s what you want, easily, Mr. Boyle,” Turgeon said. “My firm would be happy to help you manage your finances, as we did for your father.”

While Eggman yammered, I scanned the pictures. The glass was clear. He cleaned them regularly. There were a few self-portraits, no surprise, given the head shot Turgeon gave me. Others had him arm in arm with a slightly older, taller man, likely his significant other.

I thought maybe he kept Ashby around because he reminded him of an old lover, but the kid looked nothing like the man in the photo. Then I spotted a three-shot, both men along with a fair-haired cherub with an aquiline nose. Bingo. Boyle smiled in all the photos, but in the individual shots he had a practiced expression. Those with the older man put a real smile on his face. In the shots with the boy, his grin was widest. He looked really . . . happy. The boy was the one Ashby looked like, or would’ve if he was younger and still alive.

I tapped the frame. “Son?”

“Duncan. Adopted from Russia.”

“Can I ask . . . ?”

He rolled up the plans. “I came home one day and found Kendrick, my husband, beaten to death. We’d had some problems, fights that got physical. The police knew I had a temper. I was found guilty and put to death. Duncan was deported.”

“And some suppressed DNA test showed someone else was there?”

I don’t know why I said it, but he gave me a look. “It wasn’t suppressed. It was botched. My father had the samples retested, but it took a long time. The results came in after the execution. He tried to stop the RAR, but it was the law.”

“Huh.” Except for the choice in gender, Boyle’s story sounded familiar. Not really unusual, though. Crimes of passion are big on the hit parade. What was weird was that Boyle, like me, wasn’t guilty.

“They catch the real killer?”

He shook his head.

I didn’t know if the story awoke any uncomfortable feelings for him, but I felt something. I don’t know what, but it didn’t feel good. Antsy about the similarity, maybe.

Boyle stood, rolled plans under his arm. “Let me give these to Thornell. He has to reposition the scouts.”

“They spotted us easily enough,” I said.

“In a Humvee with headlights,” he answered. “The hakkers have taken to walking their cycles in the last half mile. That way you can’t hear them until it’s too late.”

Turned out that was exactly what they did. Even rats learn how to run a maze.

We were halfway down the hall when a series of shrill whines made the stale air shiver. What nerves I had left vibrated in tune. The dead stumbled from their rooms, trembling.

Boyle barked orders. “Back inside. Stay quiet. Remember, this is the last place they’ll come.”

The whining increased. The rats wanted cheese.

Boyle pointed at my flashlight. “Turn that damn thing off!”

I clicked the switch and we all stood there, wrapped in the dry, dusty dark. The whine grew denser, wilder, morphed into a whirring like a robot-locust plague. I could hear the loose dirt and rocks kicked up by their wheels.

Ashby said, “Heh-heh.” The others huddled around Boyle.

“They have to use the main road,” he whispered. “If there aren’t too many, Thornell and the others will scare them off.”

Half a minute later, moans mingled with the whining. They’d met the fake ferals. If the plan worked, the swarm would turn tail and head home.

“Heh-heh.”

We heard a mash-up of engine revving, moans, crunches, and some inventive liveblood cursing, but the swarming sound never returned. They’d broken formation.

“Boyle?” I said. “Sounds to me like they’re running everyone down one by one.”

“I know.”

“A couple of us might be able to make it to the Hummer.”

He clenched his teeth. “I can’t leave everyone.”

“Don’t go, Frank! Heh-heh.”

Not wanting anyone else to hear, I shifted nearer to Boyle and whispered, “You could do a lot of good with that money, but only if you stay in one piece.”

He exhaled, which, since he didn’t need to breathe, meant he was thinking. I’ll never know what he would have said next. Thick beams flooded the windows, lighting us all in an eerie blue-white. It matched everyone’s skin except Turgeon’s.

The lights spun this way and that as the bikers oriented themselves. The hall looked like a crazy discotheque, but instead of dancing, we all froze as only the dead can.

My flashlight had bounced back from the filthy glass, but their cycle high-beams were ten times brighter. There was hope, but not much. Even if they could see inside, we could be taken for trash. They might leave, move on to the factory.

Or . . . they could check in here first, for the hell of it.

I was praying for the first option when the glass doors swung open. But it wasn’t the hakkers. It was Thornell. He stumbled in, carrying something thick, long, and dripping under his right arm.

Turned out it was his left arm.

Boyle rushed to his side. “What the hell happened?”

“Car wouldn’t burn twice. Not enough light. They only saw a third of us, decided they could take us. They were right.”

The door was still open. No one followed Thornell in, but when the cycles passed again, their headlights came through unfiltered. Cradling his arm, Thornell dived for cover. Boyle pushed Ashby behind him.

“Heh-heh.”

“There a basement?” I asked.

Boyle shook his head. “Yeah, but it’s a dead end. One way in, one way out. They come in, we’re cornered.”

I tried counting the headlights and gave up at seven. “We’re already cornered.”

Turgeon looked at me, eyes wide like he was ready to bawl. Instead he said, “Now?”

I nodded and he pulled out his gun. I pulled my own piece from my waistband. Some old cop instincts still intact, I crept across the reception area.

Moving up to one of the narrow windows, I took a look outside. It was real chiaroscuro, a play of dark and light. The dark part wasn’t so bad, just a bunch of abstract silhouettes against a blasting sound track of horrid cries, screaming engines, and macho whoops. It was the light that got to me. Every now and then a cycle headlamp threw a neat circle on some chak, man or woman, their face twisted in agony as they watched some piece of their lifeless body hacked off.

And why? Because some demented, drunken child-kings thought they were fighting the good fight for truth, justice, and sick fucks everywhere.

I had the gun, sure, but if I shot one of those idiots, if I so much as clipped him, I’d be the one they tore up next. And it wouldn’t just be the hakkers after me. If I got away from them, it’d be the cops, the army, all society. The next morning, the cable-TV pundits would be yakking about me, how I was the one who finally gave them the excuse they needed to round up and destroy every chak in the country.

There were screaming, buzzing engines, and moaning bodies everywhere. Like a camera flash, a headlight lit one of a dozen nightmare scenes. An old chak, cotton white hair where the skull wasn’t exposed, knelt with his head down like he was praying. But he wasn’t; he was staring at his two severed arms on the ground in front of him.

A liveblood, white safety helmet and brown outfit making him look like a plastic bald eagle, saw him. It all went to silhouette again, but I could still make out what happened. The liveblood braked, spun, and headed for the old chak. The LB’s machete was out, aimed at the old man’s neck. The chak didn’t notice.

A pain bubbled in my gut. I knew it well. Utter helplessness. Utter helplessness with one difference: I had a gun.

Before I realized what I was doing, I’d aimed and pulled the trigger. My first shot cracked the window glass. The second entered the liveblood’s head. As it snapped back, the rest of him followed, flying off his bike. Riderless, the rice grinder fell sideways, skidded, and stopped. Its spinning front wheel knocked one of the severed arms. It twirled like a bottle in an adolescent kissing game. When it stopped, the fingers pointed my way.

It was loud; it was dark. By rights, no one should have spotted me in that little narrow window. But hunting in a pack is an old, old instinct. Everyone has it, especially the ones who look stupid. It’s like they give up on things like reason and individuality in exchange for group instinct. When one of their number falls, the whole pack senses it.

Out of nowhere, five, six of the dog-men zoomed up to the body. His fresh blood glistened in their headlights like liquid ruby.

“Shit! Cyrus!”

So he had a name. Good for him. Bad for me. One looked at the way the body had fallen, then snapped his snout toward my window.

I ducked, but not fast enough.

“There.”

The pack came toward me, toward all of us. I’d brought them. They burst through the entrance, rode into the lobby, popping wheelies, gunning engines, their machetes up and ready. And there wasn’t any door I could slam, not even to keep them out of view for a while, just a solid concrete wall against my back.