DISEASE: A Zombie Novel (11 page)

Opie sees it now, what Lot spoke of, Danny is unhinged. While it’s easy to chalk this up to the cocky and aggressive, loner-esque behavior Danny is well known for, he’s also known for never taking unnecessary risks. It’s one of the reasons he always comes back, no matter how dangerous a mission Lot selects him for.

He had always hoped that Danny would just turn out all right and Lot would forget about him. Now it’s obvious that’s never going to happen. Somewhere deep inside the irritating nip of guilt bears its needle teeth yet again as he storms up to Danny. If Opie doesn’t do something about this behavior people will be angry, and angry people ask questions.

The only blessing is that shows like this one will make explaining Danny’s sudden disappearance a lot easier—Danny always needed to show off, ran off without backup. You just never know how these things will react. You might think one is slow and find out it was an Olympic runner in a past life, or that it has seventeen friends crawling around at its feet. Dumb kid got himself killed, tragedy really.

Opie finally reaches Danny. “What the hell are you doing? Do you think you’re funny playing around like that?”

Danny lazily swings the large knife. He toes the dead creature’s skull with his boot and then smiles charmingly.

“How long have you known Lot?”

“I hope to God you’re not bitten you idiot.” Sold to the right people a strong, healthy male like Danny will earn quite a bit. Opie knows Lot expects Danny dead, but the dime-sized weak spot he has for the boy thinks he deserves better than a mound of dirt. Danny is resourceful and Opie is sure that in time he can forge a new life for himself, assuming he isn’t labored to death before he has the chance. Of course, there will be no chance, and no profit, if Danny gets himself killed beforehand.

Danny continues to smile pleasantly, his fatigued eyes crinkling with humor.

Great, he’s totally off his rocker.

Without warning Danny’s smile drops away, leaving behind the true stone façade beneath. Opie finds the point of the ooze-blackened blade pointed suddenly at his throat. Instantaneously, members of the pyre group begin running toward the couple, weapons raised.

“Do you think if I were to scratch you with this blade I just sunk into the brain of one of those creatures, you would be infected?” Danny asks.

Opie swallows nervously. He’s afraid to move, to even step back because Danny might snap, and kindly remove his head, as he did the dead thing on the ground.

“What do you want?”

“I’m just curious to know what you know.”

“What do I know?”

“How did my father die?”

Opie’s mouth drops open, he can’t hide his surprise. This isn’t the question of a man who’s lost his mind; it’s the concern of a man lucid after years of floating in the abyss. The situation is more dangerous than originally he thought.

Opie holds up one hand apprehensively, staying those running to help. He’s more worried about what they might hear than what Danny might do.

“Danny, you should speak with Lot.”

“I want to speak to you.”

“I don’t know.”

“You know something. You’ve been her closest advisor for years. You helped her run The Center before The Plague. You’re the only person besides Lot, in this entire place that knew my father!”

Danny presses the tip of the knife harder against Opie’s throat. Opie is sure it’ll break the skin any second. “Danny, I swear I don’t know how your father died.”

Danny scowls. He’s not hearing what he wants to hear. Opie stammers nervously.

“All I know is that Lot gets what she wants.”

“And what did she want, Opie?”

Anxious spittle gathers on Opie’s lips as his mouth runs dry. It’s hard for him to form an answer. “You.”

The glistening of well-hidden tears shine behind Danny’s blue eyes for just a moment, and then they’re gone. He drops the knife away from Opie’s throat and flips it over, his fingers sliding through the black ooze coating the blade. He hands the machete, handle first, to Opie.

Opie’s hand shakes as the knife comes safely back into his possession. Blood pumps so powerfully through his veins it feels as though they might explode. He barely hears the words as they pass his lips, but Danny’s icy glare tells him they’ve found purchase. It’s the guilt speaking.

“I’m sorry.”

Danny slaps his hand on Opie’s chest and wipes it across the weasel’s shirt, leaving a black trail of oozy brain matter. He storms away, toward the concerned group surrounding the pyre, awaiting Opie’s signal to pounce.

Sheep.

The signal never comes and Danny rejoins the group to finish their grim task. He can practically hear their thoughts rattling around in their empty heads, their judgmental eyes crawling over him. In their desperate need to feel as though society still has a chance, they kiss the feet of a monster even greater than those they face outside.

Disinfecting rays of sunlight pierce the smoky air. The lobby’s fireplaces and oil lamps add to the sweltering heat. Their toxic vapors spew toward the heavens, only to be captured by thick wooden walls and heavy ceilings.

The entire community has come together in mourning. Some hang on each other crying, most stand stoically, watching. A window at the front has its barricades pulled back. Thick bars and chicken wire line the opening, providing peace of mind against the growing horde outside.

Most of the creatures that drag themselves across the field are slow, shambling messes. They are a confusion of missing limbs and rotten meat, each one individually able to be outrun, but like fire ants, they are deadly as a swarm. The viewing window will soon need to be closed as The Risen realize a buffet awaits inside, just beyond their reach.

Flames from the funeral pyre arc skyward, they have only attracted a few of the loathsome ghouls, but it’s just the start. The creatures don’t notice as their weak flesh quickly carbonizes, they don’t seem capable of registering pain. Guards stand to either side of the window with makeshift bayonets, waiting for when the thing’s attentions turn.

Save for a few moans of grief everyone is quiet.

Lot’s eulogy is beautiful, moving, and as always, Danny thinks, self-serving. Every word out of her mouth is thoughtfully designed to increase her stranglehold on the hearts and minds of her subjects. It’s almost unnecessary; this herd is domesticated, but he can’t blame them—can he? It’s only now, after years of servitude that he’s beginning to break free of the mold she poured him into. Can he expect more from others than he does of himself?

Lot sits in the front, surrounded by her most loyal and adoring devotees. Standing next to her is Alex. He looks so different then when he came in. His hair is trimmed and he’s as clean as a whistle, dressed in clothes that fit. Jeans, comfortable shoes, and a plain blue t-shirt. He’s like a brand new boy. Except for the ratty old black backpack he has his arms coiled around.

Lot’s slender fingers slip gently through the child’s blond mane. A powerful wave of disgust punches up the hairs on the back of Danny’s neck. Although he can’t see it, he knows her fingers play with her damn necklace.

As though Opie feels the deep brooding, he throws a watchful look over his shoulder from where he stands near Lot. Danny stands far in the back of the crowd. His arms are crossed tightly over his chest and dark bags hang under his eyes as he glowers, fixated on Lot.

It isn’t long before The Risen gather at the pyre in earnest. Their guttural growls and inhuman noises break through the crackling of the flames. Soon after, the barricade is replaced, thwarting the comforting rays of the sun.

***

Funeral or no funeral, the maintenance and care of all weapons is needed to ensure everyone can be protected. Usually glad for the distraction from his thoughts, Danny now finds himself unable to concentrate on the work. He sits in the cordoned off part of the lobby known as The Armory. To his right is Penny, a horse-faced woman who’s nice enough and next to her, the big-nosed guard from the funeral pyre, Dino.

A paralyzing anxiety crushes Danny. It holds his head under water, drowning him in a black lake of guilt. It’s hard to breathe, his lungs just can’t bring in enough air, and he feels like his shirt is strangling him. He wants to claw at his throat, but can’t move. Every muscle is rigid, as heavy as rock an he sinks, struggling for air, falling to the bottom of the lake while Penny and Dino prattle on.

“I think I might volunteer for the run to Agatha County,” muses Dino.

“Me too!” replies Penny. “But I hear it’s a two day trip just to get there, minimum, and the last time the mission was attacked non-stop… and not just by The Risen, they ran into a group from Whitebridge.”

“I’m going stir-crazy here. I need to get out, to do something… meet some new people… maybe some women?”

“Yeah, okay. I should have guessed.”

“Oh, come on. It’s really an altruistic gesture, you know, broadening the gene pool.”

“Altruistic my foot.”

The pair giggle like schoolgirls.

“You should come too. I hear they’ve got a lot of single men.”

“Nah, I’ve got my eye on you know who… if I can get Lot to approve…”

“All the more reason to get on her good side.”

“We’ll see.” Penny glances over at Danny, who is staring grimly into space. He’s a total mess, and has been wiping the gun in his hand in the same exact place for minutes on end.

“Are you cleaning that gun or making love to it?”

Dino wags a finger at Danny. “Yeah man, at that rate we’ll never be done. Maybe you should just go get some sleep, you know, and change your clothes?”

Danny slides his eyes over the large pile of weapons the other two have already cleaned. He feels like he’s operating his body from a great distance, like some sort of rudimentary videogame. His breath slowly returns to him.

“You alright, Dan?” Penny waves her hand attempting to get his attention.

Danny’s eyes snap to meet hers. They are spiteful, full of choler.

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?”

Penny and Dino stare at Danny a moment and then break out laughing. Dino slaps his own knee jovially. Danny’s the same old grouch he always is, the two shrug their faces at each other and pick back up their idle chatter. Danny places the clean gun on the table before him and stands to grab another, his mind sinking back into the beckoning fog that surrounds the lake, until his eyes land on white ash.

Casey’s bat.

It leans against the wall, forgotten amongst numerous other makeshift weapons.

Danny reverently lifts it, stares down at it. The logo, paint, and what he thinks might have been a signature, have all but worn off. The bat is imbrued with blood, dried and brown, darkest at the tip of the barrel where the stain is the thickest. The hair that was once caught in the flaking, splintered wood has been cleaned away.

Something about the bat makes him feel as though Casey is standing right there with him. As though he’s able to channel her by running his hands along the grain and her light guides him away from the dangerous banks of self-destruction. He strokes the cool, worn wood and if someone had asked him in that moment what he was thinking, he couldn’t have told them. It’s almost as though he has no thought at all, just a reptilian brain driving him forward.

He clamps his hands around the neck of the bat and storms past his surprised companions.

***

Opie grins at Odette. He thought it would be nice to stop in and see her. She smiles back and brings her cleaver down, separating a chicken’s plucked leg from the rest of its bare body. She winks at him and curls her finger, luring him close.

She whispers in his ear that she’s ready to test her batch of homemade wine and wants to know if he’ll be kind enough to join her tonight. Opie smiles, seeing an opportunity to bring things to the next level, but it’ll need to be a late night. There are urgent matters to be attended to this evening.

After leaving Odette, he is walking on clouds. Even the troublesome task of dealing with Danny cannot sour his mood. He will meet with his two head guards and set them straight on the wolf in their midst. He chuckles, what is it Lot calls them behind their backs? Oh yes, Thick Marge and Arnold.

A quick bend of the ear and twist of the truth will be all he needs. After that, they’ll be falling over themselves to help ensure Lot’s safety. It always amazes Opie how easily people swallow lies.

He holds his candle up to illuminate the room before him as he steps through the door. Thick Marge and Arnold wait inside. They know this must be something important, their boss only meets with them like this when big things are about to happen. Opie closes the door behind him. “Thanks for coming. We have a serious situation on our hands that must be dealt with tonight.”

***

Danny pounds his fist on Lot’s door. He can feel her eye in the peephole and holds Casey’s bat low, trying not to look menacing and play his hand too early. The door pops open, revealing Lot, annoyed and wearing nothing but a bathrobe. “What do you want now, Danny?”

Danny shoves the door in as hard as he can. Lot jumps out of the way as he blasts by her. Tunnel vision blocks out everything but Alex, the boy is curled up in a corner of the bed, naked, and gripping the sheet to himself.

Danny storms toward the bed, Casey’s bat in one hand, the other stretched out to grab Alex. The child shrinks back against the wall in fear.

“What are you doing?” Lot yells.

“What are
you
doing?
That’s
the real question.”

Danny grabs at the frightened child. Alex tries to dodge him, but he’s too fast. Danny pulls Alex out of the bed by his arm and snatches a neatly folded pile of clothing. He tosses it at the boy. “Put your clothes on, kid.”

Lot stutters and Danny feels a glimmer of happiness. She never expected this out of him, she thought she had in his place, but she was wrong. Oh so wrong. Seeing the shock in her eyes is momentarily exhilarating.

“Danny, you’re making a big mistake.”

Danny turns on Lot, veins bulging in his forehead. “My mistake was letting you live in my head for so long, letting you control me!” he yells. “I couldn’t face it then, but now I can. I refuse to turn a blind eye and let you ruin this kid’s life like you have mine!”

Lot takes a step toward Danny, her grey eyes countering him with a domineering stare.
How dare he
. Danny violently shoves her onto the bed behind them and she nearly bounces back off from the shear force. Alex watches everything silently, trembling, his head jerking slightly, arhythmically, his clothes held limply in one hand. Danny looks over at the boy, his voice rising in urgency and frustration. “I said get dressed!” he booms.

Cajoled by fear, Alex stuffs himself into his clothing. Lot sees her opportunity to gain the upper hand quickly diminishing and steps away from the bed, her eyes on the boy. She stops short as Danny raises the bat. He has her cornered and a flicker of uncertainty creases her face. She can feel the cold tendrils of death sliding across her skin.

“You would never…”

Danny wrestles with himself. This woman, despite everything she has done, and will do, raised him. She made him breakfast every morning, taught him how to speak French, how to do long division, and even how to sew. She applied Band-Aids, soothed tears, and read bedtime stories. She also demanded his innocence, and complete obedience in return.

Danny lines up the bat with Lot’s head. He draws it back, ready to strike, and hesitates. The yoke Lot has strapped around his neck is tightening. A vulnerable flash of worry plays across on her lined face and the yoke squeezes, strangling him. His heart pounds furiously.

Lot reads his flaccid effort before he even knows it himself and seizes the opportunity. She goes for Alex.

It’s that reptilian brain again. The brain that isn’t caught up in emotion—set adrift in the past. The brain that is freed of the superego’s stranglehold. He can’t control it any more than a wolf can prevent itself from killing a sheep.

Danny swings the bat through the air with the full force of his muscles. At the last second he curves the shot and connects with Lot’s bicep instead of her head. Lot screams. The impact slams her to the floor.

Danny swoops in and grabs Alex. He drags the kid behind him by the hand, desperate to escape the room before others come running. As they pass into the hallway, Alex reaches out for his knapsack, sitting by the door. His fingers catch around one strap and it bounces behind them.

Danny tows the boy into the hallway and pauses to lifts the resistant Alex from his feet, slinging him over his shoulder. Alex struggles against his abductor, his bag dangling from one hand, but Danny tightens his grasp and runs as fast as he can into the darkness.

***

He reaches the lobby of the hotel in short order. People bustle about in the fire-lit dimness, and Danny suddenly becomes conscious of the fact that this is not a well thought out plan. In fact, he doesn’t actually have a plan at all. He slows, trying to look as though he’s going about normal business, but Alex continues to struggle. It’s a woman who notices them first. “Hey! What are you doing?” she asks loudly, almost a shout.

Danny pushes by her, b-lining toward the exit as others take notice. He swerves around several people at breakneck speed. An older man grabs out, trying to stop him, but Danny eludes his grip.

A large man steps out directly in front of him, blocking his path. Danny skids to a stop, panic pooling in the back of his head.

“Put the kid down, Danny.”

Danny doubts he could survive a fight with this bull of a man. The man crosses his arms and a brave young woman grabs Alex’s arm. She tries pulling the boy from Danny’s grasp, but Danny holds tight. He and the woman each pull Alex in different directions.

Danny feels his grip slipping. Another person joins the woman’s effort. “No!” he shouts.

Alex is ripped away and Danny is left standing in the middle of an angry mob. He frantically scans for the boy, who’s in arms of the woman, fighting her now, trying to escape.

Danny readies his bat to strike as Jamal, with two other armed guards, breaks through the crowd.

Any second someone will run in with word of what Danny’s done to Lot. This is his one and only chance to escape. He has to think fast.

Jamal peers suspiciously at Danny. “What the hell is going on over here?”

“What’s going on?” spits Danny, “What the fuck does it look like, Jamal? I’ve been swarmed by mindless peons!”

The woman protecting Alex pipes up. She’s having difficulty maintaining her grip on the struggling boy. “There’s something going on here!”

Danny scoffs at the woman, as though she were the stupidest person in existence. “What do you think I’m doing? Stealing the child? Are you kidding me? What would I do with a kid?” She blushes and Danny feels the slightest prickle of hope. The large man blocking his way gives Danny a dirty look. “What
are
you doing with him?”