Empire (7 page)

    "It huuuuurts," he said through gritted teeth. "Cheryl, it hurts so fuckin' bad." As she watched him cradle himself, she was struck by something, or the lack thereof; she didn't pity him at all.

    She hated him.

    This miserable man locked in the throes of withdrawal, on the verge of tears, was still the man who'd backhanded her earlier that day. And the day before that. And before that.

    What was she to do, make another run into Midtown? Put herself at risk of being assaulted or killed (or eaten) so she could find Zaharchuk? And even then how would she pay for the drugs?

    She knew how Lee would expect her to pay. She knew that Zaharchuk liked to pull hair and choke a woman on his unwashed manhood. It was probably another of Zaharchuk's "customers" who'd raped her, if not the man himself. But Lee would expect her to pay, to do the only thing he thought she was good for so that she could bring a fistful of meth home to him. So he could level out and "get right". So he'd be able to beat her black and blue.

    Lee turned his puppy-dog gaze toward her and wiped sweat from his brow. "Fuck, Cheryl, please go get me some stuff."

    "I'm making dinner." She said flatly. Fished through drawers for a can opener.

    "Cher-YLLL," Lee whined. "Fuck dinner. I'm not hungry, Jesus I just need some. I NEED it. I'm dying here."

    The TV was on in front of him. Nothing was playing. "We need to save power." Cheryl said, pointing to it. Lee snapped out of the chair. "Are you fucking listening to me?? GODDAMN!!" He kicked right through the television screen. There was a loud POP and then black smoke belched forth. Lee grabbed his foot and yelped. "CHERYL GO GET IT!!!"

    "NO!!" She shouted. Even as a tiny part of her mind screamed at her to shut up, to get the hell out of there and head to Midtown while Lee tore around the apartment - she screamed at him. "I'm not gonna get it! You can lay here and die if you want to! Nothing's going to change if I get you your fix, I don't care what you say! You know it! I know it and now your damn TV's gone- -"

    He staggered, hit the counter separating the two of them, then caught her by the throat with a white hand and squeezed. She grabbed his wrist. Her other hand was caught in the utility drawer. He squeezed and squeezed, staring her straight in the eye with desperation and something much worse. "You die. You die."

    Cheryl's other hand came free. She tried to loose Lee's stranglehold, but his grip was unbreakable. He gritted his teeth and leaned forward. "Die you whore, you fucking bitch, no one will ever know you're gone but me and I'll be happy, SO HAPPY!!"

    (Could kill you where you lay bitch, feed you to the rotters. Kill you.)

    "I'm gonna LOVE it," Lee hollered, wrapping his other hand around her neck and thrashing her back and forth. "I'M GONNA LOVE YOU DEAD, I'M GOING TO FUCK YOU RAW AND CUM ON YOUR DEAD FACE OH GOD!!!" He shoved her so hard she careened into the fridge, bounced back into the counter and knocked the wind from her lungs. Cheryl collapsed on the tile. Lee stumbled into the kitchenette, tugging at his belt.

    Cheryl looked for a weapon. She couldn't reach anything from her position on the floor. She couldn't breathe, could barely move...and that tiny part of her mind that had pleaded with her to obey her cousin now told her to give up. She felt her will being sapped away.

    Lee stood above her, mumbling under his breath, pants coming down.

    (Kill you. Kill you kill you.)

    He fell to his knees and forced her legs apart. He clawed at her pants, then pushed her legs closed again and tried to yank them off. His flaccid penis swung over her, and she knew he'd never get hard enough to rape her but it didn't matter to him anymore. Lee saw what she was looking at. He slapped her hard. A knife of white light tore through her vision. "FUCK YOU!!" He hollered, and began to choke her again.

    (killyoukillyoukillyoukillyou)

    He groped briefly at her breasts before slapping her again, then again. It was getting him off more than she did. "Stupid, fucking, goddamn,"

    (killkillkillkillkillkillkill)

    This time it was a closed fist that struck her cheek. A sound like a gunshot filled her senses, though she was sure she couldn't hear anything anymore. Her lungs stopped protesting and she felt darkness overcoming her.

    "No." a voice said. It sounded unfamiliar. Was it Lee's, distorted - or was it her own?

    "No," again. Cheryl, blind, felt herself being dragged across the linoleum to the carpet in the living room. Her mouth was forced open by several fingers. Please God, she wept in her mind, don't let me live through this. Let me die now.

    She slipped away into blackness.

    Then she was back. There were lips over hers. They pulled away and she opened her eyes.

    A young man knelt over her. "Can you hear me?" He asked. It was his voice she'd heard before. Cheryl nodded.

    "Stay here. Don't try to get up." He ran out of sight, then came back with a glass of water. He propped her head up to pour it down her throat. "Just take it easy. I think you're gonna be okay."

    Her head began pounding. She whimpered, the last of the water spilling over her shirt. The man laid her back down and she felt something like a pillow underneath her head. Taking a few shallow breaths, Cheryl smelled acrid smoke.

    "Who was - is - this man? The man who attacked you? Do you know him?"

    "You shot him, didn't you?"

    The young man sat back on the floor and nodded.

    "His name's Lee. He's my cousin. He's dead, then?"

    "He's dead. He was...he was trying to..."

    "I know." Cheryl attempted to sit up. The man firmly laid her back down. "Please don't move. It's for your own good." Almost as an afterthought, the man fished an ID card from his pocket. She saw the service pistol in his waistband.

    "My name's Mike Weisman. I'm a Patrol Officer." He said. "I live in the next building over."

    "Thank you," Cheryl whispered, then fell unconscious.

    As dawn crept over Jefferson Harbor, Senior P.O. Voorhees was making his way back to the homeless shelter. He was passing the East Harbor Mall when he saw a dog walking across the parking lot. As it came closer, what he thought to be mange turned out to be rot. The dead dog looked at him with milky eyes and turned to go in the other direction.

    He almost couldn't bear the thought of harming the creature. Then he thought of the other dogs it would feed upon. Voorhees dropped to one knee and patted his thigh softly. "C'mere boy."

    The dog glanced back but kept walking away. He couldn't bring himself to draw his sidearm. "C'mere boy! C'mon!"

    Voorhees was fifty-nine years old. The outbreak began nearly half a century before he was born, but when his mother learned she was pregnant she resolved to keep the baby. His father had reluctantly agreed. The old man wasn't a bad parent; he fulfilled all his duties, taught his son to be a man in the face of a nightmare world. The old man just wasn't there in his heart, and Voorhees had always known it, as far back as he could remember.

    They had a hound, a mutt named George; Voorhees never knew his father's first name but he suspected it was the same. One morning, before the sun had risen, ten-year-old Voorhees' father had pulled him from bed and taken him behind the house.

    George was tied to a post amidst the tall grass. The property was surrounded by a ten-foot fence and the dog acted as a lookout in case rotters came from across the fields. On this morning, George had been lying on his side. His tail wagged feebly when Voorhees and his father appeared.

    "He's been bit." The old man said without emotion. He gave the boy a few minutes to let it sink in, then continued. "A couple of days ago I guess, when we were hunting. I never saw the dog - or whatever it was - that did it. Didn't even notice the bite until last night." Voorhees thought he heard his father's voice break and looked up. The old man quickly knelt to raise one of George's forelegs, exposing the wound.

    "We're all scared to die," he whispered, "even George here. He knew what was gonna happen and he hid it from me. But what's best for George - son, you know what's best."

    Voorhees tasted tears on his lips and nodded.

    "There's a reason why I'm making you do this." The old man said. He pulled a revolver from his jeans pocket. "You love George, don't you?" The boy nodded.

    "So do I." His father replied. He pushed the gun into Voorhees' trembling hands. "But this is what's best, what's right."

    "Dad- -" The child began.

    "One of these days," the old man stammered, and tears formed in his eyes, the first and last time Voorhees would ever see such a thing, "one of these days, son, I'm gonna get bit. It just happens when you go out there as much as I do. And I'm gonna hide it..." He choked, cleared his throat loudly, continued in a croak. "And I'm gonna beg you not to kill me, son, but it's what's best. I need to know you'll do it and then burn what's left."

    The old man stood back, away from Voorhees and George. He did one more thing that he had never before done and would never do again.

    "I love you, son."

    "I love you too Dad."

    Voorhees knelt and scratched George's head. Through a blurry sea of grief he aimed. The mutt sniffed the barrel of the gun and rested his head on the ground, as if to say it was all right, that he understood, even if every animal instinct in his body was telling him to run.

    Thirty years later, Voorhees had seen the same look of pained acceptance in his father's eyes. He'd raised his service pistol through a blurry sea of grief, blinked the tears away to ensure his aim was true, and pulled the trigger.

    "C'mon then, George," Voorhees said to the dead dog in the parking lot. He held his hands out. Something in the vestiges of the canine's brain stirred. It sat and stared at him. Then it came.

    The gun was meant for the living. It could only slow an undead down, and that was a crapshoot in itself. Even a bullet to the head only did so much. If you were lucky, you maybe crippled or blinded it. No, fire was the only way to end them, and the best way to incapacitate a rotter prior to setting it ablaze was decapitation. A "widowmaker" was a sort of cleaver designed for that purpose, capable of parting bone as easily as flesh, in the right hands; Voorhees loosed his from its sheath on his back and waited for the dog.