Fear of the Dead (16 page)

My girlfriend Sally. We were planning on getting married before they started busting people up. I even got her the ring and everything.

Did you propose?

What? Ah. No. No. Not yet.

That’s good. Then things should be easier on the girl if she never finds out.

No man. Vic. Please. I’m willing to make it up for you anyway anyhow. Just say the word man. I’m good for it.

Your word ain’t been worth shit since you snitched on your own family. You’re a goddamn rat Anthony. And you know what we do to piece of shit rats.

But I’m sorry. I had no choice.

There’s no excuse for what you did. None whatsoever. Don’t bother wasting your time.

You know, I took you under my wing. I trusted you. I treated you as if you were my own. And you betrayed that trust. You embarrass not only me, but everyone else who ever trusted me, and counted on my good name.

But it’s a good thing you’re willing to pay the consequences of your mistakes Anthony. Because that is exactly what you’re about to do.

No. Please. You don’t have to do this. Please. Put the can down man. Hey Rico, don’t listen to him. He doesn’t meant it. No. No. Don’t do this to me. I was your friend man.

You’re a goddamn liar Anthony! And it’s all anyone’s ever gonna remember about you!

10:45 AM

The battery on the camcorder was low, but there was just enough life left in it to show the ensuing footage of a bloodstained man tied to a chair, getting doused with kerosene as he begged for his life. Eli watched intently, glued to the screen in suspense. He watched as the man recording the footage circled around the helpless man, casting his shadow and the shadow of his camcorder on the floor. A second man was on a chair with a cigar in his mouth. The third, clad in a black leather jacket, struck a match.

“
Goodbye Anthony,” said the second man. The third lit the second man’s cigar, then tossed the match on the oiled man’s lap. The oiled man, once known as Anthony, burned to a crisp, screaming along the way.

Eli pitched back and felt his stomach twist.

“
Holy Christ.”

He turned down the camcorder’s volume until even the slightest hint of noise was too much to bear. He muted the sound altogether. But as disgusted as Eli was at what he saw, he couldn’t bring himself to look away. As hard and as brutal as it was to watch, Eli had never seen anything like it before.

“
Hey Atton,” he called. “Come check this out.”

Atton had a look on the screen.

“
Sick,” he said.

“
Isn’t it? God it’d suck to be that guy.”

The battery meter beeped red until it finally died. The screen went black.

“
Oh what the hell?”

“
Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

“
What’d you get?”

Wrapped inside a tagged evidence bag was an entire kilo brick of weed.

“
Nice. Ain’t there more?”

Being that it was a police station, there should have been bushels of them stacked around somewhere.

“
Tons,” Atton confirmed. “But it’s the only one that doesn’t smell like shit.”

Eli took Atton’s word for it without doubt or question. Chances were if that was what Atton said, then that must have been the truth. After all, who’d know better than an ex-gangbanger?

“
Man you might’a turned to Christ, but you sure as hell ain’t lost your fun.”

10:49 AM

They smoked on the rooftop of the police station, passing time sitting on the ledge while they towered over what was left of all creation.

“
You know,” said Atton. “Crazy as it sounds I’m glad all this happened.”

He took a sip from the pipe, then passed it over.

“
Crazy as it sounds, so am I.”

“
How do you figure?”

“
Well, we’re out of prison for one. Plus I figure if I’m going to turn a new leaf, it might as well be someplace other than Wyden Hall. Someplace where folks might actually need my help. What better place than here?”

A wasteland of garbage and empty streets lay beneath their feet.

“
That why you found God all a’ sudden? So you can make up?”

“
Making up has been my only purpose.”

Eli kicked his feet in the air, inhaled a lungful of smoke.

“
Way I see it, past four months ain’t so much ‘bout survivin’ as it is ‘bout findin’ the right way to die. Worlds endin’ anyhow. Life’s shorter than it was before. And this time there ain’t no God to be bailin’ anyone out. Might as well have some fun while we’re still around.”

Eli inhaled a second sip, then coughed it all out. Atton snickered, and took the pipe back.

“
Now this is some nice shit right here. You said you used to grow this stuff. This one better than yours?”

Atton laughed.

“
Not even close my friend.”

He retrieved a kilo from the bag and studied the weed in the palm of his hand.

“
Problem with hydroponics is all the shit that can go wrong if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing. The strain’s good. Can’t go wrong with white widow. But you can tell it was toxed more than it should have. The taste is a little weaker than it should be. Of course, they could have done it on purpose. Maybe so they can sell more in mass. Wouldn’t surprise me. Weed this big, you know they’re shipping large scale.”

“
Huh,” replied Eli, pretending he understood the first word of what he’d said.

“
Used to grow this stuff by the bushels. And then again when I got out of juvie. Course, then I started falling in with the Southside Freedom. I guess you do a lot of stupid shit when you’re a kid.”

Eli couldn’t imagine ever seeing Atton Stone, 38 years old, buff and packed with scars, ever being as young as a teenager. Nor could he ever imagine seeing him as a reckless youth prone to the peer pressures of joining a gang.

It wasn’t something they’d ever talked before during their time in prison, but Eli had to ask, “How long you been in Wyden Hall?”

Atton didn’t even have to count to recall the number.

“
21 years.”

“
Damn. So what were you, 18 when you got sent to the clink?”

“
17,” Atton corrected. “Tried as an adult.”

Eli spat a breath of air.

“
Fuckin’ judges.”

“
Yeah. Fucking judges alright.”

10:53 AM

“
Talkin’ to Atton reminded me o’ the judge that reigned on my trial. Bitch by the name of Katherine Sullivan. I remembered her ‘cause a’ all the shit she said to me in my face. Callin’ me a monster, a menace to society. Thinkin’ that she knew everythin’ there was to know about me.

“
I ain’t ne’er killed anyone in my life, but I wanted to strangle that bitch for every word outta’ her mouth.

“
It’s disgustin’ how they pay these people to dress like fuckin’ penguins, and have ‘em sit on that chair like they’re all so high and mighty. People like her goin’ around thinkin’ that just because they make more money, because they live in a fancier house, that they’re better than everybody else.

“
I hope that bitch judge and that jury got what was comin’ to ‘em. Hope those zombies ripped their fuckin’ faces apart for what they did.”

A fist fell on the bathroom door.

“
You done in there?”

Eli rose from the porcelain toilet seat.

“
Just about! Hold on a bit while I find me some paper!”

He removed his shoes and pants before searching the nearby stalls for toilet paper. Fortunately, the one beside him had plenty. He flushed the toilet, then smacked his head when he realized it didn’t work. He sniffled, then wiped his nose. He felt his sense of smell begin to dull, then stuff until it became progressively harder to breathe.

“
Damn it.”

He sneezed, and his hands covered in phlegm. Eli rubbed it off on a roll of paper. Then he sneezed again.

“
You alright in there?” called Atton from the door.

“
Jesus Christ Atton! Can’t a man get some privacy?”

“
Hurry your ass up. We gotta move pronto.”

“
I’ll be out in a bit!”

He tried not to sniffle too much lest he inhale the smell of his own byproduct. Eli cleaned himself up, then promptly left the woman’s room.

11:02 AM

“
Where to now?” Eli asked.

“
We still need to pick up a few supplies. Grace might need some extra bandages. And Linus mention…”

“
Fuck Linus.”

Atton twinged. In spite of Eli’s undeniable objection, he completed his thought.

“
Linus wants batteries.”

“
Tell him to get ‘em himself.”

“
The man needs a working radio.”

“
What he needs is a foot up his ass.”

“
Look, we’re getting the man his batteries, and that’s that. No sense in arguing about it. I’m getting it with or without your help.”

He started the truck.

“
We’ll check the closest hardware store.”

Eli sat back, then lunged forward as he threw up a lungful of air.

“
You okay?”

“
No man. I’ve been sneezin’ storms since ‘bout a minute ago. I don’t know what it is. Feels like allergies or somethin.’ Maybe it was somethin’ in that pot.”

“
You ever had this stuff before?”

“
Not since high school.”

“
You need some wipes or something?”

Eli shook, made clear note of the toilet rolls in his possession.

“
Maybe you are allergic.”

Eli wiped his nose.

“
I’ll be fine. Just gotta keep a little clean is all. The sooner that dope passes out of my system the better.”

“
That’s if it’s the dope.”

“
Whatever it is, it’s givin’ me a headache.”

11:17 AM

“
Of all the things to be allergic to, I had to be allergic to weed. There ain’t no justice in the world, pure and simple.

“
We been parked outside Lowes for what, half an hour? Twenty minutes? Atton ain’t showed up yet, even though he should’a been back by now. Maybe he got eaten or somethin.’ I guess it’d serve him right for tryin’ to do Linus a favor.

“
I swear, that asshole ain’t nothin’ more ‘en trouble. I don’t know why the rest of ‘em don’t see it. Well, actually I do. It’s the fact that there’s so less of us left. They don’t figure that anyone else that’s still around might just be as much of an asshole as they were before.

“
Hell, probably worse.

“
But people are dumb like that I suppose. The same people you wouldn’t give two shits about on any given day all of a sudden become symbols for somethin’. What was it Grace called it?

“
Hope?

“
I swear some folks are off their boat.

“
God, how long’s it been now? A year? Is Atton plannin’ on showin’ up at all?”

11:20 AM

Eli promptly made his way inside the abandoned store. The automatic glass doors were broken from when Atton made his own entry. The broken window was how Eli made his.

The building itself was all in all about as large as an industrial warehouse, rife with aisles as long as the store itself. The place even looked like an everyday warehouse. Packed with blocks of wood on one corner, buckets of paint on another, and construction equipment scattered all throughout. In fact the more he thought about it, the more the place genuinely seemed like a construction zone for something.

In the sheer crowd of home improvement inventory, Eli failed to find any trace of Atton Stone. He sneezed, then cupped his hands over his mouth before he yelled.

“
Hey Atton! You in here?!”

There was no reply.

“
Atton, if you’re dead I ain’t stayin’ here a second longer!”

Again, there was nothing. Eli sighed. Without bothering himself to check the rest of the store (which for all he knew was crawling with infected), Eli promptly returned to his truck.

He didn’t stay outside for long, but then again he couldn’t quite leave either. The truck’s ignition was missing a key. One that Atton must have unwittingly taken with him when he went inside.

Of course, it was also possible that his friend might have taken it with him deliberately. Possibly out of the remote fear of being left behind. Whatever the case may have been, Eli wasn’t left with many options. His gaze returned to the store directly ahead, which towered above him like a hulking behemoth. A giant’s den full of possible hiding spots for zombies.