Pandora 2: Death is not an Option (5 page)

Tommy turned to Sean and said, “Other than being extremely pissed off, he’s been no problem.”

Regina stepped up to him, and he slowly turned his gaze her way. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” she asked him. Corso just stared at her with a calm, nonchalant expression. “Who are you and what do you want here?” she repeated. Corso still sat there staring at her. He looked as though he were watching a fly on the wall. Regina leaned a little closer. “I’m talking to you!”

Another officer, Frank Larney, had come up behind Corso. Frank Larney looked like a cop. In his late twenties with a “high and tight” buzz cut, muscular build stuffed into a too-tight shirt, and a no-nonsense expression, Larney was the kind of cop you always hoped never pulled you over. Now directly behind Corso, who was still staring at Regina, Frank quickly bent down and, putting his mouth to Corso’s ear, yelled, “
Talk, motherfucker!
”

Everyone unconsciously jerked at the sharp, sudden sound. That is, everyone but Corso. Still staring at Regina, he didn’t jump, didn’t move, didn’t even blink. What he did do was slowly smile—a chilling smile that never reached his eyes. Tilting his head slightly toward
Frank, he said in a soft, gravelly voice, “I guess you’re supposed to be the scary fuck, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’m scary all right,” Frank said, grabbing the shirt material on Corso’s shoulder. The cop was still bent down. Corso spun his head toward him with a snakelike quickness. His expression was now pure hatred. As Officer Larney started to rise, Corso shot up at him. With his face an inch away, he shouted, “Boo!”

Frank tried to move back but stumbled, legs tangling, and landed flat on his back. As he tried to scramble up and back at the same time, Corso roared with laughter. “Now
that
is scary, motherfucker.”

Hands grabbed him and shoved him back down in his seat. Corso continued to laugh, obviously enjoying himself.

“Who are you?” Regina yelled, putting her hands on the metal table.

“Fucking Santa Claus,” snarled Corso, changing from loudly laughing to scornfully sneering in a split second.

Tommy spat disgustedly. “Shit, we’re getting nowhere fast. What are you doing here?”

Corso looked up at Tommy, his eyes black and piercing but his expression completely blank. “I came to see how the other half lives.”

Tommy turned away, “Oh, for Christ’s—”

“No really,” said Corso calmly. “Bouchard is driving me crazy, and I thought it was time for a change of scenery.”

“What are you planning?” asked Sean.

“Well,” started Corso, turning his gaze back to Regina, “I really planned on getting another drink before I left, but you assholes fucked that up.”

Frank Larney was standing off to the side again. His face was beet red from the humiliation he received at the hands of this maniac. He was shaking, he was so angry.

Corso smiled at Regina. “How about you come and have a drink with me to make up for it, and I’ll show you some neat tricks with these handcuffs.”

Before anybody could react, Frank bounded over, cursing, and threw a punch at Corso’s head.

Corso, knowing this would enflame Frank, saw it coming. He could have easily ducked his head but instead turned to Frank and winked. The blow caught him on the left side of his forehead. It was an unplanned, sloppy punch; nevertheless, it raised a nasty lump on Corso’s face.

Tommy, Sean, and another cop grabbed Frank and pulled him away while Regina yelled, “That’s it, enough!”

A slowly building laugh stopped everyone cold. They all turned to Corso. The tall, thin, hard-faced man was sitting in his chair laughing at them. A very slight trickle of blood started at the center of the purplish bruise.

“You gotta be shitting me,” Corso said. His laughter subsided bit, leaving a very ugly smile frozen on his face. “You’re fucking pathetic. This is your idea of forcing some stupid kind of confession out of me?” He turned so that he was sitting facing directly forward. “You fucks don’t know the first thing about hurting
anybody.” Corso took the whole room in with his steely gaze, “
This…is how you hurt someone
.”

With a lightning-fast snap of his head and upper body, Corso slammed his face squarely into the metal tabletop. There was a squirt of blood and a sick crunching sound. Corso picked his head back up. There was blood splattered all over his face. It stained his teeth a bright red as he continued to smile. Everyone was frozen in shock and awe.

“Now that’s how you get somebody’s attention,” he said. “Like that…and
this
.”

Corso again smashed his face into the table. This time when he sat back up, his nose was flattened on his face. Blood was everywhere. His shirtfront was now drenched in the blood pouring from his destroyed nose. Still smiling, he chuckled. “Okay, demonstration over.” His speech sounded like he had a very bad cold. “I hope you pansies learned something here.”

Everyone rushed to grab Corso before he did any further damage to himself. As they pulled him from the gore-coated table, he turned to the still red-faced Frank Larney and amiably said,” Hey, bozo! You think you could set my nose back? I don’t want it to ruin my good looks.”

Tank knew that something had happened and that Corso wasn’t going to show. He quickly set about performing his assigned tasks. Night had already fallen, and he wanted to be out of there as quickly as he could.

They left Corso locked in the room. He had requested that his hands be recuffed in front of him so he could realign himself. When they acquiesced, he put both hands to the sides of his flattened nose and, with several wet crunches, straightened his nose back to a semblance of its former self. “There,” he said, “just as handsome as ever.”

The group gathered outside the warehouse. They looked at each other as if they had just witnessed a poltergeist.

“That was absolutely, fucking unbelievable,” stated Sean. He was running his hand through his hair and shaking his head in disbelief.

Tommy looked grim. “It was as if he didn’t feel a thing.”

Sean nodded. “I know, right?”

“What are we going to do with him?” asked Regina. “We’re not going to get anything out of him.”

Frank and the other cop were not saying a thing. Frank looked absolutely stricken. This was the first time in his career that he felt completely helpless. He was used to being the intimidator, not the one being intimidated. He couldn’t believe it, but he was actually afraid of this suspect.

“Well,” said Tommy, “we can’t leave him locked up there forever. It’s obvious he’s here to spy on us. Get information. Maybe even find out when we’ll be leaving. I don’t know.”

“We could let him sit in there until Jake goes and then let him go back to Bouchard,” stated Regina.

“Or we could just kill him,” said Sean bluntly.

“No,” Regina quickly spoke. “I’m a law-enforcement officer. I won’t just go about killing my prisoners. That’s non-negotiable.”

“We’re the only law here now,” said Sean.

Her emerald eyes flashed at Sean with anger. “I said no. You’re right; we are the only law here. And because of that, it’s up to us to see to it that law is maintained. And I’m talking about real law, not vigilante justice.”

“This still doesn’t solve our Bouchard problem,” said Tommy. “Let me go back and continue brainstorming with Manny. This guy can sit and stew in there until morning. By then, I hope to have a solution, and we can revisit this then.”

Everyone nodded and agreed. They all went their own way, leaving Frank and the other cop to guard Corso.

While the night passed and the moon shown down on the quiet city, the only activity was at the barricades, where an increase in the zombie presence was causing rising consternation among the people guarding the jury-rigged roadblocks. With all the roads that needed attention, they couldn’t check them all. No matter how hard they tried, there were too many barricades and too few people to guard them all. They were down to single coverage at most.

As the morning sun rose over the city, the sky started gathering clouds. It looked as though rain was imminent. Tommy answered the knock on his door. He had been up half the night with Manny, planning a response to the threat of Bouchard and his pirate crew. When he answered the door, he was a little surprised to see Cpl. Rich Foley panting as if he ran all the way there.

“Is there a problem, corporal?” he asked, suddenly alert.

“Yeah, Sarge,” blurted out the obviously concerned soldier. “It’s Vince Pasko. He’s missing.”

7

S
tephen Dowd pushed himself back from his dining-room table. “Finally,” he spoke triumphantly, “it’s done. Gentlemen, I think we can now say that we have ourselves a plan.”

Max Blair clapped his hands and said, “Now we’re talking.”

Luke stood, smiling. “Okay, before we run this past the rest of them, let’s go through this one last time.”

Steve and Josh groaned while Max said, “No, no, boys. It’s a good idea. Make sure we have our ducks in a row.” He smiled. “A Marine is always squared away.”

Steve stood and smoothed out the map they had obtained from the Van Nesses. Being new to the area, they had multiple maps of West Palm Beach and the rest of the county. Placing his finger on the map, he started. “All right, here we are. We will take all our own cars after siphoning the gas from the other parked vehicles. We head out and go east to South Flagler Drive. Then from Flagler to Okeechobee Boulevard and from there to 95.”

“Sold!” said Josh.

“Let’s get everyone together,” Luke said, absently brushing hair from his eyes, “and we’ll let them know what we’ve decided to do.”

Max looked up at them and said, “We’ll just have to get this past Ana.” This comment resulted in groans from everyone.

As Steve cleaned up the dining-room table and Max and Josh went over little details, Luke went down the hall to his condo. Five minutes later, he came back with a bottle of scotch.

“Here we go. I got this as a gift and was saving this for an occasion. And this is it.” Luke held the bottle up and looked at it adoringly. “Dalmore Fifty-Year-Old Decanter,” he said in hushed tones, “the favorite choice of the rich and royal families of the world’s elite.”

Steve came in from the dining room. “Oh,” he said, “so you mean us?”

Luke looked at the bottle and then back at Steve. “Well, I guess if you attribute being elite to being alive, then the answer is a yes; we certainly are.”

They all took a seat in the living room, next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. Sean brought in his best glasses, and Luke solemnly poured the four of them a stiff drink.

Holding up his glass, Luke toasted, “Here’s to us, the survivors of the Marina Palm Tower Zombie Survival Planning Committee.” They all took a reverent sip of the amber, liquid gold.

“Wow,” said Josh, “this is good.”

“No,” responded Steve, “good is for Chivas Regal; this is goddamned great.”

“Aaahh,” sighed Luke in pleasure.

“Here’s to swimmin’ with bowlegged women,” said Max, raising his glass again. They all looked at him.

“Is that from the movie
Jaws
?” asked Steve.

“Yes it is,” replied Max. “You know your movies.”

“I also know that Quint made that toast right before the shark had him for breakfast,” Steve said sarcastically. “Seriously. Maybe you should think of a better movie to toast us.”

They all laughed heartily at that. Then they settled into their appreciation of the rare bottle of expensive scotch. After a time in which they either savoured the incredible whiskey or just became lost in their own thoughts, Steve broke the mellow silence. “You know,” he said wistfully, “I really used to enjoy the view from here.”

The windows provided a panoramic view of West Palm Beach. Normally, Steve would sit here and smile at the view he had always admired. Now, looking out, all he could notice was the devastation of the surrounding area. Two buildings down but not directly in the middle of the view was the month-old still-smouldering wreckage of his friend Josh’s condo building. Although the copter crash had created a huge explosion and fire, Steve still thought it was amazing that there was still that much smoke coming out of the charred wreckage. He could also count five, no six, more buildings that were already burned or were still burning fiercely. Add to that the carnage caused by wrecked vehicles that had plowed into one another or into the ground-level windows of various businesses, and it was a dismal view no matter how warmly the sun was shining or how sparkly the ocean looked. Zombies seemed to be roaming everywhere.