Pariah (38 page)

“I know.”

“She knows.” Ellen felt almost as annoyed at Mona for knowing and keeping mum as she felt about the conspirators’ theft in the first place. “So why didn’t you say something?”

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘
stop stealing my drugs
,’ for starters. What is
wrong
with you? What are they even taking? These clowns have convinced themselves the pills are your secret weapon, you know, against the zombies. And you
knew
? I can’t believe it.”

“Hard not to.”

Alan stepped away from the window, Karl’s plight temporarily cast aside. He was probably dead, anyway. “Hard not to what? Notice the theft?”

“Side effects.”

“
Ooooh
,” the couple said in unison. Eddie and Dave’s rooftop activities. Karl’s schizo religiosity. Side effects. They seemed like natural progressions. Or regressions. But not unexpected. Still. Ellen and Alan felt pretty stupid.

“Severe contraindications,” Mona said, carefully pronouncing the words with a hint of a smile.

“So why do
you
take them?”

“Gotta,” Mona said, sounding not the least bit defensive.

“What are they?”

“Brain chemistry.”

“I just can’t believe you knew and let it happen,” Ellen said, shaking her head.

“I can get more.”

“So, if we’re putting our cards on the table,” Alan said, hesitating, “
are
they your secret? Could Karl have just gone out there on his own? Could Eddie?”

“Doubt it.”

“Why? If they’re taking what you’re taking.”

“Maybe after a few years.”

“Why? Why years? Why maybe?”

“They weren’t born addicted.”

“
Born
addicted.”

“Sort of.”

It was like pulling teeth from a toothless baby, but slowly a picture emerged of Mona’s mother. Not a harried housewife taking part in a clinical prescription-drug trial—just a plain old, garden-variety addict. Mona was chemically altered in the womb and chemically dependent out of it. Alan smiled as he mused,
four toes on each foot
. He remembered documentaries on PBS about thalidomide and crack babies. Four toes and a blunted persona were a lot better than flippers or no limbs at all. So
this
was the key to Mona’s immunity? As birth defects went, this one was as Darwinian as they came. Defect or evolution?
Better living through chemistry
, as the maxim went.

And when the drugs ran out, whither Mona?

Did she even need them any more?

Did she ever?

As Karl lay on the table contemplating his imminent demise, he failed to notice he’d shifted his weight off his hips and crossed his legs. From his upside down perspective he stared vacantly across the verge, to the street choked with undead. He glanced up at the hole through which he’d fallen, hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus or some angel beckoning him forth, home, but no such luck. He wiped his forehead and started counting off the moments left.

“What a moron!”

Karl sat upright, feeling pins and needles where before he felt nothing.

“What an idiot!”

He looked at his hands, flexing the fingers and rotating the wrists.

“What a stupid ass! Thank you God! Thank you Jesus! Thank . . . Oops.”

Not being paralyzed equaled glee equaled lack of judgment
equaled shouting. He turned toward the street and saw zombies staring back. “Oh, balls,” Karl peeped. The mob amassed by the window frames hadn’t quite figured out how to vault the two-and-a-half-foot wall that separated them from their appetizing quarry, but it was only a matter of time. Even if they didn’t have the smarts to lift one leg over, repeat, the shoving from the peanut gallery would deliver the first wave over the hump in a trice. Karl massaged his legs, trying to rid himself of the paraesthesia in his thighs and calves. They prickled under his palms, which did likewise. From no sensation to an overabundance in scant moments. Karl would feel blessed were he not on the verge of soiling himself in terror. He dropped to the floor, feeling wobbly, but
feeling
.

For a nanosecond he felt angry with Mona for leaving him, but she was no medico. She was just a girl. A spooky chick. But she’d gone for help. He couldn’t wait for her to return. She’d be pleased that she’d been wrong.

The floor felt solid. Then again, it had felt solid upstairs, too. The zombies’ ingress was looming. So much for Mona’s miracle drug. Fucking Eddie. How could he have been stupid enough to believe Eddie was right about
anything
? He was about as immune to zombies as an ice cube was to a hot plate. He tried the walkie-talkie again, to let Mona know he was up. Nothing but static. Karl did a little spastic two-step, a sort of silent comedian windup, but he didn’t know where to run. The divider between them and him was still doing the trick, but once they got in, it was going to be a big ol’ feeding frenzy. The first few zombies plopped over the partition and fell in heaps on the sooty ground, attempting to right themselves as more dropped on top of them. And then more. Karl aimed the beam from his headlamp up the escalator. What would the odds be of falling through the floor twice? Tempt fate by fleeing upwards or fulfill the obvious by sticking around down below? Caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Maybe he could make it to
the roof. Then what? Jump? One thing at a time. On spongy legs Karl made for the escalator and gripped the rubbery handrails in a half pull, half run to the landing.

“Idiot!” he barked at the top, realizing he still bore the heavy knapsack.

As it dropped to the roasted floor Karl fled to the second-floor restrooms in the back. Maybe, like in the movies, there would be some air duct he could climb into that would lead to safety. He slammed into the men’s room—noting for a nanosecond how funny it was that even now he consciously chose it as opposed to the ladies’ room—and scanned the dark chamber, aiming the beam this way and that. Drop ceiling, but no grating, no duct.
Typical, typical, typical. Don’t have faith in Eddie and never believe what you see in the movies. Idiot!

No lock on the entrance door, of course. He opened it and peeked out. The zombies still hadn’t made the mezzanine.
There’s got to be a way out of here. Think
. But without a floor plan it was just guesswork. The first wave of zombies had made it to the landing. Karl couldn’t see them yet, but he heard them shuffling, moaning, exuding pure need. Did they scent him, like hounds at the hunt? Maybe his odor was masked by the stink of char. His only option was the stall with the bolt lock. If he perched on the toilet and was very quiet, maybe they wouldn’t find him.
Cripes
. The moans were hungry. Purposeful.
Oh Jesus
. It sounded like there were a lot of them.

Tons.

Tons.

With a thunderous crash a large portion of the charred floor gave way.

It’s raining zombies. Hallelujah
.

______

“Hey, Eddie,” Alan shouted across the roofs. “Can I tear you away from that for a minute?”

Eddie glared over at Zotz, then refocused on the struggler on his line. “The fuck do you want? Can’tcha see I’m busy?”

Alan approached with caution, staying one full rooftop away.

“Yeah, I can see that you’re busy, but this is important.”

“It’d better be,” Eddie snapped, cutting the line as it dipped. Stripped to the waist and glistening, Eddie strutted over to Alan. “The Comet hates letting little fishies get away,
capisce
?”

“Yeah. Look, Karl’s stranded at the Barnes and Noble on Eighty-sixth, between Second and Third. You wanna go, maybe help him out? According to Mona, he’s kind of busted up.”

“Figures,” Eddie sneered. “Send a twerp out to do a man’s work, this is what you get.”

“You’re all heart,” Alan said, involuntarily flinching in preparation for retaliation.

“Don’t I fuckin’ know it,” Eddie said, removing his bandana and mopping his forehead. “Karl wasn’t eaten or some shit like that, right? How was he busted up?”

“He fell through a hole in the floor.”

Eddie laughed. “Fuckin’
testa di merda
. So he wasn’t chawed on? Just his own stupidity got his ass broke? Figures. So, was it Mona kept him safe, or the drugs?”

“I dunno. All I know is what she told me, and she’s a woman of few words.”

“I heard that. This is good. I wanna put my theory to the test, know what I’m saying? Fuck yeah. I’ll play hero with Tuesday Addams.”

“Tuesday Addams?”

“Yeah, the bitch from
The Munsters.
Christina Ricci played her in the movie, before her titties blew up.”

“Oh,
that
Tuesday Addams,” Alan said, thinking,
it’s
Wednesday,
you fucking moron. From
The Addams Family?
Hello?
“
Mazel tov
. I’ll go tell her.”

Fuckin’ Jew
, Eddie thought as Alan headed back downstairs.

“
The Munsters
,” Alan groused. “Christ, I hope they eat that asshole.”

“You ready?” Alan asked the ever-more Rambo-like Eddie Tommasi.

“I was
born
ready,” Eddie said, eliciting smirks from Alan and Ellen.
We know something you don’t know
their internal singsong rejoinder.

Still shirtless, but now wearing urban camouflage pants and jump boots, Eddie dropped onto the roof of the
DABNEY LOCKSMITH & ALARM
van, his posture that of the stalwart hero of every action/adventure movie lensed from the eighties on up: knees bent, arms out and bent at the elbows, large hunting knife in hand. He even wore fingerless gloves.

Dave was too distraught to see Eddie off. Instead, feeling like an emotional coward, he sequestered himself in his apartment where he cried and began to drink heavily. Although Dabney had shared Dave’s current mindset when Karl set out, he very much wanted to witness Eddie’s departure. If the bastard returned a hero, so much the better, but if he were to get devoured right out of the gate, Dabney didn’t want to miss a single ligament-shredding second of it.
“Good luck,” he murmured, toasting with a tumbler of bourbon. He mostly meant it, if only to ensure Karl’s safe return.

Once again, Mona created a clearing, then gestured for her companion to follow. With a defiant
just-try-to-eat-me
thud, Eddie dropped to the asphalt and glared roundly at the frothing skinbags.
G’wan
, he motioned, chin jutting.
Wanna piece o’ me? C’mon.
Nothing doing. Buoyed by their reluctance to encroach, Eddie stepped forward, following Mona’s pert, round behind. How long would he follow? Could he take the lead? He felt pumped. Even more pumped than on the roof. This was a major rush. Major.

Flanked by resentful spectators, the duo soldiered west on the main drag, their progress greeted by hissing and keening. Mona didn’t look back, just straight ahead toward their destination. Eddie didn’t care. She was nothing to talk to. He’d rather divide his focus between the crowd and the cleft of Mona’s ample, perfectly round butt. The seam of her pants emphasized the division between the cheeks. Oh yeah. Betwixt those orbs was pure, sweet honey. How many months had he wasted between Mallon’s flat Irish loaves? Mallon. Dave. His pasty potato-eatin’ keister, two slabs of lightly pimpled pancake, white as Wonder bread but not nearly as appetizing.

“So, you think Peewee is still alive?” Eddie said, breaking the silence.

“Huh?”

“Karl. You think he’s still alive?”

“Dunno.”

“He was getting’ kinda weird, there, clutchin’ that Bible kinda tight. You’d of thunk maybe he had God on his side. But maybe not.”

“Dunno.”

Dunno. Pfff. Always a pleasure talking to Mona
. “You ever see that
Ten Commandments
movie? ‘
Mmmyaaah
, where’s yuh messiah,
now, see
?’ That shit’s funny, right? That’s what I’m gonna say to Karl when we catch up with him. All
this
. . .” Eddie gestured at the zombies, not that Mona saw, and continued, “I used to go to church, right? I mean, c’mon. Italian from Bensonhurst? Of
course
I’m Catholic to the bone, because of my moms. But this shit?” Another nod to the undead. “Who could believe in God? So I wanna ask Karl, where’s
his
messiah now?”

Nothing. No reply.

“What? You into God, too? Sorry to offend.”

“I’m not.”

“Not sorry or not offended?”

“I don’t believe in God.”

Even though they were in agreement, for some reason her response annoyed him. She probably never believed. It’s one thing to lose faith; it’s another never to have had it in the first place. That was kind of arrogant. Eddie didn’t believe in God, but atheists were assholes. Just as smug as born-agains, but colder. Like they were better than everyone else. Better not to talk. Better to just scope that pear-shaped ass. With each footfall one buttock would jiggle, then the other. It was hypnotic. As he allowed himself to be transfixed by Mona’s tush, Eddie started humming, then quietly singing, “
I see you baby, shakin’ that ass, shakin’ that ass
. . . .” Eddie used to dance like crazy to that song. He’d hit the clubs, make with the gyrations and then bring a hottie or two home for some pelvic mayhem. The more focused his reminiscences the louder his singing.