The Death Doll (4 page)

Paula smiled and nodded while Sean shook the man’s hand over the table.

“How do you all have electricity?” Sean asked.

“We’ve constructed a generator,” Jerri said.  “It powers the entire block.”

Sean nodded.  “What kind of fuel do you use?”

Jerri glanced timidly at Bob and Craig and ate her food.

“That’s not something we discuss at meals,” Craig answered while running his fork through a bite of his quiche.  “You’ll learn all of this later today.”

The look on Jerri’s face made the nape of Paula’s neck tingle.

THE ROPES

Didi always loved showing the new people the ropes.  No matter how frightened they were, seeing where they were going to work always livened them up.  Well, almost always.  This moment, she couldn’t have been happier to see the look on her new farmer’s face as he gawked at crops growing on almost every roof on the compound.  She wished she could clearly see what each elevated garden box produced, or the chickens pecking at the few empty boxes, but all the blurry colors painted a pretty-enough picture of her camp’s success.

“Where’d you get all this dirt?” Sean asked.

“We dug tunnels to lower our surface traffic,” Didi replied as she led him to one of the bridges connecting all the rooftops.

“Looks like they still hear you up here.”

She turned to see Sean pointing over the fence.  A few blobs—boneheads, by the way they walked—trudged toward them with addle-minded determination.  She waved them off.  “I’ll get rid of them in a little bit.”

Sean flinched as he followed her across the bridge.  “Well, I’m still amazed.  To think, this was all right down the highway this whole time.”

“We didn’t know you were there.  Must’ve been that high wall of yours.”

Sean snickered, but he looked a little disconnected.  She felt sorry for him having to lose his home, but was glad to be able to help him move on in some way.

They met Bob, who was planting something in an empty row.  He greeted Sean with a handshake. “Welcome to the Sunny Skies.”

Sean nodded cordially.   “So I see.  What you’ve all done here is amazing.”

“We’re glad to have you with us.  It’s pretty simple here.  We tend the crops and keep a lookout.” Bob pointed to a small box with a red button mounted on a corner of the building.  “We’ve got silent alarm buttons all over that make lights flash everywhere inside.  Over there are Ron, Oscar, and Tito,” he pointed out two burly men chatting with a beefy Hispanic guy around a different roof crop.  They didn’t seem to notice.  “We also teach others how to do this.”

“My wife’s the teacher,” he said with a sheepish chuckle.  “I just grow things.”

“We cross-train to make sure we can keep thriving when we lose someone,” Didi said. 

“I guess that makes sense,” Sean ceded, then pointed at the garden box Bob had been planting.  “What’s this one going to be?”

“Come springtime,” Bob flashed his eyebrows, “strawberries.”

Didi patted both men on the shoulder.  “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

The two men waved after her and carried on a conversation about the other fruits and vegetables to come. 

She headed back down through the theater access panel, collected Pepe, and escorted him through the Courtyard toward the Clinic.  The young man took in the walled-off alleys and parking lots.  He frowned at the barely-used lawn chairs and bistro tables.

“We call this the Courtyard,” she said. “We don’t use it much, but picnics occasionally happen.  The farmers up top will let us know when something’s coming.”

Pepe glanced up at the fence-lined rooftops and nodded.  “Pretty smart.”

They approached the huge moving company trailer and climbed the small stairway into the center doorway.  There, she enjoyed seeing Pepe’s jaw drop at the sight of the well-stocked medical bay.  She reflected on the days she spent placing the six hospital beds—complete with clean sheets—that now lined one of the white walls.  She laughed to herself at the misadventures of finding the medical equipment that now stood behind a desk near the other end of the trailer; not to mention the drugs to stock all those glass shelves.  She did whatever it took to improve the quality of life here in Plaza de Vida.

On a nearby bed, Gilda finished bandaging the leg of a child who hopped off the table and froze at the sight of Pepe standing in the doorway.

Gilda smiled brightly and waved in the young man.  “Come on in.  Welcome to the Clinic.”

Pepe took a few steps and stopped when he noticed Didi didn’t follow him.  “You’re not coming in?”

She hated this part.  “I have a thing about hospitals,” was her latest excuse.  “Go on.”

Pepe frowned, but he nodded and approached Gilda and her young patient.

“Pepe Sanchez, meet Raymond Lister, who goes by Ray Ray,” Gilda introduced.  “Ray Ray, this is our new friend Pepe, who’ll be studying to become a nurse.”

Pepe flinched from Gilda, then offered Ray Ray a hand.  The kid looked him up and down, gave him an upward nod, and ran out of the Clinic.  Pepe regained his bearings enough to ask Gilda, “A nurse?”

“Don’t be offended,” Cody said as he entered past Didi, giving her a friendly nod in passing.  “Without a doctor, we’re all nurses or medics here.  When we’re not treating patients, we’re studying all those mind-numbing tomes and journals over there,” he pointed out the three in-line bookshelves near the desk.  “We may even get lucky enough to save a life one day.”

“Don’t let him scare you,” Gilda said with a smile.  “I’ve been a nurse for over forty years and I can tell you he knows his stuff.”

Despite the elder nurse’s reassurance, Pepe still looked nervous.  “Have you read all of that?”

“There may be a few we haven’t touched yet,” Gilda said with a humble gesture.  Didi found the elder nurse’s sense of humor a little too subtle.

Pepe nodded.  “I’m impressed.”

“Good,” Cody replied as he tossed Pepe a thick book, “because we’re starting right now.”

Pepe stared agape at the copy of Gray’s Anatomy in his waiting arms.  Didi didn’t envy the young man. 

She took her cue and moved on to her next inductee, who wasn’t waiting in the lobby for her.  Hashim hung around to tell her Jerri and Craig had just scooped up their new people.  Wanting to maintain her good mood a little longer, she checked on Paula first.

She found Jerri and Paula in the waiting area outside the School Room, staring at all the kids playing and learning.  Didi glanced in and saw Clarissa reading something from Doctor Seuss.  She couldn’t see the title from where she stood; only that ugly orange cover. 

Paula looked like she wanted to cry.  Didi waited to see if the bewildered stiff would.

“That’s Clarissa Groenig,” Jerri said while pointing through the glass.  “She’s great with the kids, though she has admitted more than once that she can only handle so many.  Of course, she’s still dealing with sleepless nights after having her own this past summer.”

Paula frowned at Clarissa; that same look of disbelief every new person showed at seeing their resident beauty queen.  “I’ve seen her before.”

“I’m not surprised,” Jerri said.  “She was first runner up for Miss Minnesota.  She can be a little touchy about it, so watch yourself.”

Paula nodded.  “Are any of them yours?”

“Those three there,” the older blonde replied, pointing at a set of sleeping triplets in a crib.  “I grew up with lots of kids around, so I’m used to it.  Some of the others are with their parents.  The rest were orphaned, so we matched them with guardians here in camp.”

Paula’s eyes went blank for a moment, then awoke. “Who is Rachelle’s guardian?”

“She was emancipated,” Jerri answered matter-of-factly, “the only one in camp.  She stays in the Day Shift Bay with the rest of you.”

“Someone could rape her in her sleep,” Paula quietly protested.

Jerri laughed lightly.  “No one would dare.  She’s Didi protégé.  She would rip them apart.”

“That young girl?” Paula hissed in shock.  “She’s fifteen, right?”

Jerri spoke before Didi could.  “Don’t let her youth fool you.  She’s tough as nails.  She refused to have a guardian and insisted on Didi training her.”

Paula looked pissed, which made Didi incredibly curious about what such a priss would do about it.

“Didi’s not all bad if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jerri offered.  “She and Cody risk a lot to make all this possible.”

“And, in return, you gave up your freedom?  Your children’s freedom?”

Again, Jerri beat Didi to the punch.  “It’s not like that.  She and Cody are very fair.”

“What about what that guy Roy said about cutting our heads off?”

Jerri giggled.  “Roy’s just a major grouch.  He and his son Lee have never agreed with how Didi and Cody do things, but the results speak for themselves.”

“Even still.  No one seems comfortable around Didi and Cody, except maybe you people on the Panel.  Plus, she’s very evasive.  I even asked her about her name, but she won’t—”

“Why don’t we meet the children, huh?” Jerri desperately interrupted with a hopeful grin.  “I’ll bet they’d love to meet their new teacher.”

Paula huffed, took a moment, pasted on a grin, and went into the School Room. 

Jerri glanced at Didi as she followed Paula. 

Didi wondered if this Paula person was going to be another potential problem.  On that note, she had one more newbie to gauge.

THE POWER

The further Isaac followed Craig through the dim tunnels, the muggier it got.  A bunch of porch lamps stuck out of the dirt walls to light his way through the packed earth with no support beams.  He tried to breathe deeper, but an awful stench grew stronger with each step.  He covered his nose.  “Aw, man, what is that funk?”

“You’ll see soon enough, friend,” Craig said with a sick grin. “You’ll get used to it.”

Isaac wanted to knock the guy’s teeth out for such an obvious lie, but he followed a step behind with his eyes peeled and his nose plugged tight.

The funky tunnel led into a two-story cave with massive floodlights aimed at a giant wooden turbine.  A chain-link fence with a roof surrounded the machine, filling half the cave.  Gears along the center pole turned a large belt by the ceiling that turned other things that Isaac grew bored trying to figure out.  He didn’t see what turned the wheel, but he knew he was going to bust someone’s ass if it turned out to be him.
Stick the brother in the basement.  Shit just don’t change.

The air choked him, making him cough, but the other four guys lounged around the fence like they were smelling nothing but roses. 

“Huge sucker, isn’t it?” Craig said with that stupid grin of his while handing over a surgical mask.  “Took a month to build, but it barely ever needs maintenance.”

Isaac put the mask on, which smelled of flowers but gave no relief from the rotten odor filling the cave.  “Why does it stink so bad?  Fucking worse than death down here.”

Craig waved toward the fence, looking like he wanted to laugh.  “See for yourself.”

Through the fencing, several pigs rooted around in shit and sludge.  Half of them bunched up around a chute, where one of the four guys dumped garbage bags stacked in a large, wooden box.  The other half ran along the narrow path made by an inner fence, inside of which quickly told him why everyone in the Dining Hall was afraid of the Power. 
Face-munchers!

Tied to spokes sticking out of the base of the turbine, a bunch of zombies chased the swine in the outer cages like racing dogs chasing mechanical rabbits, which pulled the wheel.  Things that used to be people were now cogs in a giant machine.  It was vile and brilliant at the same time. 

Isaac’s stomach turned more from the horror than from the smell.  “Y’all are sick, man!”

“Maybe, but it keeps us warm.  If you think Chicago winters are bad, wait until you feel them here.”

Isaac tried hard not to throw up all the same.  “If they do the pulling, what do we do?”

“Toss the waste in there, recycle materials, and make sure the animals are cared for.  Pretty simple.  Sunny Skies handles the husbandry, but we’ll help with—”

Isaac turned to walk out.  “Man, I ain’t doing this shit.”

“It’s not all bad,” Craig said while grabbing Isaac’s shoulder.  “Shifts are pretty liberal, so—”

Isaac smacked the dude’s hand down and got up in the plaid-wearing sicko’s face.  “You better get up off me if you don’t want to end up like that bitch when I find her.”

“You don’t want to do that, friend.”

Isaac shoved him back and headed for the stairs.  “I ain’t your friend, and I don’t need a bunch of corn-fed white people trying to show this brother who’s boss.”

Craig grabbed Isaac’s wrist and whipped him around fast, ending up face to face with him.  “If you think that’s what’s happening here, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Isaac grabbed a handful of plaid and reared his fist.  “Know what you got coming?”

Suddenly, his head exploded with pain and he ended up on the ground.  He cradled the back of his head as he popped up to give his attacker double the pain.  Something cold and sharp jammed against his throat, stopping him in his tracks.

“Am I going to have any more problems out of you?” that creepy bitch said from behind her sword.

“I tried to tell him, but—” Craig’s bitching got cut off when Didi threw up her hand, her eyes never leaving Isaac’s.  Or blinking.

“No one’s forcing you to stay,” she said, “but if you do, you will protect and respect each other.  Don’t like it?  Leave.  Got it?”

Not wanting his throat cut, he grinned and nodded.  “Sure, baby, whatever.”

Didi’s eyes narrowed at him for a few seconds, then she removed her blade, put it back in its sheath, and walked away.

Not letting her off so easily, Isaac wrapped one of his arms around her neck and yanked back.  Everyone else turned toward him like they were going to do something but looked too scared.  He finally got something through to them, so now it was this bitch’s turn.  “Thought you were going to tell me what’s what, huh, bitch?  You better figure out there ain’t nobody—”

Before he knew it, he ended up flying over Didi’s shoulder.  He hit the ground so hard, the impact knocked the wind out of him.  He tried to roll away, but she quickly mounted him and grasped his throat with one gloved hand.  His eyes bulged as her grip tightened, then burned when her fingers pierced his flesh.  He tried to grab her, but she kept swatting his arms away like flies, with that same grin.  She was much stronger than she looked.  All he could do was gurgle.

“Don’t piss me off, Isaac,” she said with a cold edge to her voice, then threw her free hand out to her side and asked for a towel. 

Craig ran into a hole in the wall and quickly returned with a small towel, placing it in her waiting hand.  She draped it over Isaac’s neck and broke her death grip.  He yelped as he clutched the rag.  She stood over him with a cold yet comical grin.  Her eyes were dark and daring, and she still didn’t blink.  She looked like a predator about to sink her teeth into him. 

Finally, she turned and sauntered away. 

Craig stepped up to him and offered a hand.  “Come on, friend.  There’s a first aid kit in Ben’s office.”

Isaac frowned but allowed himself to be helped to his feet.  “Who’s … Ben?”  Talking set his throat on fire.

Craig led him into the hole in the wall, which turned out to be a small office.  At a simple desk, a pile of blondish dreadlocks snoozed.  He kicked the mop-top’s chair. 

The wily-looking, cocoa-skinned man jumped up like he was being attacked.  His scraggly beard looked more unkempt than his hair.  He was easily in his forties.  Or strung out on drugs.  Maybe both.

“Ben, we need your first aid kit,” Craig said.  “This is Ben Dayton, our esteemed plumber.  We help him out here and there.”

The spotty-faced Rasta man fixed his tan eyes on Isaac and sniffled, but said nothing.  He looked like he didn’t know what was going on.

“First aid kit?” Craig reminded him.

Ben grinned like an asshole as he reached into his desk and pulled out a white metal box.  “One o’ da chain gang get a grip?” he asked with a Creole accent.

“Close,” Craig said.  “Didi.”

Those glazed eyes bugged out.  “Oooh, ya don’t want none of dat mess.”

“No shit,” Isaac made himself say.  “Where you from?”

“The Big Easy,” Ben proudly declared while Craig opened the case and put on some surgical gloves.  “Ya ever been?”

“Yeah, but I ain’t …. going now.  Don’t want to see no ... jazz funeral today.”

Ben laughed as he nodded.  “Some memories should no’ be messed wit’.”

Isaac let himself snicker a little, even though it hurt like a bitch.  “How’d you get here?”

Craig grinned at Ben while bandaging Isaac’s neck.  “Yeah.  Tell him how you got here.”

The dense-looking plumber told a mad tale of escaping the dead masses of New Orleans, an aimless group wandering north on the notion that zombies would freeze, an overrun camp in Little Rock, and most of the unfortunate group getting eaten in Council Bluffs.  By the time Craig finished patching up Isaac’s neck, Ben and some kid named Jake had come close to biting it in Sioux City when the “dark angel with a lightning blade” rescued them in the middle of a blizzard.  It had to be the stupidest tale of survival Isaac had ever heard.

Craig thanked Ben and ushered Isaac out.  The Rasta man plopped back down in his chair with a wave, leaned back, and closed his weary-looking eyes.

“So, what do you think?” Craig had the nerve to ask.

Isaac shook his head.  “I think y’all are nuts.”

Craig laughed heartily.

“I’m serious, man!  How do y’all think this ain’t going to bite you in the ass?
Literally
?”

The curly sponsor waved at some tables and chairs along a wall, where a bunch of makeshift stabbing weapons hung on hooks.  “We’ve got it covered.”

Isaac frowned.  He’d seen tough mindsets about the dead, but these guys were totally cool about it—the kind of cool that got careless.  The fence around that wheel looked a whole lot weaker all of the sudden.

Craig patted Isaac on the back and smiled.  “Let me introduce you to the others.”

Isaac followed, keeping an eye on this crazy white guy.

*****

After that marvelous barbecue chicken dinner and a good shower, Pepe got a little turned around trying to find the Day Shift Bay.  The tunnels were so humid, he felt like he went swimming in waste water.  He ended up in a large room with the remnants of a wall on the ceiling, telling him it used to be two different spaces.  Fine drapery covered the boarded up exits and windows.  L-shaped couches green as moss lined the walls of one wall, while café tables lined the opposite.  In the back was a service counter with a coffee maker, a blender, a microwave, a toaster, and a giant refrigerator.  A glass dessert tray appealed to him, but his full belly protested. 

“Hey, it’s Mister Pre-Med Northwestern,” came from behind him.

A crater-faced kid approached from one of the gray futon couches surrounding a potted bush.  A few boys and girls around his age followed him like a posse.

“Pepe’s fine,” he joked, but they didn’t seem amused.

“He don’t look like much,” said one with a buzz cut over vacant blue eyes.

Pepe shrugged.  “Am I supposed to?”

The boys started teasing him like some kind of geek until Crater-Face shushed them with a snarky grin, which revealed braces that looked like blue Chiclets.  “He’s just new.  Let’s introduce him around.  I’m Jake Vaughn.  I was going for that apprenticeship with Cody before you showed up.”

That explained the sarcasm.

“My bro, here, who doesn’t think much of you is Dandy Michaels.”  The oafish-looking brunet sneered at Pepe.  “Next, we have Jeremy Fuoss,” Jake waved toward the hulking prototype of a green-eyed farm boy, “Brad Faber,” he motioned toward the slightly shorter yet oddly broader youth with a smug grin, “and Lee Wielenga,” he patted the back of a slender yet severe-looking dark haired boy. “And, of course, the girls.  This is Lydia Young,” with a wave toward a homely raven-haired girl with round eyes and a slightly rounder figure, “Belinda Dunn,” to a curly-haired brunette whose small figure made Pepe wonder if she wasn’t giving Lydia her meals, “and Megan Van Der Steig,” pointing out a smooth-faced redhead who looked bored beyond belief.

Pepe offered a smile and a wave to them all, but they stared him down like the kids at his old high school used to. 
God, I miss college.

“Anyway, we’re trying to wrap up, so if you’ll excuse us,” Jake said curtly, then grabbed a broom and headed to the other side of the café. 

The guy’s friends sneered or scoffed at Pepe and went back to their chores.

That went well
, he thought, figuring he’d get all he was going to out of these kids.  He opted for grown-up company and turned back toward the tunnels when he softly collided with an angel. 

The smaller, fair-haired beauty smiled back up at him over a cardboard box.  “Mind if I come in?” she asked with the sweetest smile Pepe had ever seen. 

Jarring himself back to reality, he stepped aside and allowed her to pass. 

She shifted the box onto her shapely hip and offered her hand.  “I’m Dawn.  Maxwell.”

Pepe shook her tiny hand and tried to say his name, which caught somewhere in the back of his clenching throat.  He felt hot under his collar, and his heart pounded mercilessly.

“You’re Pepe, right?” she asked.

He could only nod like an idiot.

She kept smiling anyway.  “Nice to meet you.”

Growing desperate, he forced himself to cough.

She gave a cute little frown as she recoiled, still smiling.  “Are you okay?”

“Dawn, we’re busy here,” Jake insisted with an expectant glare.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed.  “Duty calls.  See you around?”

“I hope so,” Pepe finally said.

Dawn giggled and walked past him.

Pepe’s head tingled as he watched Dawn pull a bunch of rags from the box and hand them out to her peers.  He caught Jake sneering at him, but he didn’t care.  He enjoyed the view of the lithe, cheery angel until his experience with girls told him it was time to stop.

He wandered for a little while longer and got a lay of the land.  Every room he crossed looked either alive with work or calm with chatter.  When others paused to face him, he moved on.  He ran into the teens again as they put away their cleaning supplies in the Laundry Room, joking about Didi sleeping with a bunch of people. Dawn smiled at him again, so he had to leave to avoid making a fool of himself again.  A few people brushed past him in the hall as they bantered about the evening guard.  Feeling more and more like he was in the way, he tried the tunnels again.  One passage smelled too horrible to investigate further, making him turn around.