The Dishonored Dead (6 page)

Staring now at the metal door, thinking about what was carved on the other side, Conrad wished again he could tell his wife everything, he wished he could confess. But he knew keeping the truth from Denise was for the best. After all, this was how things worked, how the world turned, people lying to protect one another.

Turning away from the metal door, he walked past the rest of the dust-covered boxes and files. He went up the stairs into the basement, turned the corner and ran right into someone coming his way.

He grunted in surprise, dropping the box. The man he’d just run into quickly bent and grabbed the box, offered it back to Conrad with a lowered head and a murmured apologize.

“Don’t worry about it,” Conrad said. He took the box, started to step around the man, but paused. “What are you doing down here anyway?”

“Rats,” the man murmured. His head was still lowered.

Conrad remembered seeing some droppings in the subbasement. “Where’s Jerry?”

Jerry was their usual weekday janitor.

“He’s sick,” the man murmured. He raised his head just a little, enough for Conrad to see his thick glasses and beard. “I’m covering. Sorry again for running into you.”

“Let me see your ID.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your ID. Let me see it.”

The man didn’t move for the longest time, just frowning at him. Finally he reached into his pocket and extracted his identification and handed it to Conrad.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

The name on the ID was Joseph Cook. Conrad held it up and compared the picture with the janitor’s face. After the attempt on his existence the other day, he wasn’t taking any chances.

“No problem.” Conrad handed the ID back. “Just get all of those rats expired, okay?”

He started with
his locker first, took down the pictures of Denise and Kyle. Next he went up to his office on the third floor. Here he cleaned out his desk, but there wasn’t much except a few more pictures of his family. Truth be told, that was all he really wanted to take with him. Not his commendations, not his medals, not his awards, not even his personalized letter from the Leader thanking him for his services—he placed these in the box as well, but he had no intention of keeping them, figured he would throw them away once he got to wherever he was going.

There was a knock at the door.

Norman said, “Have everything?”

Conrad nodded. A moment later, the box now under his arm, he stepped out into the hallway, shut the door behind him. Keeping his voice low, he asked, “Philip know yet this will be his new office?”

Norman nodded. “He was told yesterday. He’s very excited.”

“I’m sure he is.”

Down the hallway came the faint sound of a television, some loud laughter. Both men looked down that way.

“Last chance,” Norman said. “Philip’s out on patrol, so you won’t be forced to see him.”

The room farther down the hallway was called the Deck, a play on the baseball term. It was where the Hunters on duty spent most of their time while waiting for the all-important call, lounging around, lifting weights, playing cards, video games, billiards, joking, napping. They spent most of the day doing this while two other squads drove around the city in black Humvees (vehicles exclusive to Hunters), making sure their presence was known, and come nighttime almost all of them would leave, squads driving around not only the city but also the surrounding suburbs, because it was at night when the zombies almost always appeared.

The Deck was the place Conrad had wanted to avoid today.

“And what do you expect me to say to them?”

“I don’t know. But you worked with most of them for nearly a decade. The least you can do is say goodbye.”

“They think I’m afraid of zombies now. Did you know that?”

Norman was silent.

“Frank stopped me when I first got here this morning. He said he’d heard the news, wanted to wish me luck. He said it was an honor to serve under me and that he didn’t believe what everyone else was saying.”

“Frank’s a good rookie,” Norman said. Down the hallway, more laughter came from the Deck. “I’d say he’s one of our best recruits.”

Conrad barely heard him. He thought about what Frank had then told him, about what everyone else was saying, and repeated once more how he didn’t believe it. Frank, a kid barely twenty years old, a newlywed, one of the few Hunters nowadays that truly believed in honor and integrity and professionalism. Conrad thought about how Frank had then saluted him—his feet together, his back straight, his flattened hand held to his forehead—and how he continued standing there, staring back at Conrad, a statue that would not move until he was dismissed.

Some more laughter exploded from the room, and someone shouted: “I’m telling you the truth, she ate the whole fucking thing!”

Conrad shifted the box to his other side, looked at Norman, and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

They took Norman’s
car. Out of the parking garage and into the city streets, over the bridge and onto the Shakespeare, neither of them spoke. Eventually Norman got off at an exit near the country, made a right at the top of the ramp, and drove for another ten minutes.

They passed homes, farms, dead cows and sheep grazing in fields, countless telephone poles supporting their burdens of black wire upon black wire. Eventually they turned off the main road onto a narrow, poorly maintained side road that was sheltered by tall gray trees. What little sunlight there had been fighting through the heavy clouds was shut out by the thick leaves and branches.

A half mile on this side road brought them to an extended gate. It seemed to be the only thing around besides the trees.

Two men appeared out of the trees. Both wore gray and black camouflage. Both carried rifles. They checked out the car with some kind of sensor, reviewed Conrad’s and Norman’s Hunter badges, then allowed them to continue.

After another quarter mile the trees started to thin and they passed a large white building. It was about three hundred yards long, maybe one hundred yards tall, with no windows of any kind. It had a small parking lot dotted with a few cars and vans.

Conrad expected Norman to pull in there, but when he didn’t and they continued on and the place was lost behind the shield of gray trees, he asked what that was.

Norman answered, “We call it the Warehouse.”

Another building appeared out of the thinning trees. This building wasn’t as big as the one they’d just passed. In fact, it was barely a quarter of the size. It too was white and had no windows. But in its parking lot there were at least three times the number of vehicles that had been in the previous lot.

Norman parked and they got out. Though Conrad had been in the country and woods a few times throughout the course of his existence, he had never grown accustomed to the silent stillness of nature.

“This is it?” Conrad asked.

“Do you think you’ll remember how to get here on your own?”

They walked to the entrance, a simple glass door. It had no handle and Norman had to wave up to a security camera before there was a buzz and the door opened.

Just inside the door was a small corridor that led to a very large but simple desk. Behind this was an older woman wearing glasses.

“Hello, Norman,” she said. “Is this the new transfer?”

“That’s right.”

The women stood up, smiled at Conrad and extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Cynthia”

Conrad shook her hand, smiled back.

“Now,” Cynthia said, pulling something from her desk, “if you would just look into this.”

She held a thin device up to his face, right in front of his left eye. Suddenly there was a flash, a brilliant light, and Conrad started blinking. When he could see properly again, Cynthia was back behind the desk.

“Have fun,” she said.

The next thing Conrad knew Norman was taking his arm and leading him past the desk, down the corridor to an elevator. The old captain took a key from his pocket—not one of the keys on his usual keyring—and placed it in a slot. He turned it, and the two metal doors slid apart.

“After you,” Norman said.

Conrad stepped inside. He immediately looked at the panel for how many floors this elevator serviced. There was none. Just another key slot like the one Norman had already used.

“I guess we’re going to the basement?”

“You could say that.” He slid the key into the slot. “Only this basement is about a quarter of a mile deep.”

Norman turned the key, the doors slid shut, and they started their descent into the earth.

Chapter 7

A man was
waiting for them when the elevator doors opened. He looked to be about Norman’s age, his head bald, his face stiff, and he was confined to an electric wheelchair.

“Gentlemen,” he said, smiling. “Welcome.”

“Conrad,” Norman said, “this is Dr. Albert Hennessey. He’s the Director of Living Intelligence.”

Albert extended his hand to Conrad. “It’s very nice to meet you, Conrad. Norman has told me a lot about you, and I’ve read your file. You’re quite the Hunter.”

They were in a white, brightly lit corridor. Farther down a few people wearing long white coats walked back and forth.

“I know you have a lot of questions,” Albert said, moving his wheelchair so it was headed down the corridor, “and trust me, your questions will be answered. But please, just bear with me for now.”

The wheelchair’s motor emitted a soft humming as the scientist lead them down the corridor. They came to a T-junction and turned right, continued on and passed a number of closed doors. Conrad noticed that some of the doors were locked by keypads.

A half dozen people walked past them, men and women wearing those long white coats, all of which said hello to Albert, who smiled and nodded at Norman and Conrad.

Eventually they came to Albert’s office. The door was closed but Albert pushed something on his wheelchair and the door swung open just like the entrance door on the surface. The lights were off, but once they entered motion sensors caused the fluorescents in the ceiling to come on, each humming as quietly as Albert’s wheelchair.

The office was small and sparse. There was a desk, two chairs, a row of filing cabinets, a small coffee machine, and a fish tank against the wall. Inside the tank a number of tropical dead fish swam lazily from one end to the other.

Albert moved behind his desk. Conrad and Norman each took a seat.

“Would either of you two gentlemen care for something to drink?”

Both men shook their heads.

“Please, Conrad, I insist you have some coffee.”

Albert turned away from his desk and glided over to the coffee machine. He poured two cups and brought them back to the desk, placed one on the desktop and motioned at it.

“Please, Conrad, humor me and take a sip.”

Glancing warily at Norman, Conrad leaned forward, grabbed the cup, and took a sip.

“How does it taste?”

“Bitter.”

“So it could use some cream and sugar?”

Conrad nodded and set the cup back down on the desk.

Albert said nothing but smiled approvingly at Norman.

Conrad said, “What’s this all about? What is Living Intelligence?”

“A very good question,” Albert said, his smile widening to show off his gray and rotting teeth. “But if you don’t mind, I would first like to ask a question of my own. What do you know about the living?”

“You mean zombies?”

Albert smiled again. “I prefer to call them the living, but yes, okay, what do you know about zombies?”

“They’re monstrosities that don’t deserve to live. They carry parasites that threaten the safety of our world. They have imagination which perverts their minds.”

“And why must they be killed?”

“Because they’re monstrosities. They carry parasites that—”

“Yes, yes, I know all about the Hunter Code. But forget all of that. Just tell me this.
Why
must the living be killed?”

“Because”—glancing at Norman for help—“they’re evil?”

This time Albert’s smile wasn’t so wide. He took a sip of the coffee from the holder on his wheelchair, placed it on the desk, and folded his hands again.

“Conrad, all your existence you’ve been taught the evilness of the living. But what if I were to tell you that the living wasn’t really so evil? That, for the most part, they are just like you and me. What would you say?”

“Why am I here?”

“You are here, Conrad, because you hesitated in killing a zombie. You are here because a number of your men can’t trust you anymore.” Albert paused. “But you are also here because you have proven yourself a great Hunter. Like your father, you live by the Hunter Code, you know how to keep a secret, and the reason you became a Hunter in the first place—at least from my understanding—is that you want to uphold the safety and protection of our humanity. Am I right?”

All of that wasn’t quite true—Conrad had never really had a choice in the matter, it had just been his station in existence and that was what he had followed—but he nodded anyway.

“You are here,” Albert said, “because we need more and more people we can trust. Despite what the Government says, our existence is in peril. Every year more and more people expire. Decades ago a dead lasted until they were about seventy. Now nobody passes beyond sixty, and it’s believed that in another year or so that number will be down to fifty-five. Do you see, Conrad? Do you see that something needs to be done to help keep us together?”

Conrad didn’t see everything, but he saw enough. He shifted again in his seat, leaned forward, and said, “So you’re the Director of Living Intelligence, where you study zombies.”

Albert gave Norman the same approving smile. “I think he’s getting it.”

“You are committing treason against the Government.”

The scientist’s smile faded.

“You are spreading zombie propaganda like the rest of the crazy pro-living extremists all over this world.”