The Return Man: Civilisation’s Gone. He’s Stayed to Bury the Dead. (8 page)

The threat echoed in Marco’s mind as he studied the ugly man on his screen.

Osbourne waited. There was no emotion in his eyes.

Like a piranha
, Marco thought again.
Deciding when to attack.

From off screen Marco heard Benjamin.

‘Come on, man,’ Ben urged, addressing Osbourne. ‘We’re not doing anything wrong. Marco, just talk to the guy. He wants to use us. He told me.’

Marco sighed and hung his head, consulting the dull hardwood floor. Maybe he was getting defensive for no good reason. Maybe Benjamin was right.

Just talk to the guy. See what’s up.

‘All right,’ he decided. ‘Fine, then. How can I help you today?’

Osbourne settled back. ‘Well. Please begin by clarifying what you do.’

‘The short answer?’ Marco asked, not bothering to hide his impatience. Why the interrogation if this asshole already knew?

Because he knows less than he’s letting on. So stick to the basics. No harm in that.

‘There are forty million corpses roaming the Evacuated States,’ Marco began. ‘Everybody who didn’t make it out during the Evacuation. And they were all once somebody’s mom or dad or sweetheart or best friend. So the survivors–the loved ones in the Safe States–contact me.’

‘For what purpose?’

Asshole
, thought Marco. ‘I return the corpses.’

Osbourne looked at him quizzically. ‘Return them?’

‘To the dead. To the
really
dead.’

‘Kill them again, you mean,’ stated Osbourne. ‘And people
want
you to do this? To loved ones?’

Marco shrugged. ‘It’s better than knowing Grandma Bessy is out here, stumbling around in some kind of nightmare, alone, and rotting, and hungry for raw meat–suffering. Unable to enter heaven, maybe, if you believe that. So compassion and concern are part of it. And then there’s closure. The well-defined ending. Same reason people go to wakes and funerals. Seeing the coffin–knowing it’s really over–allows them to move on.’

Osbourne nodded. ‘And so Mr Ostroff finds these people living in the Safe States and offers them your services. How do you know where to find them?’

‘Almost everybody’s lost somebody. Ben just asks around, discreetly.’ Marco studied Osbourne’s face. The man had no wrinkles on his forehead, no creases. The unnatural facade of cosmetic surgery. Above the mouth, the cheeks were pulled too tight.

And who did you lose?
Marco wondered.

‘Yes,’ Osbourne said, giving nothing away. ‘But what I meant was, how do you know where to find the
corpses
you’ve been contracted for? They could be anywhere.’

‘Not really.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘The world is a very big place,’ Marco said. ‘But people
live small lives. Most of us spend ninety per cent of our time in four or five locations–home, work, the park near our house, our favourite bar. The geography is hard-wired into us, so those are the places I start with. Give a corpse time, it’ll usually show up where it would go normally. So I go there, too. Except…’ Marco paused. ‘Sometimes they don’t show, and then it gets a little trickier. Then you have to consider
emotional
geography.’

‘Emotional geography?’

‘Locations with sentimental value,’ Marco continued. ‘Emotion strengthens the hard-wiring. Again, the home is usually top of the list, but beyond there, it’s places like, say, the beach where you proposed to your wife, or the resort where you honeymooned. The hospital where your first kid was born. Like I said, someplace that meant something to you. I find out all I can about each target from the client–the loved one, I mean–and then I go hunting.’

Osbourne shifted in his seat and crossed his legs, one knee neatly below the other. ‘Are you saying,’ he asked, ‘that the dead remember their lives?’

‘In a sense. I wouldn’t say it’s a conscious recall. The human brain is complex–memories of things that happen to us are stored in the neocortex, but there’s strong evidence of an association process taking place first in the limbic system—’

‘Doctor Marco,’ interrupted Osbourne. ‘Now you’re the one showing off. Please, without the medical terminology.’

‘Sorry. Basically, our memories are stored in the higher section of our brain, the part that only more evolved mammals like humans have. But experiences in our lives that take place under strong emotion are tagged before they’re stored, by a more primitive part of our brain–a part that predates our evolution, back to the lower animals. This primitive brain is a pretty scary place. Aggression, rage,
hunger… all the basic survival instincts originate here. A resurrected corpse seems to have lost function of its higher brain, and now it’s being governed by the primitive brain. Ever heard of Dudley and Stephens?’

Osbourne raised an eyebrow. ‘No.’

‘Cannibals. A big criminal case in the late 1800s, in England,’ Marco explained. ‘Three men in a lifeboat after a shipwreck, facing starvation, killed and ate the cabin boy. What happened was that their malnourished bodies conserved energy by shutting down the higher brain, then operated out of the lower brain. The reptilian brain, it’s often called. Evolved functions, like ethics and compassion, went right out the window. The men’s reptilian brains saw a simple choice–eat a boy, or die. So they ate. These corpses aren’t much different.’

‘Interesting. But I’m waiting to hear how their memories work.’

‘Well, there’s clearly still a little juice–bioelectricity, that is–trickling between the brain systems. Barely, but there must be. So that wire between the reptilian brain and the higher brain is still live, and now and then a few lights go on. Remember, these things are dead, but there’s still a trillion megabytes of data stored in the cells of their brains, a lifetime of information. So maybe they see a quick highlight reel, and they just follow the pretty pictures, out of instinct. Maybe they
want
to feel alive again.’

The corner of Osbourne’s lip tensed, and Marco thought he might smile. But he didn’t. Instead he waved his hand, and an officer appeared on the screen to place a glass of water on the table. Osbourne raised it and sipped, swishing the water in his mouth. When he finished, he ran a finger along his lower lip to wipe away an excess drop.

Then he folded his hands again.

‘Thank you, Doctor Marco,’ he said curtly. ‘That was
informative. As I said earlier, my curiosity, then yours. We’ve now reached your turn. So. Beginning with your first question, you are not in trouble, provided you remain as helpful as you’ve been.’

‘You want to hire me,’ Marco guessed.

‘Yes,’ conceded Osbourne. ‘I’ve discussed finances already with Mr Ostroff. A generous contract, and the income would be exempt from the usual Survivor Taxes.’

‘Wow. Are you sure you can afford that?’

The director ignored him. ‘What I did
not
tell Mr Ostroff are the mission details.’

‘Which are?’

Osbourne’s grey eyes squared off with the camera. ‘I’d be happy to tell you, Doctor. But I won’t tell it to your ceiling. Please adjust your camera so that I may see you.’

Damn.
Marco bent his neck, cracking the joints. What the hell. He supposed it didn’t matter. He reached and lowered the cam back to himself. Osbourne nodded.

‘Much better. I dislike speaking into a void.’

Marco half laughed. ‘You still are.’

‘Perhaps,’ Osbourne said, undeterred. ‘You certainly do look sicklier than your photos. The conditions there must be hard on you.’

‘Best shape of my life. Let’s talk details.’

‘Such a trooper. Very well, the details. I need you to find a person–a corpse–on the West Coast. Sarsgard, California. I assume you travel wherever required?’

California.
Marco’s stomach churned.
Shit.
He hadn’t been back to Cally in three years. He wasn’t sure his heart could handle another trip there.

‘Yes,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘I travel. I assume Benjamin factored that into the price he gave you.’

Osbourne waved a hand dismissively. ‘Yes, yes. I’m not here to haggle.’

‘Good, then. California will take time. The more populated the area, the more careful I get. The slower I go.’ Marco rubbed his throat, exhausted from all the talk, as if the mere mention of California had overworked him. ‘Look,’ he concluded. ‘You heard my story. Family and friends, all that. So then–who exactly is the “loved” one I’m supposed to put a bullet in for the US Department of Homeland Security? Something tells me it’s not Grandma Bessy.’

‘Very perceptive of you,’ Osbourne remarked. ‘No grandmothers. You’re looking for a man. A doctor by the name of Roger Terrence Ballard.’

Marco stiffened.

Osbourne studied him a moment, then continued. ‘I’ll assume you want to know everything I know. This Doctor Ballard was last seen at a medical prison centre in Sarsgard, the week after the outbreak. The centre had been overrun by then, the inmates all resurrected, but radio reports indicated that a small number of survivors, Doctor Ballard included, had barricaded themselves into a guard room. A subsequent rescue mission by Evacuation forces failed, with unfortunate casualties–Doctor Ballard received a severe bite wound on the arm, in fact, and the rescue team was unable to reach his position to extract him. They were forced to retreat, leaving him behind as a loss. Bites are one hundred per cent fatal, of course, but quite frankly we don’t know if he resurrected, or if he was devoured before he had the chance. But, just to be safe, I’d like to contract the “Zombie Hitman” to go in for a look.’

Marco’s mouth was sour, the bad aftertaste of old Tang. He’d missed half of what Osbourne had told him, unable to absorb it, his mind busy regurgitating a single thought.

Roger Ballard.

Roger Ballard.

‘I know him,’ Marco said flatly.

Osbourne nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know you do.’

‘Is that why you came to me?’ Marco asked. ‘Because I knew Roger?’

Director Osbourne frowned. ‘I’ve come to you, Doctor, because you know how to find corpses. That’s your expertise. It was a happy coincidence that Ballard’s name showed up during your background check. I presume your personal knowledge of him will be an advantage.’

‘You saw Roger’s name in my file, and you thought it would make me
want
to help you? Jesus. Are you as loyal to your friends?’

‘I thought it might make you more useful,’ Osbourne said without blinking. ‘But to your point, Doctor Marco, you yourself said that this is an act of mercy–
compassion
–for those people you care about.’

Marco snorted. ‘Don’t bullshit me. You don’t care a damn about Roger. That’s not what’s behind this. So what is it then? What reason?’

‘A matter of national security.’

‘Yeah? And what does that mean?’

‘Why should that matter to you, Doctor Marco? You’re a professional-for-hire.’

‘It matters to me. I don’t take every job offer.’

‘You’re referring to the Giancomo contract. A mob boss ordering hits on corpses of an enemy family, purely out of spite. You turned him down last year.’

‘Fuck you,’ Marco barked. His forehead tingled with fever. ‘I guess you do know everything, right?’

‘I told you at the beginning, Doctor. I come to class prepared. And, as a matter of fact, I also brought something
for show and tell. Perhaps you’ll find this motivating.’ Osbourne pushed his chair back from the table, and another man’s arm reached into the frame. On the blue sleeve a patch was visible–
DHS
in stitched yellow letters.

Marco heard four or five faint mouse clicks, and the window on his screen went black. A second later it lit up again. The view had entirely changed.

What he saw now was grainy video of a prison cell block, black and white, silent, captured by a security camera from a mount on the top floor. To the right stretched a grated walkway along a row of darkened open cells, overlooking an identical balcony on the floor below and, underneath that, a long rectangular mezzanine. Hundreds of slow-moving prisoners in charcoal jumpsuits milled about in the open area, wandering in and out of doorways.

‘Sarsgard Medical Prison, twelfth of March 2014, eight days post-outbreak,’ Osbourne’s voice intoned over the video. ‘Footage retrieved from the central security system during the failed rescue attempt. I thought you might be interested in one of the highlights.’

Marco concentrated on the prisoners. Corpses. Their faces were bleached, featureless at this distance, but Marco recognised the herky-jerky gait, the slight sideways loll of their heads.

Exhaling, he took in the scene. Torn-open bodies of guards and convicts littered the floor, ripped livers and intestines flung about like trash. Trails of shining black liquid painted the floors. He could almost smell the piss, the shit, the stench of infection and rot. In corners around the mezzanine, the dead huddled like gangs, squatting, crawling over one another to pull meat from some carcass they’d dragged aside. Thank god for lack of audio, omitting the crunch of gnawed bones and the smacking of moist mouths spilled over with blood.
Along one wall Marco saw a pair of uniformed legs–a guard, still alive under a pile of feeding corpses, fighting, kicking for his freedom–convulse and stiffen as a dark stain spread from his crotch.

Marco shifted in his chair. He hadn’t seen a death like that in years. At least nowadays the corpses had run out of people to eat in the Evacuated States.

Well, almost. They still have me.

From the far end of the corridor, a commotion captured Marco’s attention. The door to a stairwell flung open, and out onto the balcony scrambled three men. Alive.

‘Three brave heroes,’ Osbourne said.

The men rushed fifty yards forwards along the walkway, towards the camera. Two of the men were uniformed soldiers, their chests thick with bulletproof vests, faces hidden behind Plexiglas riot masks; they swung heavy-looking automatic rifles haphazardly as they ran. The third man looked different–spectacles, torn white shirt, light pants. Black-spotted bandaging swaddled his left arm. The men abruptly stopped just feet from the camera.