The Return Man: Civilisation’s Gone. He’s Stayed to Bury the Dead. (9 page)

The spectacled man’s mouth opened in horror.

‘Roger,’ Marco said. He wasn’t surprised. Of course he’d expected this–why else the video? Still, he couldn’t stop a sick weight from rolling over in his stomach.

‘Yes,’ Osbourne said simply.

The three men reacted to something off camera, something ahead of them on the walk; they tripped backwards two or three steps then turned and bolted in the direction they’d come. But the stairwell door batted open before they could reach it, and corpses poured out. The dead jammed the walkway, clambering towards the men.

Roger and the guards wheeled once more, knocking into one another, comedic and horrifying at the same time. Panicking. At the bottom of the video screen, an out-of-focus
shadow moved into frame, approaching from underneath the camera.

Heads. Shoulders.

More corpses, cutting off the other end of the walkway.

The men were boxed in.

The first soldier faced the onslaught of dead prisoners from the stairwell. He held his gun like a baseball bat, a two-handed grip on the barrel. Marco understood. Out of ammo. The soldier hauled his gun back and stepped into his swing; the butt of the rifle connected squarely with the first corpse in the pack, a giant bald convict with a bulging tattooed scalp and an eyeball dangling halfway down its cheek. The blow tore the corpse’s lower jaw clean off, not high enough for a kill; molars and black drool pumped from the wound as the corpse grabbed the soldier with two huge hands.

The massive corpse hugged the writhing man to its chest and bit at his face; its upper teeth glanced off the Plexiglas mask, but the soldier was doomed. In seconds the mass of other corpses caught up, surrounded him, tore at his legs and arms. Marco winced as a long-haired naked prisoner, shoulders chiselled with muscle, crunched down on the back of the soldier’s unprotected neck. Blood spurted, showering the mob.

‘We suffered significant casualties,’ Osbourne commented. ‘In fact, we now use this particular Evac as a negative model in training exercises. Conservation of ammunition being a point of emphasis. “One brain, one bullet”, the new motto goes.’

Marco didn’t answer. He watched Roger Ballard and the remaining soldier race along the balcony, pulling on cell doors, hoping to find one they could duck into and slam shut behind them. But no luck. The doors were locked open.

The walls of corpses closed in from both ends. Only a
few yards away. Terrified, the soldier held his gun out in front, arms straight, as if he could push back the attack.

Ballard’s mouth moved, yelling out to the soldier. The man didn’t respond.

Ballard shouted one last time, then broke towards the balcony railing. A hundred grey, putrid hands reached for him as he vaulted over the rail with a wild kick of his legs, heels in the air, the tatters of his white shirt fluttering in the air behind him.

Then gone. Disappeared.

The drop must have been thirty, forty feet. Wherever he landed–alive, or twisted and broken on the concrete below–he’d vanished from view of the camera.

The lone soldier stared at the railing where Ballard had gone over. The man’s shoulders rocked forward, then back, then forward again, indecisive. By the time he decided, he was already dead. Just as he lunged towards the edge of the walkway, the corpses swarmed in from the left and the right, swallowing him into their mass. Their weight was crushing, pressing him from all angles; he couldn’t even struggle. He stood in place as if caught in a vice, pinned straight up, his screaming face hidden behind his mask, until moments later his body exploded in a frenzy of teeth and clawing nails. Shreds of uniform and skin rained over the monsters like confetti. Blood like fireworks.

And corpses–everywhere now, every balcony, hundreds more than before. Gore-soaked, surging in the mezzanine, driven mad by the kill.

The prison riot from hell.

Marco shuddered. The video mercifully disappeared from the screen, and the reappearance of Osbourne’s ugly face was pleasant by comparison.

‘Call me when you get there,’ Osbourne said.

The sun had shifted in the sky behind Marco, entering through a different window in his study and casting a glare across the computer screen. Now the bottom half of Osbourne’s face was too bright to be seen clearly. Only his eyes appeared sharp, pointed at Marco. Marco stared back. The asshole was challenging him.

A few seconds passed. Finally Marco sniffed, clearing the congestion in his nose. ‘Thanks for the nice movie,’ he said. ‘But what even makes you think I can do this? If a full Evacuation Squad couldn’t get out of there alive?’

‘For starters, Doctor Ballard may not still be there,’ Osbourne said. His voice was calm now, reassuring, once again reminding Marco of a parent addressing a child. ‘He may have wandered off, just as you suggested. Emotional geography, correct?’

‘Not if he’s trapped in there. In a prison.’

‘The entire facility was a breach by the end, a large hole in the perimeter. He could easily have exited. But if not, don’t sell yourself short, Doctor Marco. You’ve been surviving quite well for years out there yourself. You must have a few tricks for evading millions of corpses. Or at least excellent luck. Either way, you have experience that we admittedly do not.’

‘Yeah, I’m a real expert.’

Osbourne shrugged. ‘You’ll have help, of course.’

Marco stopped mid-breath. ‘Help? As in?’

‘Military, Doctor Marco. Special Forces, RRU–Resurrection Resistance Unit. Even as we speak, I have a team on standby in a secured position, several miles from your home, under orders to rendezvous with you tomorrow and escort you to Sarsgard. They’ve been surveilling your home for a week now, awaiting your return.’

Motherfucker
, thought Marco. Frowning, he pinched the missing notch on his left earlobe, the old dog-bite injury, until he realised that Osbourne was watching. He lowered his hand. Was he being set up? Some kind of trick, maybe? Catch him off guard, take him into custody without a fight? He doubted he was worth the trouble, but still…

‘I don’t want help,’ he said.

‘Non-negotiable,’ Osbourne stated bluntly. ‘They’re going with you.’

‘They’re going
without
me. I’m not taking the job.’

Osbourne scoffed. ‘Nonsense. You are essential.’

‘And what exactly gives you that delusion?’

‘If Ballard is
not
still in that prison, then you are indeed essential. Roger Ballard was a very private man, with no family or friends on record. As far as my sources indicate, you were his closest acquaintance. If his corpse has escaped and wandered off to some location with personal meaning, then your insights into his character will guide us.’

Marco laughed. ‘You think I have insight into Roger? Then you really
don’t
know shit.’

‘You’re proving my point, Doctor. I need you to locate the Ballard corpse. If you’re concerned about the mission’s personal nature, you needn’t pull the trigger yourself. The RRU will handle everything once Ballard is found. They have specific orders, and know what to do.’

‘But you won’t tell me
why.
’

Osbourne sat, motionless as a statue. Even his lips barely moved. ‘No.’

‘I don’t get it…’ Marco said. ‘I don’t get why you need Roger returned. And I get nervous when there are things I don’t get.’ He shook his head. ‘I decline your offer.’

A pause. Then Benjamin’s disembodied voice startled Marco. He’d forgotten Ben was there, listening to everything. ‘Marco, think a second—’

Osbourne cut off him. ‘Mr Ostroff,’ he commanded, pointing a strict finger without turning his head. His eyes remained on Marco.

Marco heard muttering in the background.

Osbourne resumed. ‘Doctor Marco, allow me to be clear. You chose to violate the original Evacuation Order and therefore are no longer a citizen of the United States. Your business across the Safe Border with Mr Ostroff violates the Commerce Security Act, which technically makes you a terrorist and Mr Ostroff a treasonist. It’s within my official power to imprison Mr Ostroff–or, unofficially, to make him simply disappear. Yet I’m choosing a more generous option, because I recognise the value of your services. Not just to me here and now, but to the future. I’m not heartless. I realise what you offer survivors, and what it means for our national rebuilding. And I’m willing to allow it, on the side, you understand, not a public endorsement. Hidden funds have been approved for this contract. But don’t mistake me–this is not an
offer.
You will do what I say.’

Marco waited. ‘Or…?’

Osbourne uncrossed his legs and sighed. ‘Doctor, really. I’m attempting to spare us the embarrassment of hard facts. But you seem determined to make it awkward, so… You will do what I say, or Mr Ostroff will be shot through the head. You can even watch him die on the camera. If I were required to write a report, I would explain that he had attacked a federal officer during his arrest. But I’m not required to write reports.’

Marco closed his eyes. His stomach lurched. ‘Ben, are you still there?’

Was it a bluff? Would they really kill Benjamin…?

‘Yeah, man, I’m here.’ Benjamin sounded unsure, too. He cleared his throat. ‘The money’s good, Marco. It’s good.’

‘And,’ said Osborne, ‘there’s one more thing to consider. Your wife.’

Marco’s eyes snapped open, and Osbourne went on. ‘You’re there looking for her, aren’t you, Doctor Marco? That’s the reason you stayed behind. And I can tell right now by that haunted look on your face that you haven’t found her. How long has it been? Four years? Most of your contracts take, what, a month? Why has this one been so delayed?’

Marco swallowed. ‘I don’t know,’ he said hoarsely. He really didn’t. He rubbed his eyes, remembering how tired he was. How good it would feel to be in bed right now, the covers pulled over his head. The darkness.

‘Four years,’ Osbourne repeated. ‘Perhaps you’ve begun to wonder if you’ll ever find her.’ He raised an eyebrow, and Marco wanted to bury a fist in that smug face.

A moment later Osbourne continued. ‘But I don’t mean to be gloom and doom. I’m sure you’ll succeed, eventually. Either way, whether you do… “return” her, as you called it, or whether one day you decide to abandon the search, then what? You missed the Evacuation Deadline and broke Quarantine, and therefore you can’t ever be admitted to the Safe States. You’ll simply wander out there, forever, until something eats you, or you become a zombie yourself. Which brings me to a very special incentive. What people call “the icing on the cake”.’

Marco had the sense of Osbourne digging through his mind, like a gardener with a fork, turning the soil, each repulsive word wriggling like a worm in the ground. He recoiled from the image. But those words persisted, doing what worms do, aerating the dirt. And he understood that what really repulsed him were the thoughts they unearthed–ideas forming so long in his subconscious, but buried, even as the years wore him away at the surface.

Why has this one been so delayed…?

Four years…?

Perhaps you’ve begun to wonder…?

He realised that Osbourne was waiting.

‘Tell me,’ Marco said, surprised at the neediness in his voice.

Osbourne leaned forward, his palms flat on the table in front of him. ‘Amnesty.’ The director’s bony fingers flexed, and he spoke again. ‘A free pass into the Safe States when the time comes, when you’re ready. Rejoin civilisation, restart your life. With the living.’

Marco cleared his throat. ‘Why would you include that? The icing?’

‘In case I’ve misjudged your fondness for Mr Ostroff. In case you don’t value his life, or the money. I’m motivating you with one thing I’m certain you do care about. Coming back.’

‘I care about Ben. But you’re wrong about the last part. It doesn’t matter.’

‘I think it does, Doctor. I think it matters to you very much. You don’t really want to stay out there forever with the dead. But without my help, you’re stuck there.’

A chill rippled beneath Marco’s damp shirt. Goddamn it, he was cold. And tired. His head barely felt connected to his body, as if his neck had simply let go. He needed more Sudafed, more expired fucking Sudafed that probably didn’t work any more.

‘I can get you in,’ Osbourne said. ‘This can all be put behind you.’

Not just the Sudafed. Nothing worked any more. Everything out here was just one big expiration date.

‘Find Roger Ballard.’ Osbourne’s voice washed over him. ‘Find him, or Mr Ostroff dies today. Find him, and give yourself a future. That is the truth. Not the offer.’

Marco turned his chair to face the window, and for a moment the view of the Superstition Mountains was gone, and he imagined a glimpse of the ocean instead–the Atlantic, whitecaps churning off the coast of Maine, a rusted red lighthouse, the day he proposed to Danielle on the beach. He wanted to fall asleep, remembering those things.

And then he wanted to wake, just like Joan Roark would wake tomorrow and start over.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll return Roger.’

Osbourne smiled for the first time, his piranha teeth bleached an unnatural white. Marco almost laughed. These days, everyone he met wanted to eat him.

Kheng Wu–
Ken
, he’d taken to calling himself among Americans–trotted up the trail, hating the Arizona desert heat. Hating himself, too. He’d allowed a year of living in the US to soften him, betrayed by too many workouts in the air-conditioned fitness centre back in Boston. He’d forgotten
this
–this pure and primal punishment, his lungs afire like two ovens, sweat wrenched from him by the outdoor sun. Longingly he recalled the military marches of his youth. Such true tests of endurance. He’d been a volunteer soldier for the People’s Republic of China–eager to serve and win honours, to grow beyond the confines of his impoverished village in Qinghai. His brothers had held back, awaiting conscription. But not Wu. At eighteen he’d bid farewell to his uncle and reported to camp in Shenyang; there, for weeks with little sleep and no mercy, he’d slogged steep mountain paths with a fifty-pound pack biting into his shoulders. All the LifeFitness treadmills in America could never match those lessons.