The Romero Strain (5 page)

“What?”

“ISO… the International Organization for Standardization. It’s a worldwide—”

“No, that’s not what I meant. You told me they were blast doors.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I looked at him with confusion, as I took off my backpack and reached in for some water. “But you quoted that
Bubba Ho-Tep
line.” I passed the water bottle to Marisol. “This isn’t a gas tunnel?”

“No, dude. It’s a water supply feeder for the steam generators. But don’t worry. The doors are blast and fire resistant as well as rated for a fifteen minute dedicated attack duration,” he reassured. “Those guys aren’t getting in.”

I called Max to my side and retrieved his bowl from his pack. Marisol poured him some water.

“Listen, Bruce—” I began, but was quickly corrected.

“David,” he said.

“
David.
Those aren’t guys,” I informed him.

“Then who are those
guys
,” Jack asked.

I glared at him with a
go-fuck-yourself
look, and turned back to David. “You’d never believe me.”

“Try me.”

I paused and shook my head. “Okay,” I said, knowing they weren’t going to believe me no matter how I said it. “They’re the living dead,” I announced, in a wry and chilling tone.

“What?”
Jack exclaimed in disbelief. “You’re crazy! You watch that zombie festival on television last night? Now you think the world’s coming to an end?” he mockingly taunted.

“As a matter of fact, I
did.
So what?”

I could understand that the dead coming back to life and attacking the living was an absurd concept for most people. But belief in the Resurrection, and the raising of Lazarus––though no historical proof of the events exists––was completely fathomable and accepted by billions of people who never witnessed it. It was an absurd concept, but I didn’t disbelieve it, either.

No one could conceive or imagine all the wonders and horrors in the world. Had I ever seen fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s not proof that they are not there. So why can’t the dead come back to life without the intervention of God?

The Asian girl asked, “Are you for real?”

“I’m joking?” I asked. “If you don’t believe me, sweet cheeks, ask her,” I gestured toward Marisol.

She saw the frightened look on Marisol’s face, then looked at me. “It’s Julie. And I think you’re lying. I think you’re one of those killers and she’s afraid of you!”

“What!?”
I exploded.

Marisol interjected, bitterly denouncing Julie’s act of stupidity. “Were you born retarded, or were you born and then became retarded?”

I thought I heard that somewhere before.

“Do I look like I was kidnapped? You’re so stupid. You almost got eaten by some dead people,
puta,
and you think
he’s
a killer?
¡Bolla de idiotas pendejos!
If he wanted to kill you he would have shot you.” Marisol looked at me.
“Debemos irnos. No los necesitamos. Dejalos que se pudran en el infierno. Pajúos.”

“What is she saying?” Julie asked, directing her question at her coworkers.

David replied, “Something about leaving the assholes behind.”

Julie was irritated and frustrated. “Well…
Diu gau lei, ju hai.”

“Suck ju lei go see fut long,”
I yelled at her. She was taken aback. She gave me a bewildered look. “Yes, I understand Cantonese,” I told her.

“Enough of the bullshit,” Jack demanded. “And enough of the
zombie
crap.” He was clearly trying to irritate me, even more than he had all ready. “There are no zombies, there are no dead people walking around. It’s a couple of––”

“Of what…?
Well?”

Jack refused to believe what he had seen
, and was rebuking my explanation. He had witnessed something beyond his comprehension. What was he to make of a reality where seeing wasn’t believing? After all, if he could not trust his own eyes, what could he trust?

Having a discipline in martial arts and having embraced Chinese philosophy and spiritualism, I truly believed, without trepidation, that the
impossible was possible, the unbelievable believable, and the absurd reasonable.

“They’re terrorists. And security will take care of them.”

“They’re terrorists and security will take care of them,” I repeated, in a mocking tone, as I shook out the remaining water from Max’s bowl, folded it, and repacked it into his carrier harness. “You’re such a complete fuckwit. Terrorists! Terrorists that look all fucked up and are going around killing and eating people. And how do you explain that?” I pointed at the strange looking torso, which still spun in circles.

“Explain what… that? It’s a nerve reaction, like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“A chicken! Oh, you know what? I’m done talking to you because it’s obvious you are the biggest moron I’ve ever met… and what about
you?”
I asked David. “Does that look like a nervous reaction to you?”

“No,” he responded.

“Thank the Creator,” I praised. “A man of intelligence.”

“That doesn’t mean I believe that Tarman has risen from the grave.”

Torso boy let out a screech that startled us all. We looked; the thing was facedown on the ground, twitching. It stopped. It had finally bled out.

“Yeah,” I said softly. “A fuckin’ chicken.” I took Max’s leash and Marisol hand, leading them away.

David asked, “Dude, where you going?”

“Out the next exit I find. And the name is J.D.,” I informed him.

“You want to convince me you’re telling the truth?” David asked, following with his co-workers in tow.

“You must believe me if you’re coming with us.”

“Yeah, sure. But humor us, anyways.”

I answered him with an Inigo Montoya line from one of my favorite movies,
The Princess Bride
. It was the line about too much to ’splain, so he had to sum up.

David gave me a knowing look.

I gave them the CliffsNotes version. David and Julie seemed to accept the fact that I was telling them what I thought was the truth, though they weren’t ready to believe that the world was being taken over by the living dead, even though they had witnessed their co-workers being ripped apart.

Jack on the other hand… well, he adamantly denounced everything I said, including what he had seen.

“That proves nothing. A few murders and the flu doesn’t mean the world is ending. You have to be stupid to listen to this crap. I say we get out at 20
th
Street, turn these two over to the police, and have them sent to Bellevue,” Jack said, trying to take charge.

Instead of getting into another verbal altercation with the idiot, I ignored him, as did everyone. I asked David, “How much farther?”

“A couple hundred more yards,” he replied.

“Then lead on, Macduff,” I said, waving my arm in front of me, giving him the go-ahead.

“Did you know that is a common misquote of Macbeth’s final lines? It should be, ‘Lay on Macduff, and damn’d be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’”

“Really,” I said, astonished. “That’s the college degree at work?”

“I minored in literature.”

“Far cry from… what are you?” I asked, not knowing exactly what his job was.

“Engineer.”

“Engineer,” I repeated. “You know without that beard and short hair you almost look like DD Dominion.”

“Careful. I resemble that remark.”

“No fuckin’ way.” I looked at him with astonishment. He was being sincere. “
Really?”

“Really.”

“Who’s DD Dominion?” Marisol asked.

“Who’s DD Dominion!?” I was astounded that she didn’t know. “I take it you don’t listen to Rock.”

“No. I listen to R&B.”

“The engineer here was in one of New York’s biggest bands about twelve years back. I used to see them play when they were called Sister Awake. That was before they got huge. When they got signed to Sony they became The Dominion. Their last album went double platinum. When they came from their tour of Europe and Japan, they did a free fan appreciation show at Roseland, before they kicked off their sold-out North American tour. The show was amazing. Unfortunately it was their last.”

“Why?” Julie interjected.

Apparently everyone had been listening to my rave review. I looked at David.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

I finished. “His brother, CC, OD’d that night after the show. And that was the end of the band.”

“Dead?” Marisol asked.

“Dead,” David said.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he told Marisol. “Like I said, it was a long time ago.”

“So,
Julie
,” I said, “What are you?”

She was still a bit miffed. Her response was slightly unpleasant and defensive. “What do you mean,
‘What are you?’”

“A little hostile are we? Caught you off guard with the Cantonese? Just wanted to know what your title was. If you don’t want to talk to me, then… whatever.”

She hesitated for a moment, deciding if she really wanted to converse with the man who told her to
shut her ass
.

“I’m an Associate Engineer,” she finally said. “Just started… and how do you know Cantonese?”

“Paramedic. I work for Saint Vincent’s. Chinatown is part of my coverage area. My first partner was Chinese. She taught me enough to communicate with patients, and of course, some great profanity. She could swear like a drunken sailor on shore-leave, but she was a damn fine EMT.”

We arrived at an exit point.

We stood before the egress. I expected to find something out of
Das Boot
––grey in color, water tight with a big wheel. But it was just a plain stainless steel door with a handle.

“This is 20
th
Street,” David said. “We can try here.”

There were three doors where the passage ended. One was marked
Exit – 20
th
Street
. Jack opened the door to reveal a metal staircase that ascended a long way up.

“No lock?” I asked.

“It locks on the outside. It’s meant to keep people out,
not
to keep them in.”

“Yeah, I got it, Jack. I don’t need a soliloquy,” I retorted.

“I’ll go first,” Jack called out, eagerly volunteering.

“Lay on, Mc
Gruff.
” He hadn’t a clue to what I was referring.

The shaft up was six feet wide by ten feet tall, slightly smaller than the tunnel we were about to exit. The stairs were in sections, each about twenty feet up with a landing. It appeared to be constructed of heavy duty, high-grade aluminum with a slip resistant stair surface.

“Gee, David, couldn’t conEd afford better stairs?” I commented sarcastically.

“They’re maintenance free and durable for a long life-cycle. Plus it was easier to install than galvanized steel,” he replied, matter-of-factly.

We ascended the stairs. Jack led the way, in a hurry to get to the top so he could have Marisol and I arrested. David followed, then Max, Julie, me, and finally Marisol. As we approached the midway mark, I could see Jack trying to use his cell phone, to no avail.

We climbed what seemed to be an endless number of stairs before getting to the top platform. Though the exit tunnel remained the same dimension, the top platform was a bit wider. The final set of steps was narrower and steeper, perhaps eight feet high, more ladder than stairs.

As Max and I stepped onto the last landing, Max stopped and growled.

“David,” I said, “Max is warning us not to exit.”

“Fuck you and your dog,” Jack said, reaching for the hatch release.

“Jack,
don’t!”
David warned, but it was too late.

Jack pushed up on the galvanized steel grating that led to the sidewalk. He turned around and looked at us as the exit grate fully opened.

“See,” he said, as he bent down to look at us from the top step. “Where are your zombies now? I told you he was full of sh—”

A multitude of hands reached down and grabbed him by his hair and clothing. We heard his screams as his kicking feet disappeared through the opening into the late morning sky. His cries of terror turned to shrieks of agony, and abruptly stopped.

“Close the hatch!” I screamed, as I pulled my pistol from my waistband. Dead pale faces peered down, hungry with a thirst for blood. It was too late; our only escape was to go back.

There had been no screams from Marisol or Julie when Jack had been plucked from the stairs by the flesh-devouring horde. Max had not barked until the undead appeared at the access panel, looking down at us. He stopped when I silenced him and ordered him to retreat.