Zombie Ever After (2 page)

“How can you listen to this
shi
–stuff?” Cathren asked. She scrunched her face up as if she’d smelled a rotten onion.

“Old-school punk, what’s not to like?” he said. “Rancid, Dead Boys, Bad Brains. You know I love it.”

“Whatever.”

“My car, my rules. If I’d known you’d be with me today, I’d have made a mix tape.”
 

Donovan was going to say more, but his attention was now focused on a klatch of senior citizens teetering along the shoulder by the fast lane. The blue–hairs appeared agitated. “What’s this?” He tilted his chin forward, using his head to point. With each car that drove by, the elderly gestured and yelled like aggressive monkeys in a laboratory cage.

“Should I stop to help the old dudes out?” Donovan asked.

“No way,” Cathren said. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be so abrupt. It’s just that something’s not right.”

“Okay,” Donovan said. “No stopping. No helping. Fuck ‘em.” He smiled at her as they rolled down Central Avenue toward Haight-Ashbury. “The breakfast place is here, off Haight. I think you’re gonna like it.”

“Good,” Cathren said softly. “That’s good.”

“You okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine. That was so weird, though. I’m going to blog about them, for sure.”

“You have a blog now?”

“Doesn’t everybody? Mine gets a thousand hits a week, and I have sponsors now, too. My ambition is to expose bad things, especially corporate and government evil. Large scale, make a difference.”

“Cool.”

“I want to get the dirt on the dopes and then drag them down right to the ground.”

Donovan grinned. “Sounds like a tee shirt.”

“Or lyrics,” Cathren said. “Back to what I was saying. I’ll put the bad guys out of business if I can. Believe me, I will. So what’s up with this ATELIC organization, anyway?”

By the time Donovan and Cathren arrived downtown, the air dropped out of the sky in warm, sticky clumps. Rainwater dripped in splotches here and there from broken gutters, rooftops, and canopies. Meanwhile, threatening skies grew darker to the west.
 

They parked and strolled along the storefronts to the restaurant. As they passed one particular store, Donovan lingered.
 

“Whoa.” he said.
“Whoa!”

“What is it?”

“The Flying Fox. The ultimate tandem paragliding kit, and my dream.” Donovan had a huge, goofy smile on his face. “This baby is state of the art, unlike anything before it.”

Donovan stepped up to the shop window and stared, like the kid in A Christmas Story, eyes glued to the BB gun in Higbee’s Department Store window.

“What’s the big deal?” Cathren asked.

“This thing is the iPad of paragliders. Thin, new, groundbreaking. Most of these babies need such a large case, people mistake you for a Sherpa with a steamer trunk on your back. Not this baby. Light as air. Packs up into a standard-sized backpack. Black paraglider, too—the first and only—with a matching matte-black backpack. Think of Batman’s cape and you’ll get the idea.”

“
Hmm,
” said Cathren. “And yet, I
don’t
get it.”

“Anyway, I’ll never be able to afford one,” he said, dreamy-eyed. “Maybe one day, though.”

“Yeah,” she said. “You never know.”

Cathren dragged him away from the object of his desire and they continued maneuvering down the sidewalk until they came to a quaint coffee house on the corner.

“Here we are,” Donovan said. “This is the place.”

Inside, they found a table by the window. A server soon approached, his long blond dreads swinging behind him like soft spines.

“And how are you two today?” he asked.

“Good,” Cathren and Donovan said in unison.
 

Turning his attention to Cathren, Donovan said, “You should get the vegetarian frittata. Fantastic.”

“Yes, excellent choice.” The waiter proceeded to recite the ingredients in a slow monotone, pausing between each component. “Fresh mushrooms. Tomatoes. Avocado. Cheese. Topped with our most tasty, house-made salsa.”

“Yum,” Cathren said, smiling.
 

“Two of those, then.” Donovan looked at the waiter again. “And two coffees, too.”

The waiter stiffened, his eyebrows pulling together. “Haven’t you heard, dude? You can’t drink the water now. No way. We can’t serve water, coffee, or any other water-based drink.” He stared at the couple as though offended. “We’re sold out of bottled water, but have no fear, I can find you a bottle of juice or natural soda or—”

“No, thanks,” Donovan said.

“I’ll take a juice. Whatever you’ve got,” Cathren said, most likely only ordering the juice to make up for Donovan’s borderline rudeness.

“Cool. Two veggie omelets, one juice,” the waiter said as he walked away, scribbling on his pad.

Outside the window, an army tank and two military Hummers sniffing its rear crunched their way down the block. Soldiers—guns loaded, raised to their shoulders, and pointed straight ahead—stomped in close formation on both sides of the street.
 

“Something’s not right,” Donovan said, deciding it was time to leave without eating.
 

He dropped a couple of bills on the table and poked Cathren with his other hand. She turned to him, smiling. He tipped his head toward the escalating militarization. Cathren’s smile disappeared. She nodded, grabbed her purse, and together they stood up and left.

*
 
*
 
*

People were stopping along the sidewalk in bunches. They looked as if they were watching the start of a parade. Donovan and Cathren strolled uptown, walking in the opposite direction of the troops’ movements.
 

At the corner, the couple made a left. Then, hoping for a successful evasive maneuver, they took a right at the next block. They began to relax, convinced they had gotten away from the mounting craziness.

Instead, they walked right into hell.

A large group of people formed a circle in the middle of the road, their backs to Donovan and Cathren. The couple stopped, transfixed, and studied the people in the crowd.
 

Oozing wounds dotted the beings’ flesh. Open sores pocked their necks, arms, backs. Rotting skin dripped to the ground. A couple of them had bits of bright white bone showing through, like headlights in a tunnel.

“What’s going on?” said Cathren. “Who are they? They look so sick. Are they lepers? Are they hurt? Should we help them?”

“Water drinkers,” Donovan said darkly. “Unfiltered tap water drinkers.”

One of the people in the crowd turned their empty gaze on Donovan and Cathren. Then another turned around. And another. And another. Until they were all facing Donovan and Cathren. Growling, they gnashed their teeth and walked toward them with shuffling, limping, broken determination.
 

“These poor, poor people.” Cathren said, her hand snapping up to cover her open mouth, her eyes misting over.

“No, they don’t need our help,” Donovan said, barely able to deliver the sentence. “
We
need our help.”

Burkhart Egesa straightened in his seat as the makeup person touched up his face, powdering his nose and forehead. When she finished, she spun him around in his chair to confront the cameras and the burning lights. Egesa’s stomach roiled at the very idea of doing an interview, especially for a show with as large a viewership as
Investigation Nation
. It wasn’t stage fright. He loved being on stage. The bigger the crowd, the better, but only when he had complete control. Giving a speech, a presentation, yes. Not, most certainly, when giving an interview. Too much could go wrong.

Egesa had wanted, almost from the moment he was born, to make his mark on the world. To bring to the masses a wondrous thing, like the cure for cancer or blindness. However, his genius and his passion didn’t exist in either of these fields. His dream was to bring to humankind not merely improved longevity but, if possible, immortality.

The public did not understand him. They even mocked him. His brilliance. His greatness. Which was why appearing on a show like this—specifically now, with all that had gone so wrong—was necessary.

A necessary evil.

Donovan grabbed Cathren’s hand, and they dashed up Powell together toward California Street. As they ran for their lives, someone called Donovan’s name.
 

“Hey, Donny-boy!”
 

Donovan turned his head in response, out of habit rather than common sense. An Indian guy, or perhaps he was Pakistani, sat in a small, orange car waving at them.
 

The voice, the mustache, the big smile all seemed familiar, but Donovan couldn’t place him at this distance. The man had a car, however, which was good. So Donovan stopped and turned around, pulling Cathren with him.

Donovan recognized his friend at last as they drew nearer.
 

“Rudra Adhamark, how’s it going?” he said.

Rudra and Donovan sailboarded or surfed together at least once a month. He’d known Rudra since college.
 

Now Rudra ran his own security firm, which he’d taken over when his father had retired. Out of character for Rudy, he was making a success out of it.
 

Always seemed to know the right jobs to take and the right ones to walk away from.

“Give us a ride, man,” Donovan went on. “Need to get back to my car and get out of here. It’s an emergency.”
 

“No can do, Donny-O.”
 

“What do you mean, ‘no can do’? What are you talking about?” Donovan asked, stopping at the car. “Just let us in. This shit is serious.”
 

“Sorry,” Rudra said. “I’m not driving out of town. I just got here. See? I’m parked here. Outstanding spot, too. Got things to do.” Rudra snapped his fingers to indicate speed and determination.

For a second, Donovan said nothing, but soon got back on topic.
 

“Rudy, there are things happening in the city today. Strange things. We witnessed the aftermath of a horrible massacre or something and these people, these—I don’t know what they were. The insane wounded is what they looked like. Now, I appreciate you have other plans, but this is important. I need to get Cathren out of here.”
 

Donovan beamed his best smile and waited.
 

He could hear the sirens all around them, followed by the sound of rapid gunfire. A jet roared past high overhead.

“What the
hell
is going on?” Rudra asked, fidgeting in his seat like a startled bunny.

“Trouble. Believe me, like I said, you do not want to be in the city today,” Donovan said.
 

He opened the passenger-side door, pulled down the front seat, shoved Cathren into the too-small back, and then jumped in up front and slammed the door.

From a couple streets away, a loud explosion rumbled toward them like stampeding rhinos.

“Forget about getting my car. We need to get out of the city,” Donovan said. “Now.”

“Sure, sure, man. Consider us gone.” Rudra’s hand shook as he checked his mirrors and pulled out. “You owe me two dollars for the meter, by the way,” he said to Donovan. Then, mostly to himself, “Lost a damn good parking spot.”

*
 
*
 
*

They made a left on Leavenworth and a right on Geary, heading out of town.
 

As they approached Hyde, Cathren reached out from the back seat and jabbed her finger into Donovan’s shoulder, then pointed to a strange, shambling crowd starting to fill the avenue up ahead.
 

“What I like most about this car,” Rudra was saying as they cruised along like tourists on vacation, oblivious to the insanity around them, “is the quiet.”

“
Shit,
” she whispered.

“No engine noise,” Rudra continued.

“Shit is right,” Donovan answered. “More water drinkers.”

“Purrs like a kitten.” Rudra tapped the dashboard as if he were petting it. “Hey, what is happening here?” Rudra asked, interrupting himself. He stared straight ahead, his jaw slack.

“Maybe we should turn around.” Cathren said.
 

Donovan pivoted in his seat to survey the shuffling mob, all of whom were covered in rotting flesh.
 

Behind them, military vehicles rumbled up the road with lethal determination.

“Rudy, man, can you, um, pick up the pace a little?” Donovan said.
 

“And get us the hell outta here?”

“Hey,” said Rudra as they rocketed along onto 101, away from the crowds of creeps and the increasing military threat downtown. “You catch all this shit about ATELIC? Oh my God!” He signaled and changed lanes as brain-colored rain spotted the windshield.

Donovan shrugged and stared out the window, wondering what the hell they had just witnessed.

“I’ve heard a little,” Cathren said from the back seat. “Something about some chemicals getting spilled, right?”

“Right. Evidently there’s some kind of chemical bath up there. Crazy shit. Dumping toxic sludge into the environment. Ends up in the water we drink, the water we bathe in.”

“I don’t understand,” Donovan said, turning away from the cityscape. “How is this possible? What about, I don’t know, FEMA, the ACLU, the FDA, the CDC—whoever handles these things?”

“Right, yeah, you’d think so.” Rudra squinted past the thumping windshield wipers, which were busy smearing muck across his field of vision. “Check it out, though: they knew all along. The government
fuckin’
knew.” He shook his head again and then checked the rear view mirror. “This is your exit coming up, right?” Rudra popped a piece of gum in his mouth.

“Yep.”

“Anyway,” Rudra continued, chewing. “Nothing but a big, friggin’ cover-up. You know? Meanwhile, we’re all getting sick out here.”

“I noticed.”

“I need to check into all this. I feel like I missed a killer story,” Cathren said. “I’m going to start a series.” She slapped the back of one hand into the palm of her other.