Zombie, Illinois (17 page)

“We need to get out of here, and fast,” I announce. The smell of gunpowder from Maria's weapon is still in the air.

Maria and I work together to extricate Ben. The corpse is too big for either of us to move alone.

“One . . . two . . .
three!”

We push at the same time. The giant, motionless zombie rolls away.

Ben is wide-eyed, stunned, and covered in blood. He walks a bit like a zombie himself, struggling to regain his balance. His hat has fallen off and his hair is a wild, sweaty mess. However, he does not appear to be injured.

“Damn” says Maria. “You look like you just got laid.”

Ben sheepishly picks up his AK and does not make eye contact. He takes a few deep breaths and steadies himself against the wall of the alley.

“You probably smell like it too,” Maria adds. “In fact, you totally do. You smell like ass, boy. Was it good for you? Ha ha!”

Something in me flinches.

“Maria, a man has just
died!”
I pronounce in my most stentorian tone.

Maria visibly bristles. She stuffs her handgun down the front of her pants and stalks over to me as if she wants to fight. She's a full head shorter than I am, but she stands really, really close and stares up at me like an angry animal. She exhales, and I can smell the brackish smell of a sweaty, worn-out woman on the wind.

“Ooh, I'm
soo sorry”
Maria spits sarcastically. “Did I hurt your feelings? Well
excuse me,
‘reverend.' I love how you get to call yourself that, by the way. ‘Reverend.' Like how you just decide you're something people should ‘revere.'

“It's pastor, actually,” I remind her. “Not reverend” “Who . . . fucking . . . cares!!!” Maria shoots back. “Even in a zombie apocalypse, you've got to act like you know everything, huh? Would you like to tell me why the dead are coming back to life and eating people? No, because you don't know. “

I cross my arms and look down at her sternly, refusing—for the moment—to be tempted to wrath.

“I mean.” Maria continues—wheeling around on her heel and then coming right back into my face. “What do you even
get
from it? Is it the fancy suits? The expensive preacher cars? Seriously, tell me, because I can't figure it out. Maybe you just need to get your ego stroked every Sunday—to hear a bunch of people go ‘Amen' after you speak.. .right after
you fucking tell them to.
‘Revere me! Say Amen after I talk!' Could you
be
any more insecure?”

I move quickly, without thinking. It's an animal reaction.

Bringing the shotgun up with both hands in a single motion, I brace it hard against my shoulder and pull the trigger.

Twenty feet beyond Maria, the head of the thing that was Mr. James explodes into a shower of a thousand fleshy pieces . . . about five seconds before it could take a bite out of Ben's neck.

The headless body takes two steps forward and falls to the ground, coming to a rest next to the thing that was Miss Martha. His dead arm cradles her torso, like an exhausted, headless lover. They are, the pair of them, spent.

Ben looks at the dead zombie and says, “Damn.”

I lower my weapon.

“Tonight, I'm just a guy trying to kill some zombies,” I say, turning back to Maria. “And when everybody else is losing their damn minds and running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off, I'm out in the streets trying to save my community. I'll let
you
decide if that's worth revering.”

We pile back into my Chrysler and prepare to rendezvous back at the church.

Mr. James, to my knowledge, had no kin in the pews at The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus. He was a loner. An orphan. There is no family to notify.

Still, this is no consolation. Mr. James was a good man, and I liked him. Moreover, I'm his pastor, and he was a member of my congregation. And I let him get ambushed by zombies. And then he became a zombie. And then I blew his damn head off.

There is nothing good about this. It is still horrible.

Just . . . less horrible than it could have been.

I resolve to remain thankful for small things.

Mack drives us back to The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus. Unlike everything around it, the church is crowded and well lit. In fact, it's the only crowded place I've seen since I got down to the south side. It's like everybody in the neighborhood came here. The church is filled to bursting, and there are people spilling out on the landscaping around it. When we pull into the parking lot, there is a visible reaction from some people when they see Mack's car. Their faces brighten. This is what they've been waiting for.

“Stay here,” says Mack, pulling to an abrupt halt near the entrance. He springs out of the car with the step of a much younger man. Five paces toward the church, and he is mobbed by crowds of parishioners, each one eager for his attention.

I take a deep breath. Ben has mostly been sitting quietly in the back seat—I'm assuming humiliated and cowed by the ordeal of being pinned under the fat zombie. I wouldn't be surprised if he's fallen asleep, actually. He looked beat.

Then, out of nowhere, he speaks.

“So . . . why don't you two just fuck and get it over with?” Silence.

Then I explode laughing. Ben laughs too.

And it's like, okay. Right on. I like this guy.

“I don't mean to be nosy or anything,” Ben continues as my giggles die away. “It's clear that you two already know each other, and that something's...!^. I just met Mack—by the way—right after I met you, so I'm not picking sides, here. I'm just curious. What's this about?”

I turn around in the seat to face him.

“He has a daughter named Richelle,” I explain. “You might say that I seduced her away from Mack, and he's pissed about it.” “Oh,” Ben says evenly.

He's still smiling, but suddenly there are wrinkles his brow. I can tell that he's disappointed. (It's so cute how much this guy is into me.)

“It's not like
that”
I clarify. “I might have kissed a few girls, but I'm not into Richelle that way. She's not my girlfriend. She's in my band.You saw her earlier tonight. The black girl with amazing tits who was playing bass?”

“Oh, okay,” Ben says. “I remember.”

“First, Richelle joined my band. Then she moved north out of this neighborhood. And then she started thinking for herself. Which, I think, she had always done. But she kind of started not pretending anymore. Not letting her father think she was someone she wasn't.”

“Aha,” Ben answers cautiously.

“Don't let Mack fool you into believing he's a perfect person. He's come to our shows before to confront Richelle publicly— to shame her, in my opinion. And I've let him know he's not welcome. I've gotten in his face and told him exactly what he needed to be told. Told him Richelle was a fucking adult who could do whatever she wanted. I sort of think Mack respects me for that, but he's also still pissed about it. And I still think he's a total jagoff. He spends all his time down here on the south side—with people kowtowing to him and telling him he's a big, wise man in the community—that he forgets he doesn't know everything. And, let me tell you, Leopold Mack most certainly
does not
know everything”

Ben takes another look over at the church. I follow his gaze. We see Mack entirely surrounded by a needy throng. They look at him like he's the only one with an answer to the world's problems.

“What's the issue for Mack?” Ben asks. “It's not the 1950s. Nobody's calling rock and roll the devil's music anymore. There are Christian rock bands, for fuck's sake.”

“Mack would say there are
issues,
plural. But it really comes down to one thing. Richelle wants to be her own person, and it's not who Mack wants her to be.”

“And what's that?”

I sigh. “Richelle is a smart successful black woman who has zero interest in living on the south side. Her father is a preacher, but she's a freethinker. She doesn't go to church on Sunday be-cause she doesn't believe that the stories it's founded on are true. And she doesn't—what's that phrase she uses?—'owe fealty' to the south side. She has friends of all different colors. She certainly dates guys who are all different colors.

“From what I can tell, Mack had this vision that—after college—Richelle would move back to the south side, marry a religious black guy like him, and work for some community organizing group or something. But Richelle doesn't want to play on that team. She's just like, ‘I'm not playing.' Richelle wants to live her life how she chooses. Which means being the bassist in the best fucking rock band in the City of Chicago! You'd think that would be something a father would be
proud of,
you know? But not Mack.” “It's still a problem for him?”

“Let me put it this way. Have you heard Mack mention his daughter once—
once
—this whole time? It's a zombie outbreak, and he's down here helping his church people instead of going to check on his own flesh and blood. His own daughter. If that doesn't make it clear, then nothing will.”

“Yikes,” Ben says.

I nod and say, “Yeah.yikes.”

A few minutes later, Mack returns to the car and throws open the door. He moves brusquely, no nonsense. He hands each of us a bottle of water and a granola bar, which I actually appreciate. “Thanks,” Ben says.

“Yeah, thanks” I tell him. “What's the plan...'
Pastor?'”
“We're going out again, of course,” Mack says, all business. Another member of Mack's congregation climbs into the back seat. He's a balding, older man who carries an ancient hunting rifle.

“This gentleman is Mr. Perry,” Mack says. The older man nods hello.

“What's up?” I say to him. “You the next ensign in the red uniform, ready to beam down to the Class-M planet with us?” Ben chuffs, trying not to full-on laugh.

“I get that, you know,” the man says quietly. “Unlike you, I can remember back when that show was on television.”

Mack climbs into the front seat and starts the car.

Stragglers are still creeping into the parking lot from the surrounding neighborhoods, and the streetlights are beginning to flicker more frequently. I've been wondering if a complete power failure is in our future. I feel like that would be catastrophic.

“We have to go to Crenshaw Cemetery,” Mack says cryptically.

“What?” says Ben. “But the zombies! Won't we be over-whelmed?”

“We'll be fine,” Mack says, as if he knows something we don't.

“Wait.. .why are you taking me?” I ask.

“It's true; I don't like you,” Mack says flatly, never taking his eyes from the windshield. “But I must admit, you've got energy... and you know how to shoot.”

This makes me smile, and I cross my arms in satisfaction.

“Wait” Ben says, still unconvinced. “We're going to a grave-yard.in a zombie outbreak.on purpose?”

Mack nods silently.

“But why?” Ben presses.

“Because something is wrong,” Mack says.

“What?” I ask. “Bodies
aren't
coming up out of the ground?”

Mack drives silently for a moment, as if he has elected not to answer the question. We pull away from the church and back into the snowy city streets. I look at the clock on the dashboard. It is just past midnight.

Mack says, “No. The problem is that bodies
are
coming up... just not where they should.”