Zombie, Illinois (23 page)

“Vice mayor?” Maria asks skeptically. “Is that a real thing?”

“Actually, it is” I tell her. “They made the rule back in ‘76 after the first Mayor Daley died in office. There was this chaotic period of nobody in charge. It was bad. The city wanted to keep it from ever happening again, so they created a vice mayor's job. But Jesus, it's such an obscure post. I'd forgotten all about it myself. The vice mayor has no real powers or duties. The mayor appoints him or her. It's usually a member of the city council— some alderman—right?”

Even as the words are leaving my mouth, I guess what has happened.

Then Maria confirms it.

“It's my dad, isn't it?”

She lowers her gun.

“Yes,” the man says soberly. “Your father is the new mayor of Chicago.”

“Well, doesn't this beat all” Maria says to herself. “We finally got a Hispanic mayor in Chicago. And all it took was a zombie apocalypse.”

We ride in the back of the man's SUV. Perhaps because he is the bearer of good news—that her dad is alive and the may-or—or perhaps because he is an enormous, hulking presence she can hide behind, Maria seems completely taken with this friendly giant, which, even in these strange and dire circumstances, depresses me.

The large man says he's taking us somewhere safe, but I notice that now he's driving back in the direction of Crenshaw Cemetery. This makes me nervous.

“What else do you know?” I ask him. “I mean, about what's going on. The last few hours have been crazy, and I only saw the TV broadcasts for a few minutes.”

I'm genuinely curious about the state of the city, but I'm also hoping that when this guy speaks more he'll turn out to be dumb. And that Maria will notice this and be disenchanted with the galoot. (And man, I'm still thinking that if—and it's a big “if”—there's some way this zombie outbreak is confined to Chicago, I'm going to write the best story ever. I've got a front seat to city history.or at least a backseat. They're going to add a fifth star to the city flag to commemorate this. I'm gonna be the one who was there to witness the transition of power. You want to know what happened after the mayor got eaten? How his daughter found out? Here, let me write you that story.)

“The city council is convening informally at the Harold Washington Cultural Center,” he says. “The Loop's too dangerous”

Damn. He said “convening informally” which doesn't seem like a dumb-guy phrase.

“Some alderman just put the word out informally,” he adds. “We've sent runners to just about every district to let people know.”

He used “informally” again. Maybe it's his go-to word. His one smart-person phrase (like that local financier who begins every other sentence with “Quite candidly...”).

“What about my dad?” Maria says.

“We've.” the man begins awkwardly, then starts over. “Last I heard, somebody had a line on him. He may already be at the Cultural Center when we get there. Every effort is being made to loop him in and keep him safe.”

“Okay,” says Maria. “I've got another question. Do you know anything about city employees shooting up and burning the zombies in Crenshaw Cemetery?”

The man visibly flinches and then stops the car.

“What are you—” I start to say. Then I see.

On the dark street in front of us—by a row of cheap-looking shops selling hair-care products—ten or so zombies are lumbering toward a very old woman with a cane. The woman is wrapped in several layers against the chill and swinging her cane over her head like a battle axe. She is waiting for the zombies.

Our driver springs from his seat and takes an automatic handgun from his pocket. He strides toward the zombies with no hesitation. “No ma'am” he shouts. “It doesn't have to end like this!” Maria and I look at each other, wondering if we should follow.

The zombies notice him when he's about fifteen feet away. They are a motley and mottled crew that has obviously fed once already. Their mouths are red with blood. Some look like iced-over cadavers from the lake. Others bear the marks of rot in the ground—a horrible black
matter
that clings to their bones where healthy flesh should be.

“Hey zombies, what's up?” he says brightly. And opens fire.

He's a good shot. Like Maria (and unlike me), he can hit the zombies right in the forehead most of the time. When about half the zombies are returned to the ground, his gun goes “click, click.” He immediately stops and changes clips. The old woman— who has not yet lowered her cane—looks on in wonder. She has been snatched from the jaws of certain death and doesn't know how to feel about it.

The second clip is in his gun. He continues to fire. The remaining zombies are confused. Some of them charge the shooter, but he backpedals easily and they never much close on him. A couple of his shots miss their mark—at one point, I see an ear fly off and go twirling through the air like a seed pod on its way to the ground—but most of the time he hits home. In less than two minutes, all of the zombies are dead.again.

“You okay, Mrs. Watson?” he asks when the last zombie is still.

The woman nods.

“Where you headed?” he presses. “It's not safe to be out” “My place is right here,” she says, indicating a nearby apartment building with her cane. “We'll wait,” he says.

The three of us watch as she shuffles to her doorway, takes out a jangly ring of keys from her purse, and lets herself inside.

“All right then,” she shouts back, and disappears inside the building. Only then does our driver return to the SUV. Maria looks up at him, and I can see from her expression that all that pick-up artist bullshit about women wanting dominant protectors is not actually bullshit at all, and that I have lost her to him for good. As he starts up the SUV and we continue the drive, I console myself with the fact that I still have the story. Still have my Pulitzer, right? And I'm still not dead from zombies.

As we drive, I try to remember who I am. I start to think like a reporter. I need the who, what, when, where, and why.

Start with the who.

“Nice work out there,” I tell our driver. “Say, I didn't even get your name yet.”

“Oh,” he says. “Sorry. It's Shawn Michael. Shawn Michael Recinto.”

It's well past midnight when I run into Kurdy Jakes.

I'm making my way back to The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus as carefully as I can. I try to stick to the side streets and stay in the shadows. Now and then cars whiz past, but it's impossible to tell if they're friend or foe. Certainly, I see no police, fire, or emergency vehicles. I glimpse a couple of possible zombies but leave them in the dust.

At one point, I pass Jackson Park Hospital. They've got three armed men stationed outside—two of whom are still wearing their stethoscopes. They look like exhausted medical interns and carry expressions of “I never expected being a doctor to be easy, but Jesus Christ...” If any place has generators, it's a hospital. Keep out the zombies and criminals, and they should be okay. Even if the power grid fails, they'll be all right for a while. (The local pharmacies—in stark contrast—appear to have been the first hit by drug-seeking looters. I pass no less than four smashed-in Walgreens and CVS stores. The $9-an-hour security guards have long since abandoned their posts, which is the right decision, if you ask me.)

Anyhow, I run into Jakes at the entrance to Valenwood Cemetery. It's a smaller burying-ground located between two old brownstones. Real estate speculators who don't know the neighborhood drive by and stop their cars, thinking there might be a swath of undeveloped land to buy. Then they see the few headstones and monuments—displayed in awkward rows like teeth that need dentistry—and get back into their cars and drive away.

Valenwood is old and not taking many new applicants from what I hear. (These days, to have someone interred there, you pretty much have to have a family plot . . . which is what Kurdy Jakes has.)

Even if you know about it, you tend to forget about Valenwood.

Kurdy is sitting out front. He has brought a folding chair out onto the sidewalk and is seated—a rifle at the ready—facing into the cemetery. He has also brought a thermos of steaming coffee, which rests next to him on the ground.

I did the service whenTeddy Jakes, his son, was shot in a drive-by. It happened about a year ago. Teddy was out with his friends one summer night and didn't know one of the friends had insulted a gang member. Teddy was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Somebody drove by and popped off twelve shots. Wouldn't you know, they missed their intended target and got Teddy.

“Kurdy,” I shout. “It's Pastor Mack”

He looks in my direction. I expect the expression on Kurdy's face to be somewhere between grim determination and outright horror—he is, after all, watching over the same burying ground where his own son's interred. Instead, he looks bemused, even slaphappy. (Maybe it's Irish coffee inside that Thermos.)

“Yo pastor!” he calls back warmly. His smile is broad and gentle.

I saunter over.

Kurdy relaxes in his chair, but doesn't rise. He looks at ease and convivial, as if I have spotted him fishing in Lake Michigan and not gunning for the undead in a zombie outbreak. He doesn't feel dangerous . . . but I still wish I had my shotgun.

“So.” I begin awkwardly.

What do you say to a man who is waiting to kill the zombie of his own dead son?

“Beat all, don't it Pastor?”

“You got that right” I tell him. “I never expected the dead to rise. And they're not just ‘the dead,' are they? They're our own family members over whom we still grieve.”

Kurdy looks left and right, as if I am missing the point.

“Yeah Pastor...” he begins cautiously. “These zombies certainly
do
pose a curiosity. But I was thinkin' more along the lines of ol' Mystian Morph over there.”

“Mystian Morph?” I say. “What's he got to do with.”

Kurdy indicates the cemetery with a poke of his rifle.

I look into the field of headstones. There are three or four dead zombies splayed here and there, but what catches my attention is a man wielding a meat cleaver and l eaning against a very large monument. He is wearing a suit, and his arms are folded.

“Jesus help us,” I say when I realize what I'm seeing.

Mystian Morph is a local businessman and politician, proud of himself for holding a variety of positions in banking and state government. Most people hadn't heard of him until he got appointed by the old governor to fill a U.S. Senate seat. Among other things, Morph was famous for spending a small fortune on a fancy mausoleum for himself. (A mausoleum—I now remember—located here inValenwood.) On the wall of the mausoleum is inscribed a list of Morph's accomplishments, and above them the legend “TRAIL BLAZER.” Which, of course, should be one word, not two.

Most importantly, unlike the zombies stalking through the cemetery grounds, Mystian Morph is very much alive.

“I came here first to watch for my son” says Kurdy quietly. “He come up—just as I thought he might—and I put him back down. I wanted to be the one to do it, y'see? When he come out the ground, I looked him hard in the eyes. That wasn't him anymore. That was some other thing.”

“Amen,” I say with a nod, putting my hand on Kurdy's shoulder. “You did what had to be done.”

“But no sooner do I finish,” Kurdy continues with a laugh, “than ol' Mystian Morph shows up with his little cleaver and sets down next to his gravestone.”

“What's he getting at?” I wonder softly. Morph is well within earshot.

“Hey Mr. Morph!” Kurdy calls out, cupping a hand to his mouth. “What you getting at over there?”

Morph appears not to have heard. I look at Kurdy, who gives me an expression that says”Just wait.”

Then we hear him.

“I'm protecting what's mine!” Morph nearly screams. “This is my legacy! My legacy! I'm not going to let any
damn zombie
upset what I've worked for.”

Really?—I think to myself. He's out here like this so that zombies don't overturn his misspelled headstone and its list of middling accomplishments?

“Ain't like he Martin Luther King,” Kurdy quietly offers from the side of his mouth, evidently thinking along the same lines that I am.

“Yeah,” I reply with a chuckle. “Seems like Martin Luther King was Martin Luther King. Mystian Morph feels more like a yes-man and corrupt Illinois politician who accidentally lucked his way up the ladder . . . and then spent all his money to buy a giant gravestone.”

Kurdy laughs in agreement.

“Pastor, I think you hit the nail on the head.”

Yet, there he stands. Insane. Implacable. Determined to protect his “trail blazing” for future generations to see. Illinois's own Ozymandias.

“I can't just let him die,” Jakes declares. “You see a person this crazy...
this
pitiful and insane...you got to help them. It's the Christian thing to do.”