Zombie, Illinois (24 page)

Again Jakes reads my thoughts. My shameful thoughts. Namely, that a zombie apocalypse would be a good time to let a man like Mystian Morph get what he deserved. That letting him die might be the
first
step to setting things right again. (Bad pastor. Bad pastor. Bad pastor.)

“Doesn't Mystian have a wife?” I ask, remembering this important fact.

“Heh,” says Kurdy. “He sure do. Who you think brought me this coffee? It's good, too. You want a sip?” I politely decline.

“He ain't doin' shit with that meat-cutter,” Kurdy continues. “I shot three zombies so far rose up and come after him.
So far.
I sure wish he'd leave. But just you watch . . . he'll stay, and soon there'll be another.”

Kurdy cups his hands to his mouth again.

“You need to get yourself on out of there, Mr. Morph! You need to go home to your wife.”

Morph mumbles back something under his breath. The only word I catch is “legacy.”

“You're a good man” I tell Kurdy. “Here I was worried about you having to see your son again. and you're trying to save the life of somebody that . . . well . . . most folks wouldn't put first on their list at a time like this.”

Kurdy shakes his head and looks at the ground.

“Losing a son is hard,” he says softly. “After that, a bunch of damn zombies ain't nothing.”

Okay, so do I need to tell you that sometimes a girl likes the wrong kind of man? Because sometimes a girl likes the wrong kind of man.

And people try to make it like we don't know. Like the guy has been all.deceptive. Like we're all innocent, and we've been tricked into following a man who is no damn good for us. But please, we
know
he is no damn good for us. We just want him anyway.

That was the kind of vibe I got from Shawn Michael.

I could tell a mile away that something was up with this dude. My creeper-senses were tingling, sure. But other parts of me were tingling too. That was the problem. And the way he jumped out of the car and shot up those zombies like out of an action movie? Hot damn.

Let's just say a girl wants what a girl wants.

By the time the SUV pulls up to the front ofthe HaroldWashington Cultural Center, I am already undressing Shawn Michael with my eyes. (His body is unreal. Like a sculpture from olden-times or something.) But I'm still getting, you know, the creep-factor. The way he shot those zombies tells me he done things with a gun before. Probably, the best-case scenario is former military. As for the worst-case.well.I'm not excited to think about it.

The Cultural Center—like Mack's church—has apparently become a rallying place. It's a large, modern building with an indoor theatre that has twice as many seats as The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus. Also, there just isn't much else in the surrounding neighborhood. If you were looking for a gathering place, you'd probably go here.

This part of Bronzeville is desolate and bare—and just plain boring, if you don't find the possibility of being mugged “i nteresting,” which I don't. A few years ago, the city tried to clean up and fix this neighborhood. They started with an official decree designating it a “Blues District” because it had had blues bars in it fifty years before. It was in all the papers. They put up fancy streetlights with silhouettes of blues musicians on them and built this giant cultural center. It was supposed to convince people from other parts of the city to come down and spend money and turn a swath of payday loan stores and fried fish shacks into respectable businesses. Maybe actual blues clubs. It didn't work.

The neighborhood stayed lousy and barren. No tourists came. One blues club opened, but it burned down under suspicious circumstances. An ex-alderman was brought in to run the Cultural Center. She gave her kids jobs there and mismanaged it to near-death before they finally wrested it away from her. These days, it's only open a few days a week. Mostly, it hosts community events, traveling shows, and second-rate standup comedians.

Tonight though, Chris Rock might as well be headlining.

Cars are parked up and down the block, and the Cultural Center is lit up in all its glory. People stand all around the building—some armed, some not. There are even a couple of uniformed police, praise Jesus. In a few places, dead zombies have been piled together—not giant stacks or anything, but groups of two or three. Around the periphery of this outpost of civilization, men with drawn weapons patrol at the edges of the darkness.

For the first time since seeing that Slayer-shirt zombie in the parking garage, I start to calm down. I start to feel like somehow things are going to work out. I'm with a big strong man who has taken me to a place that almost looks like civilization, a place with people who know where my father and mother and sister are. It's not perfect, but I'm well aware that it's more than I should hope for in a zombie outbreak. More than a lot of people will get tonight.

This feeling washes over me. Thankful. That's it. I'm feeling really, really thankful.

Shawn Michael tries to find a parking spot that doesn't block somebody in. (He's so considerate.) Ben sits quietly, looking around. Actually, he looks unhappy. He has this expression on his face like he's just smelled something bad. I think he can sense that he's just been outmanned. That a real, take-charge dude is now present.

Shawn Michael pulls to a halt in the parking lot of a restaurant across the street from the Cultural Center.

“I'm gonna go let them know I've found you,” Shawn Michael says. Then, like an afterthought, he adds, “I'll check to see if they've gotten in touch with your father yet. I mean, maybe he's there already. If he's not, I'll see that they drive you to his location.”

SLAM
goes the door. Shawn Michael runs toward the brightly lit Cultural Center, waving at the men with guns. They recognize him and wave back, mostly in a way that seems deferent.

A protector. A leader. The guy they look to to handle shit in a crisis.

Yes you are, Mr. Shawn Michael. Yes indeed you are. Oh my God, can you please just fuck me right now? Then out of nowhere, Ben says, “We have to get out of here. We have to leave before he gets back!” Fucking spoilsport. “What are you
talking about?”

Ben's face is a mask of terror. For some reason, it makes me think of a little kid being taken in to get his first shot. Like everything, everywhere in the doctor's office could hurt him. It's that pure, paranoid terror you don't often see in adults. Especially not in grown-ass men.

“We need to go,” he insists, opening his door. “C'mon.”

“No! What's wrong with you? They know where my dad is. He might even be inside.”

“These are the same men from the cemetery where they were burning the bodies,” Ben says, whispering now that the car door is open.

“What.. .all
these people?”
I ask.

“No, but some of the ones standing outside with the guns definitely are,” Ben replies.
“You
weren't looking into the graveyard, okay?
You
didn't see them.
I
did—and I'm telling you, these are some of the same guys who were trying to kill us.”

“Ben, they know where my dad is,” I insist. “My mother and sister are with my dad. They're all I care about right now. See how it works?”

“Maria, this feels
really
bad to me,” Ben says, making one final pitch. (He's appealing to my feelings. Trying to get me to make a “heart” decision and not a “head” one. [What he doesn't know is that there's another part of my body making a pretty strong case that I should stay around and try to get some time alone with Shawn Michael.])

“Well it feels the opposite to me,” I tell him. “All these people are here. There's cops, even. It feels totally safe. The men with guns are just keeping the zombies away, which frankly I'm sick of doing myself.”

Ben pauses and looks at me for a moment. Looks me up and down. But it's not creepy. It's kind of sad. I realize he is saying goodbye.

He exits the SUV, closes the door without a word, and races madly into the night.

Gah!

Out of the frying pan and into to the fire. Is that the expression? That certainly feels right. My God! My fucking God!

I race down the snow-slick streets away from the Cultural Center as fast as my legs will carry me. I have no idea where I'm going. All I know is that the people Shawn Michel took us to are the same ones who tried to kill us. Murderers. And Maria is letting them have her. Serving herself up.

How could this happen?

They say you're supposed to be careful what you wish for, because you might get it. As I jog—badly, slowly—along the sidewalk leading away from the Cultural Center, it strikes me like a crossbow bolt to the chest that I may have gotten exactly what I wished for.

I knew Illinois was a state filled with fakers and losers. With self-interested politicians who had long ago sold their souls to the first bidder. With men and women who had marinated in the filth and corruption for so long that it no longer felt like corruption (and only a little like filth). It was just Illinois, just Chicago, the way things were done. So you did it; you got your money, and you moved on.

I knew they would suck and be terrible in a disaster.and I was right.

And it is, as I'm beginning to realize, little consolation. I stop jogging for a moment and let out a deep sigh.

Scott Kenemore

To win the Pulitzer for my exposé of this shit, I first have to live through it. As of this moment, that's the only project left.

I can't jog all the way north to the Loop.or south to Indiana. (Are Hoosiers better prepared than Illinoisans for a zombie outbreak? Maybe they have their own set of problems.)

Even though I'm fueled by terror, I'm well aware that I'll start to flag before long. Compounding this, it's fucking winter. I need to find shelter and heat eventually, or I will die. The zombies will have a frozen Bensickle on which to feast.

A few blocks away from the Harold Washington Cultural Center I encounter a caved-in cop car—smoldering, and with the charred skeleton of a policeman inside. I stop to rest and put my hand on the hood. Still warm. I wonder if the charred CPD officer is going to reanimate and come after me. For the moment, he remains still.

Without warning, a mangy white van comes screeching down the street. It's got one headlight out, and its bald tires are for shit on the snowy streets. It weaves precariously back and forth.

I move around the side of the police car-husk, instinctively wanting to put something between myself and the oncoming van. As it turns out, my efforts at self-preservation are premature.

Before it's halfway down the block, the van veers fatally into a mail drop box, which explodes in a shower of white letters. The snowy street is covered with mail. The van's driver explodes out of the driver's side door. He is naked to the waist and not wearing shoes. He takes off running down the street. He goes right past me.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he screams as he passes.

I watch him race off into the darkness.

Then there is a noise. I turn around—back to the van—and see movement. I squint to get a better look.

A zombie emerges from the van. It is the most awkward zombie I have ever seen. Its arms are bound with rope and its mouth is taped shut with electrical tape. It shuffles awkwardly, like a worm trying to walk upright.

A moment later there is a KRA-KACK! And the zombie's forehead explodes. Two men in puffy winter jackets emerge from the shadows behind an abandoned bank. They both carry shotguns. I watch as they enter the van and begin to look through it.

They have to see me. I'm exposed by a cop car. How can they not see me?

Then I realize that they do see me. They probably saw me before the van drove up. They just don't care.

The illusion, I realize, is that these dark streets mean that I am alone.