Zombie, Illinois (29 page)

“Not many people know about them” I continue. “They stopped being used around 1950. I'm thinking Marja Mogk's people wouldn't remember them either. Most aldermen don't know anything about the city's history.”

Ben stands by with his finger raised, waiting to get a word in.

“Why are you bringing this up now?” Maria asks. “Old tunnels where they used to ship coal? Why does that matter?”

“Some of the tunnels go straight to Oak Park.
Straight
there. Along a route that's not encumbered by barricades and crazy people. There's an old warehouse just north of that police station where my uncle used to work. That warehouse had an access point into the tunnels. It might be worth trying to see if we can get in. If we can, it'd be a straight shot. I don't see how we wouldn't get there ahead of Alderman Mogk's people.”

Maria smiles. She likes that idea.

Then Ben speaks, and he says
everything
I am not allowing myself to think.

“Um, no. The coal tunnels? Are you
serious,
Mack? No! I can't think of a worse idea! They were dangerous
before
a zombie outbreak. They're condemned and unsafe. Shit might collapse on top of us. You know that as well as I do. The city can't even seal the damn things up safely.”

I assume that Ben is referencing an incident that happened back in 2009, when the city tried to fill one of the tunnels by pumping thousands of gallons of wet concrete into it. (After 9/11, Homeland Security told Chicago it didn't like the idea of a major American city having a bunch of easily-accessed, empty tunnels running directly underneath all its tallest buildings.) But the city's engineers misgauged the strength of the t unnel walls. The injection of concrete made the tunnel collapse and the ground above the tunnels buckled. It shut down traffic on the highway at rush hour, and everybody was pissed. (There have been no concrete injections since. Filling in the tunnels remains an expensive, lose-lose issue that the city doesn't want to deal with.)

“But that's not even the worst part,” Ben continues. “There's bad stuff down there, and everyone knows it. I mean. when you talk to a guy who works for the CTA—the regular subway system—and ask him what's the most fucked-up thing he's ever seen down in the subway tunnels, he'll be like ‘A really big rat.' But have you ever talked to a city worker who had to go into the
coal tunnels?
They've seen shit they don't even want to talk about. Sacks of aborted fetuses; discarded murder weapons covered in blood; altars where people snuck in and did Satanic rituals in the 1970s; shafts where gangsters have been dumping corpses since thirty years
before
Capone. One worker told me that he saw a severed head stuck on a pike. It was old and rotted, but he could still tell it was a head . . . on a goddamn pike!”

“You can't be serious, Ben,” Maria says, giggling and placing a hand on her belly. “That's too much. Someone was being funny with you. I hate to tell you, but you're the kind of guy people would play jokes on.”

She then looks over to me and sees my frown. She sees that I can credit everything Ben is saying. Maybe more. (Definitely more. I've heard worse stories. Things my uncle told me back when I was a little boy. Things I shudder even to remember.) Maria's face falls.

“Normally, at least the shit down in the coal tunnels is dead,” Ben continues. “But tonight it's getting up and
walking around.
Seriously Mack, why did you even suggest this?”

I take a deep breath. (Name? Pastor Leopold Mack. Yes, ma'am. That's right. I'm here for my procedure. Uh huh.
That
procedure.)”Because it's the fastest, clearest way to Oak Park. Maybe the fastest way out of the city tonight, short of a helicopter. If we want to reach Maria's dad before Marja Mogk's people do, then it's the best way. The tunnels go straight there.”

“And
are full of monsters!”
Ben counters.

Ben and I pause. We both look at Maria. We need a tiebreaker here. Probably, Maria should be the one to decide anyway, since it's her father we are trying to reach.

She looks up at her own eyebrows a moment—considering.

“If we got in, how could we be sure we'd get out again?”

I have won.

“
Maria
.you're not seriously considering—” I cut Ben off.

“The hatches open out. They're designed so that people don't get trapped inside. If you can find a way in, then it's easy to get back out again.”

“And how do we know where we're going once we get inside?” Maria says, still calculating. “Do you have a map or something?”

Ben has stopped with the verbal objections but flashes Maria an open-mouthed look to say she might as well be considering jumping off a cliff.

“Not exactly,” I tell her. “I have a compass in the butt of my flashlight. As long as we keep heading northwest, we'll be making progress. If we want to leave the tunnels at any point, there are hatches every quarter mile or so. I think.”

“You...
think?”
Maria says cautiously.

“Even if we just take the tunnels part of the way—just use them to get as far as Humboldt Park, say—we'll still get a big lead on Marja Mogk's people. It could make the difference between life and death for your dad.”

“For my mother and sister who are
with
my dad,” Maria corrects me. “That's why I'm doing this, remember?”

I nod.

Ben tries a final plea.

“Maria . . . we're no use to your family if we get trapped underground in a maze filled with zombies and monsters.” She waves him off.

“It's faster and it goes straight there?” Maria says, turning to me.

I nod, confirming it.

“Okay,” she says. “Then I'm in.”

“We might not even be able to gain access,” I whisper to Ben as we amble north toward my uncle's old factory. “The place might be locked or guarded. Or maybe even knocked down.”

“You can stop trying to sugarcoat this,” Ben tells me, nearly growling. “This is going to suck and you know it.”

He's right. I do.

Yet something tells me this is still the best way to reach the new mayor. Doing so successfully feels more and more important to me. Like maybe it's what God wants...like it's the reason why all of this has happened.

We pull level with the abandoned police station and its equally abandoned parking lot.

“We should stop and have a look inside,” Maria states. “They might have supplies.”

I rub my chin and consider it.

“She's right,” Ben says. “Only Mack has a flashlight, and only Mack and I have guns. I'd like us
all
to have guns and flashlights if we're going down into the fucking coal tunnels.”

“Exactly,” Maria says.

“Okay then” I allow. “Maybe we have time for a quick detour.”

We adjust our trajectory yet again and head across the large empty parking lot toward the dark police station. There is essentially nowhere to take cover. The lot security lights above us are sputtering but still functional. If there are any cops left inside, they will surely see us coming. Only two cars remain in a network of parking spaces that usually holds 200. As I look closer, I discern that they both have flat tires.

I contemplate calling out and announcing our presence. I know a number of south side officers, and it is likely that some of those assigned to this station will remember me. But then it occurs to me that this station might yet be occupied.but not by policemen. In light of this, I remain silent, and we slink up to the entrance as quietly as we can.

The lights are on, and the front door is unlocked. Nothing appears to move within. The only sound is the fuzzy static of an unattended radio dispatch. Ben draws his gun. We push the door open and head inside.

For some reason, I'm expecting the station's interior to be a mess. Paperwork on the floor, computers smashed, bullet holes everywhere. But that's not the case. The inside of the station is as orderly as ever. Desks are neat. Phones are still on their receivers. Computers are unsmashed and functional. It still has that police station smell, too—that strange combination of YMCA, Xerox machine, and the place where you sit and wait in the garage when they change your oil.

But no cops.

The evacuation must have been orderly. It's as if they all simply vanished. Poof! Behind the reception desk, a coffee maker is cooking a pot of Maxwell House down to a crisp.

“All right” I whisper. “Here's what we're gonna do. Ben, you're going to start looking through the desks up here. I'm going to head to the back and see if they have anyplace they keep SWAT gear. Maria, you're going to stay right here and keep an eye on the parking lot.”

Maria raises an eyebrow.

“Your job is the most important” I tell her. “We don't want to get trapped inside. Anybody comes into the lot, you let us know.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Maria takes a chair and points it t oward the glass door to the station. She sits down and begins playing with her cell phone. Ben walks to the nearest desk, opens a drawer, and starts rifling through.

Satisfied, I head for the back of the station. I pass through a pair of swinging doors and take a linoleum staircase down one flight. I am not completely satisfied that the station is empty. I admit that part of me envisioned a cadre of cowardly CPD officers barricading themselves deep within to make a last stand. Upon further consideration, I realize the idea is ridiculous.

These men and women went home to their families. Simple as that.

The city still requires CPD officers to live within the city proper, but almost none of them are from this neighborhood. This part of the South Loop has immaculate, expensive condos (ever forcing themselves southward from the Loop proper) and moldering rat-trap buildings that share property lines with public housing. What it doesn't have is middle-class homes for city workers. The officers who work in this station are either too rich or too poor for the extremes of housing offered in the neighborhood they patrol.

I reach the lower level of the station and find a long concrete hallway. There is nobody about. Thick, functional wooden doors—like in an old high school—line the walls. Most of them are locked. The few that do open reveal administrative offices. Desks with staplers and cups of paperclips.

Just as I'm about to give up, I start to hear the low voices at the end of the hallway. I draw the Glock I took off Shawn Michael and cautiously move in to investigate.

I'm testing my phone—trying to send text messages—when Ben comes over and stands next to me. He's pesty, like a dog that wants attention.

“Are the phones working again?”

“No,” I tell him. “I was trying to text, but I don't think they're going through. Did you find anything in those desks?” “No guns. But maybe these will be good.” He holds up several identical flashlights. They're smaller than Mack's Maglite but might do in a pinch. And this is a pinch if ever there was one.

“That's good,” I say. “If it's true what you guys are saying about what's down in the tunnels, we probably need guns, too.”

“It's true all right” Ben says with a shudder. “I don't even want to think about it. Things are fucked-up enough on the streets of Chicago, and Mack wants us to go to the one place that's sure to be even worse? I don't get it.”

“Is it true what he said about being able to go straight to Oak

Park?” I ask.

Ben looks around the room like there are ghosts hovering around to give him backup. If there are, I can't see them. “Yeah,” I say. “That's what I thought.”

Giving up on my phone, I walk into the network of desks and look for a computer that isn't password protected. Frustratingly, all of the ones belonging to individual officers are. But then I try the aging Dell with the well-worn keyboard behind the reception desk . . . bingo. I open a browser window.

“Is the internet working on that computer?”

“We're about to find out,” I tell him as we both crowd around the screen.

I try the websites for local newspapers first. They look broken, like someone was interrupted in the process of updating the pages. Everything is formatted in a weird, unprofessional way. We can make out a few headlines though. My favorites are “Multiple Cannibal Attacks in Loop!” “Amidst Widespread Rioting, a City on Lockdown” and “Mayor, Family Eaten Alive!!!”

“Try the national news,” Ben says, reaching for the mouse.

“Back off, man!” I tell him. “I'm driving.”

“Well drive then,” he says petulantly.

We pull up the website of a cable news station. The headline reads, “The Dead Rise in Illinois!!! Chaos in the Windy City!!!”

“Hot damn,” says Ben, clapping his hands with glee. “It's a local story! Local! And I'm at the heart of it! That Pulitzer is so fucking mine.if I can just not die.”