Zombies! (Episode 10): State of Emergency (3 page)

Abby, too, felt like panicking. Two things were keeping her together. The first was a too large resume of past experiences with zombies. The other was Sam. She didn't know what to say to her strange companions. She didn't know anything about them. So she introduced herself and her son.

The man looked up at her, then at the befuddled sales lady. Then he started to laugh. Then he started to apologize for laughing. Abby's introduction seemed so ridiculous under the circumstances. But she was right. Since they were entombed together, it made sense that they get to know one another. His name was Vincent Vacarro. He was a middle aged, middle income, middle management guy. He wore a gold band on his left ring finger. Abby looked him up and down. He was tall, but not as tall as Martin. He also looked big but she was sure the suit lent to the illusion. This was not the kind of guy that hit the gym. This was the kind of guy that was proud of
not
hitting the gym. He'd probably been in decent shape in his youth but age and a more sedentary schedule had robbed him of what nature had teasingly provided earlier on.

The sales lady's name was Chantelle Roberts. She was young and pretty with creamy brown skin, now streaked with black mascara lines. She had the look of a girl who had started working at the boutique to pay some bills while in school. But the bills had won and school had lost. Maybe she was twenty three or twenty four years old, locked into a life of retail.

"Let's try and keep a level head," she said to them. In a few hours, the police will clean it all up and we'll be able to go."

"Just like that?" Vincent asked incredulously.

Abby nodded. This was not her first time being trapped by zombies. What was preying on her mind was Martin. What must he be thinking?

Chantelle went behind the counter and started fiddling with the computer. The internet was still working. When he realized what she was doing, Vincent went and took over. In a moment, he had logged onto one of the news sites and was running a live feed. There was a worried looking anchor lady reading a frantic story.

"…from all five boroughs and three townships in New Jersey. The police commissioner has declined comment and the representative from Homeland Security has been unavailable. Joining us now from the upper west side…"

Vincent looked up at Abby. "Do you still think the police are going to clean it up?"

"What is it?" Chantelle asked them. "It…it sounds like a war."

"A war?" Vincent cried. "It's the end of the world."

"It's not the end of the world," Abby said.

Vincent huffed.

"But they're all over the city." Chantelle looked at the computer screen where they were flashing a ticker with the locations of all of the attacks. City Hall, the court district in the Bronx, the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, La Guardia Airport. The list went on. "It's like an invasion."

"It's the end of the world."

Chantelle looked sternly at him. "No, really! Look at those locations. It's almost as if someone's been planning this."

Vincent waved his hand and puffed his lips. He walked away from the computer.

Sam pointed at him and said, "Mommy, he's
bad
."

"Sam!" she admonished, dragging him close to her. But Vincent didn't seem to notice or care. He went to the window and leaned his face against it through the displays. In the electric light, Abby could see the vibrations caused by the pounding on the gate reflected in the glass.

"I have a daughter," he said, turning back and looking at Sam. "She's in high school now."

"What's her name?" Abby asked.

"Maria. God, she's beautiful."

"I'm sure."

"I'm never going to see her again." He leaned against the window and sank to the floor, burying his face in his hands.

"Do you have a picture?" Abby asked.

Without even looking up, he tossed her his phone. It bounced on the floor, the screen flickering momentarily. Abby looked down at it, then picked it up. There was an icon on the screen for photos so she just tapped it. There were a lot of pictures of a lot of people so it was difficult to determine who was who. There was a picture of Vincent and a middle aged woman who Abby guessed was his wife. It was a casual picture at a park or something. Vincent was dressed in a polo shirt and a pair of slacks. The woman was dressed in a tight shirt and stretch pants. She shouldn't have been wearing either. In fact, Abby thought even
she
might look better in the outfit. Sometimes, it was just better to accept the aging process and adjust to it.

"Very nice," Abby said even though she could only guess at which of the numerous girls in the pictures was his daughter. She placed the phone on the counter.

All throughout the exchange, Chantelle was pouring through site after site on the internet. "They haven't put up the Emergency Broadcasting Signal yet," she said. "And they're not listing shelter locations."

"That's good, right?" Abby asked.

Chantelle shook her head. "I don't think so. The news people are telling everyone to stay indoors. No one's allowed on the streets. The snow is causing a real problem."

In the last few minutes, Abby had forgotten about the snow. She thought about what Chantelle had said about someone planning an attack. She wondered if it had been coordinated on a snow day. While the snow might slow the zombies down, they didn't feel the cold. They would gradually spread all about the city while the police and the army vehicles would be stymied by the weather.

They lapsed into silence again. There was nothing for them to do but sit and wait.

***

Anthony Heron was officially retired. It felt strange to him, having been a police officer for so long, but strange wasn't bad. There was a time, not too long before, when he would have sworn that he wouldn't know how to fill all of those hours. But that time was gone. He wanted to make the most of the life of which he'd been making the least. So when they'd officially pulled him from the Undead Unit, he had told them about his cancer, filed his paperwork, and said goodbye. It was surprisingly easy. Early in his career he had built relationships but so many of them had faded and failed to be replaced. In his last months as leader of the zombie task force, he had befriended no one. His friends from homicide had faded away like ghosts.
Keep in touch
, Naughton had said, but they both knew they might not ever see one another again. Naughton was a good man and a good work friend. But he wasn't coming over to the house. He didn't have a family and his interests outside of work differed greatly from Heron's own. No, their time together was over. It would be nice if he showed up at Heron's funeral, though.

Alicia had gone off to work early that morning and taken Mellie to school. With the snow coming, Heron would likely go get his daughter early and spend a couple of hours with her until his wife got home. He'd warned Alicia that she'd better come home early. If he was going to be snowed in, he wanted it to be with his wife. She had promised him with a kiss.

After eating a slow breakfast while surfing the internet, he went out for a run. Running seemed out of place under his current circumstances. Often he thought that now was the time to give in to all of those temptations he'd always fought. Why not have ice cream three times a day? Why not sit around and watch TV instead of exercising? There was no good reason and then again there was no reason for him to die fat and stupid either. Aside from the smoking, which had ultimately been his undoing, Heron had lived his life under the guidelines of eating right and exercising. He felt as if letting go of that would be like letting go of himself. That would be giving in. A person can accept his fate without necessarily giving in to it.

And so the morning passed fairly quickly. He ate lunch and then went to get Mellie. He had never picked her up before. Alicia's was the well known face. They had a picture of him on the off chance that he might show up. When he finally did, the teachers looked at him questionably, as if they intended to give him a hard time over taking the child. When he entered the room, though, Mellie looked up at him and squealed
Daddy
. She ran up and grabbed him by the leg. For her this was a unique treat. As he gathered her things and took her from the room, he flashed her teachers a wry smile.

"It's going to snow tonight," he told Mellie as he bundled her up. "We can make snow angels."

"What's a snow angel?"

He smiled. He and his sister had made them when they were kids. They'd come in wet and filthy from sweeping their arms and legs across the streets of the Bronx. They didn't speak now, Heron and his sister. She had gotten pregnant when he as fifteen and run off with her boyfriend. As a teenager, Heron had been old enough to understand but not old enough to really care. He remembered his parents calling the police and hiring a private detective. After a while they had found her, but she had never come back. She'd given birth and built a new life somewhere else. Somewhere across the country, he had a sister and a twenty five year old nephew that he never saw. It was sad but he'd grown used to it. It was just a natural part of life, he supposed.

The snow was starting to come down heavily as he and Mellie walked to the car. Not surprisingly, the storm system had come in early. It would probably end late as well, dumping an extra few inches on them. Tomorrow morning, the whole city would be shut down. He would be out trying shovel pathways for people and cars. Maybe he'd meet some of the neighbors.

They drove slowly. It was normally a twenty five minute drive, even with the traffic lights. But today it seemed to take much longer. People were being more cautious on the road, and every single light seemed to be plotting against him. He didn't care. He had nowhere to be except home. He was beholden to no one.

"How about a little music?" he asked her.

"Stinky Pea!" she shouted back. How she had ever heard of or gotten interested in a band called
Stinky Pea
, he would never know.

"I think just the radio, Mellie. Maybe we'll get lucky."

But there was no music on the radio. Just a frantic DJ trying to piece together the catastrophic events going on all over the city. Heron had missed the beginning of the story. At first it seemed that a few zombies had been spotted in Manhattan. But then it was clear that it was more than a few. And not just Manhattan. For a split second, he was terrified. It had finally happened. The suspicions generated by Rollins' report that the
Zombie Rights Association
was a front for a terrorist building an army of the undead had come to pass. Zombies hadn't just
appeared
in the city. They had been released. Heron listened to the locations of zombie deployment. He and Rollins had found a map scribbled onto the wall of an abandoned office and identified it as a map of New York. There had been nine locations marked off on the map. There were six sightings of zombies so far. He tried frantically to recall the locations he'd seen on the map. But the map had been crude, just shapes on the wall. If they'd been able to decipher it, they'd have been able to avoid this.

Then, all at once, he calmed down. Kraemer would handle it. It wasn't as if he was going to see a troop of zombies marching down his street.

Switching off the radio, he dialed Alicia on the phone. It was hooked up to the dashboard so he didn't have to break any laws.

"Hi, honey," she answered.

"Where are you?" he asked, his tone a lot more clipped than he'd intended.

"Almost home. Why? Worried?"

"Have you been listening to the news?"

"iPod."

"You’re better off."

She grew distressed. "Why? What happened?" And after he told her she asked, "Where are
you
, then?"

"Not too far away. I've got Mellie with me."

"Oh, thank God. Do we need to board up the windows or something?"

He laughed a little at that, but Alicia didn't find it funny. He could tell by the chilly wind that came through the phone. "It's fine, honey," he said to her. "Our street will be perfectly safe. The cops and the army can handle it."

"I'm home now," she told him. "I just pulled into the driveway."

"I'm right behind you."

A minute later, he turned onto his street. His house was in the middle of the block. He pulled into the drive behind her. After removing his phone from its mount, he got out of the car, went around to the passenger side, and unbuckled Mellie. She ran to Alicia and gave her a big hug, shouting
Mommy, mommy!
Heron was following them into the house when he noticed the garbage can lying on its side by the curb. There had been a pickup that morning. The lid was over on its back a few paces away and already filled with snow. He gathered up the lid and the can and brought them around the side of the house. Then he went back down to the street and lit a cigarette.

Alicia hated it that he had started smoking again. Of course, she had every right to hate it. He tried to keep it from her as much as possible. He'd take a couple of extra minutes after a run to smoke a cigarette. He'd go down to the corner store a bit more often. In essence, he was smoking at opportune times and Alicia was pretending that she didn't know about it. It wasn't a recipe for a healthy marriage, but that wouldn't really matter in a few months.