Already Dead

  I bleed.

  —Regardless, I think it's safe to assume that you are beyond help at this point.

  He thinks for a moment.

  —But just to be safe.

  He shoots my right arm. I sit there, helplessly listing on my one good limb.

  —All this carnage may be oversetting the scene a bit, but I trust that Predo will be able to tidy things up. And I'm sure that the authorities will understand the excesses I took in avenging myself on you. You would understand as well if you were to stay present long enough to witness what you did to my daughter. But it is not to be.

  He shakes his head.

  —A shame. Nothing would please me more than to have you in my lab. But. He heaves a sigh.

  —Predo forbids it. I can experiment all I like with the . . . well, one feels comic to call it this, but with the zombie bacteria. But he will not allow me a subject of research for the Vyrus. No bother, I'll get one on my own soon enough.

  —Husband.

  He looks at his wife. Standing in clothes askew, leaning crookedly against the wall behind her. —I think I want to eat you.

  She tries to take a step and stumbles, her body, already decomposing, is arguing with the bacteria over who controls what.

  Horde smiles.

  —Don't worry, love. You won't have to live with that feeling for long. And who knows, perhaps I'll cut something from Amanda for you to nibble. I assure you she'd feel only the mildest pain in the state she's in. The dear won't even remember. What do you say? Something she won't miss, of course. A little finger?

  He turns his eyes back to me and shrugs.

  —As you can see, I have a great deal to take care of here. My family is waiting.

  He presses the barrel of the gun against the top of my forehead. I watch his finger as it tightens on the trigger.

  Something changes in the room.

  A darkness flickers across the corner of my vision. A darkness perilously cold chills the air. A darkness passes between Horde and myself, erasing its own scent as it travels. The darkness cuts through Horde and he drops rigid to the floor. The darkness bleeds across the room, momentarily blackens the shadows in a high corner, and is gone.

  And I forget about the darkness and go after what I need.

  I crawl up Horde's naked body, every part as rigid as his penis now, his skin icy to the touch, and a rim of frost on his gun. I dig my fingers under his jaw and pull. His flesh tears far easier than it should. Flesh tears with a crunch like stepping on snow. I bend my head to lap his blood. And find it frozen. His torn neck filled with dead crimson slush.

  I rage.

  And remember the sleeping girl.

  I drag my gunshot leg toward her.

  —Joseph.

  The woman has the whimpering snot-faced goon. She holds his hair in her hand, his head pulled far back. In her other hand, she holds the enforcer's stiletto.

  —You did a good job, Joseph.

  The hard wiry muscles of her arms and shoulders flex as she pushes the knife into the artery.

  Blood splashes.

  From across the room I crawl until my mouth is over the hole in his neck. It has been years since I have had blood from the vein. It is just as I remember. The blood floods my throat and warmth swells in my stomach and a harsh burning tingle attacks my hurts.

  A few blissful red minutes pass. They might be seconds or hours; over far too soon, a pleasure greater than their brevity would suggest. And when the man is empty and I am full and my face is rinsed in his gore, I feel as I always do when I feed, like I want more. I go for the girl.

  And I am pummeled to the floor by her mother.

  —Joseph.

  I am fed, but weak. The Vyrus is replenishing itself, repairing its host. It wants more. I stand. She brings her doubled fists down on me again.

  —Joseph!

  Behind her I can see the girl's eyelids flutter. I must have her. I stand. And am hammered down again.

  —Joseph.

  I try to crawl past her. She is on my back and we are a pile of struggling limbs on the floor. I try to free my arms, to pull myself across the few yards between us and the child. The mother twists her legs around mine and binds my arms in the circle of her own.

  —Joseph. Please, Joseph.

  Her lips are on the back of my neck, and then her teeth, gnawing gently, experimenting with biting, but not breaking the skin. The girl's eyes open blindly, close, open again and close again. Her teeth are on my neck.

  —Joseph. Help me. Teeth carrying poison.

  I forget the girl, flex the muscles in my shoulders and back, and feel Marilee's grip fail. I writhe loose of her arms and legs and scuttle away from her. She sits in the middle of the floor, arms slack, looking at me. Then she looks at her daughter. And crawls to her.

  —Ms. Horde.

  She kneels next to the child.

  —Ms. Horde.

  She touches the skinny bare legs.

  —Marilee.

  She picks up the folded jeans and starts fussing them back onto the girl. She gets them as far as her knees and stops. She looks up at me.

  —I'm hungry, Joseph.

  Her hand rests on Amanda's naked thigh, gripping it too hard, dimpling the skin.

  —I'm so hungry.

  She looks at her daughter.

  —Help me, Joseph.

  The holes in my body are all closed, blood trapped inside, but I can feel that only one lung is inflating, and poisons released from my pierced intestines and liver are pooled in my gut. The Vyrus will deal with it, given time it will make me whole. But if the woman attacks me now, with the bacteria fresh and strong in her, she will finish me.

  I stand and walk to her. She reaches a hand up to me. I take it and help her to her feet. She puts a hand alongside my face, and presses her mouth against mine. When she pulls away her lips and chin are smeared with the dead man's blood.

  —I had a feeling about you, Joseph.

  I bring my right hand up to the back of her head.

  —From the first moment I saw you, I had a feeling you were special.

  I bring up my left hand, the cuffs, one bracelet sawed through, still trailing from my wrist, and cup her chin.

  —Special. Like you were someone I could trust.

  Her eyes drift to her daughter and back to me.

  —Can I trust you, Joseph?

  I run a tongue over my lips, taste the blood.

  —Yeah, sure.

  —Good.

  And I break her neck.

  It's not easy. It's very hard. I am drained and weak and she flinches at the last moment. I heave once and her spine crackles and she starts to tremor. Then I heave again and feel the clean snap and she goes still.

  I lower her to the floor, and as I do I meet Amanda's open staring eyes, see her mouth gaping in a silent nightmare scream, and then her eyes close again. This moment, I hope, to be lost with the rest of her terrors.

  Lydia brings three of her hammers. Two of them are diesels, beefier than her but not nearly as cut. The other is a pre-op tranny a huge chick with a dick, shoulders and tits the size of bowling balls.

  —Is she OK?

  —They shot her up with something. I don't know what.

  —They who?

  I look at Amanda, limp in my arms.

  —People who aren't around anymore.

  Lydia nods.

  —What now?

  —She needs a safe place.

  —How long?

  —Don't know. Couple days maybe.

  She looks at the tranny.

  —Sela?

  The tranny nods and answers in a throaty rumble.

  —Sure, I can take care of the sweetie.

  Lydia looks at me.

  —OK?

  I look at Sela.

  -—People may come.

  Sela lifts both her arms, flexes them bodybuilder style and her biceps just about pop out of her skin.

  —Their problem.

  I nod. r />
  —OK.

  Sela lowers her arms.

  —Let me have the cupcake.

  I hold her out. Sela plucks her from my arms and tucks her easily into the crook of one of her own. I point at the bloody fingerprints on her jeans and shoes, left there when I finished dressing her.

  —See if you can get her into something clean before she wakes up.

  Sela is watching Amanda's sleeping face, one Lincoln Log finger brushes loose hair from her forehead.

  —No problem, we'll get cupcake all sorted out. C'mon, ladies.

  One of the diesels opens the door and checks the street outside, then signals an all clear. Sela follows her out and the other diesel brings up the rear, closing the door behind her. Lydia points at the closed door.

  —She'll be fine with them.

  —Yeah.

  She goes to the door, puts her hand on the knob.

  —We should get going, sunrise soon.

  —Yeah.

  We step out of the empty storefront onto Avenue B. Lydia locks the door behind us and we start down the street. I point back at the storefront.

  —That a Society safe house?

  —One of mine.

  —Hn.

  She's burned a safe house. Let someone outside her circle know about it. There'll be skin to pay for that. There's always skin to pay for something. Then again, chances are she won't have to worry about anything I know much longer. She looks at me from the corner of her eye, smiles slightly.

  —Tom's been going batshit.

  —Yeah?

  —Yeah. Told him I went to give you some chow and you sucker-punched me and grabbed the key to the shackles. He tried to track you, but I had a couple of my people out gumming up your scent. He's frothing. Says he'll have me up on charges when Terry gets back.

  —Still not back?

  —No. Got a message from the drop, though. The Coalition's raising some kind of stink, clogging up all passages across their turf. Know anything about that?

  —Nope.

  She stops on the corner of 9th and B.

  —I go this way. What about you?

  I point the opposite direction.

  —Home.

  —Sure about that?

  —Nowhere else left.

  She nods.

  —Anything else?

  —Got a smoke?

  She shakes her head.

  —Give my money to the death merchants at the tobacco companies? You should know better.

  —Right.

  She stuffs her hands in her back pockets.

  —The girl?

  —If you don't hear from me tomorrow, wait for Terry. He'll know what to do.

  —He usually does.

  —Yep.

  At home I get cleaned up, and in bed with a cigarette. Every time I take a drag the cuff still hanging off my wrist bangs against my neck. I could pick the lock, but my wallet with the picks is on the opposite side of the room. Too far away. I put my cigarette in the nightstand ashtray and take hold of the dangling cuff. I begin to twist it round and round. The chain bundles and knots and the cuff still locked on my wrist digs into the skin. I crank the loose cuff once more and wrench my locked wrist in the opposite direction and the chain pops, one broken link shooting across the room. I put the sawn-through cuff on the nightstand and pick up my cigarette. I rub my wrist, massaging the red skin under the single cuff I now wear like a bracelet. I spin the bracelet around and around and think about the girl that it had been locked to.

  And I lie in the dark, sucking smoke into my one good lung.

  When I finally sleep I dream. I don't dream about the girl or her mother or her father. I don't dream about Whitney Vale or Evie or the wretched things that raised me. I dream about a darkness. And I see all the details I had only glimpsed in that room.

  The way the darkness seeped into the room through a crack in the air. How it cut the space between Horde and myself. How it passed through Horde, passed through him as he would have passed through a mist. How it flapped and shivered as with pleasure, gliding up to the shadows in the corner of the room. The things bulging from within the darkness, trying to get out. The shapes bulging from it, pressing it outward from the inside, like people trapped inside a black sheath of rubber. The hole it cut in the shadow. The last shape, digging from within it, before it inked the shadow black and disappeared.

  The shape like an oily black relief of Horde's screaming face.

  —Stop screaming, Pitt.

  I open my eyes. They're already here.

  —Little early, guys.

  Predo has set the chair from my desk next to the bed and is sitting in it. He looks at his watch.

  —It is nearly midnight. You have slept all day. Now it is time to get up.

  —Yeah, guess you're right.

  I sit up in bed and stretch.

  —I'd offer you guys some coffee or something, but I don't like you. So. I throw off the covers and move to get up and Predo's giant holds up a hand.

  —If you could just stay on the bed for now, Mr. Pitt.

  —Yeah, sure.

  I grab my smokes from the nightstand, light up, lean my back against the wall and sit there in my shorts and undershirt, and smoke. Predo lets it go for a minute, then gets tired of it.

  —Where is the girl?

  I take a drag. I think I can feel some of the smoke going into my right lung. A good sign.

  —Say, Mr. Predo.

  His eyes tighten, but he waits for it.

  —Know what I'm noticing?

  He waits.

  —No? OK, I'll tell you.

  I stub my cigarette in the ashtray.

  —I'm noticing how you're not asking what happened to the Hordes.

  I grab the pack of Luckys and knock a fresh one out.

  —When last seen, one of your enforcers was with them. You'd think he'd have called in by now. But he hasn't. Know how I know he hasn't?

  I flip my Zippo open.

  —Because I killed him.

  I thumb the wheel.

  —But I have a feeling you already know that.

  I light the butt.

  —And that you don't give a fuck.

  I close the lighter with a snap.

  —Care to comment?

  He temples his fingers and presses them to his lips.

  —May I have a cigarette?

  I pass him one. He taps it against his thumbnail then places it carefully between his lips and leans forward. I flick the Zippo to life and hold it out. He dips the tip of the cigarette in the flame, inhales, leans back and exhales with a slight cough.

  —Filterless.

  I close the lighter and put it back on the nightstand.

  —Yeah.

  He takes another drag, exhales without coughing this time.

  —One of the advantages of the Vyrus. I do not personally take advantage of it often, but when I do, I prefer filterless. More flavor.

  —Yeah.

  —You are right.

  He picks a flake of tobacco from his tongue.

  -My agent did fail to report when expected.

  He shakes the tobacco from his fingertip.

  —Another of our agents went to the Horde residence and reconstructed some of the action that had taken place there. Based on that reconstruction, and my knowledge of Dr. Horde's predilections, I was able to make an assumption as to where he had taken his ... party. The agent went to the school. Yes, I do know about the Hordes and their man. And my agent. And you are correct about something else, as well. I do not give a fuck.

  He takes another drag, but pulls a sour face this time and shakes his head.

  —What does that say as to how I feel about you?

  He drops the freshly lit cigarette to the floor and steps on it.

  —You see, you are mistaken about what is happening in this room, Pitt. You think you are maneuvering yourself into position for some kind of bargain. You hope to leave this room not only with your life, but with information,
and perhaps some kind of profit. It is true that there is a bargain to be struck here, but what lies in the balance is not your life, but rather the manner of your death.

  My cigarette burns a little closer to my fingers.

  —You have killed an agent of the Coalition. And so you will die. Put simply, you can tell us where the girl is right now, and we will kill you in some quick and relatively painless manner. Or, if you prefer, you may withhold that information, and force us to extract it from you. After which, we will drive to a location in New Jersey which I understand is excellent for viewing the sunrise. Need I be any more blunt?

  The heat of my cigarette's cherry reaches my fingers. I bring it up to my face and eke out a last drag before putting it out. I hold the smoke from that last drag, then jet it out my nostrils.

  —I know Horde was the carrier.

  I pick up the cigarette Predo crushed on rny floor.

  —Yeah, I know, a statement like that is pretty much a conversation killer.

  I drop the crushed cigarette in the ashtray.

  —Where do you go from there? So let me expound a little bit. Just so you know I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

  I gather my thoughts. And hope they don't fall apart too quickly.

  —Say you're a man like Horde. Say that in addition to owning a company like Horde Bio Tech, you are also its top researcher. And just for the sake of argument, say you also happen to be a very sick motherfucker who happens to have access to certain facts about how things work on the darker side. That's our side, Predo. Oh, I'm gonna get dressed now.

  I scoot to the edge of the bed. The giant takes a step toward me, but Predo shakes his head and he stops. Standing is tricky, but I manage. Predo watches as I shuffle to the closet.

  —Not feeling well, Pitt?

  —Been better.

  I stand in front of the closet for a moment and look at myself in the mirror on the door.

  Predo continues to watch the space where I had been sitting on the bed.

  —You were saying?

  Not surprisingly I look like shit. The bruises around my eyes and nose aren't so bad, but the tooth Tom knocked out is still gone. The Vyrus will knit bone, but it won't grow new ones.