My Dead Body

  Grate I removed is still off. Still dark as hell up there.

  Quiet.

  Terry stands directly under the hole, sniffs, pulls a face, steps back and waves us to him.

  —What is that?

  I shake my head.

  —What’s what?

  He points at the hole.

  —Smell.

  I step under the hole, make a show of raising my face and scenting, come back to Terry, Lydia and Hurley.

  —Smells like a lot of dead people to me.

  He frowns.

  —Joe, without this meaning to sound like a brag, because I wish it wasn’t the truth, but I’ve smelled piles of dead in my life.

  He points at the hole again.

  —That’s not what they smell like.

  I find my tobacco, unseal it and start to roll.

  —And when was the last time you smelled over a hundred Vyrus infected who all died of starvation?

  I seal up my smoke.

  —’Cause that’s what’s been going on in there.

  I pat my pockets, looking for a light, and realize I never grabbed a dry pack of matches before we set out.

  —Shit.

  Lydia goes to the hole herself, gets a whiff, comes back.

  —It’s Vyrus. Dead. Something else.

  I fiddle with the unlit smoke, holding it between my fingers like it might make me feel a little better.

  —Could be the shit-smeared walls you’re smelling. The bile they puked up when they died. Could be the wood rot in the walls. Wait a little longer and all you’re gonna smell is Predo’s boys coming through the front door.

  Hurley is under the hole now. He inhales, flinches, pinches his nostrils closed.

  —A proper reek it tis, whatever it may be.

  He unpinches his nose, takes another whiff.

  —Hard to say an all, but could be a hint o gun powder as well.

  Terry pulls a whisker from his soul patch.

  —I don’t like to be overly suspicious in a team endeavor like this, but, I don’t know, I just don’t like climbing into a dark basement when I can’t really smell what’s in it.

  He points at me.

  —You first, Joe.

  I look up at the hole.

  —As if there were any doubt.

  The ache is in my fingernails now.

  Cramps haven’t hit the point where I’d rather die than feel the next one, but I can sense them stacking one after the other like waves ready to pound the shore. Bones alternate between freezing and scorching.

  I shiver, sweat, stand under the hole rubbing my stomach.

  Lydia kneels a few feet away, an old wood-stocked carbine in her hands, aimed at the hole.

  —Sooner you go up, sooner you might eat.

  I wipe sweat.

  —Feel like I’m gonna puke. Cramps. Hot flashes. Cold flashes.

  I point at myself.

  —Sure I’m the guy you want on point?

  She jerks her gun at the hole.

  —Jump on up there and stop whining, Joe. Doesn’t sound like there’s anything wrong with you that most women don’t deal with once a month.

  —Calling me a pussy?

  She drops her aim till it’s on my legs.

  —Need some motivation here, Joe?

  I hold up my half a hand.

  —Leave a little for the vultures, lady.

  She tilts her chin at the hole.

  —Show us how safe it is.

  I rub my chin.

  —Sure. Safe as houses. Nobody up there but the chickens. I jump.

  Full fed, I’d just about be able to hop straight up and land straddling the hole. Like I am, I get as good a grip on the edge as I can with one thumb, and haul myself up and through.

  Nothing kills me.

  Light from below shows me the corpse of the thing I did in a couple hours ago. Seeing it twists my stomach in another direction. Looks like someone crossbred a cactus with a manatee and turned it inside out. Only worse.

  Amanda. Crazy little girl. What the hell are you doing?

  I can’t see much more, my eyes not cutting the dark all that well. But it does smell thick with Vyrus. Thicker than I remember. And might be Hurley was right about that gun powder. Did the girl and her boy have a piece? Did they maybe use it on Sela out in that stairwell?

  Hell. She’d have killed them both. Might explain the extra Vyrus smell if she killed the boy. Especially if she tossed his body in here.

  From below, Terry.

  —You dead, Joe?

  I stick my head in the hole, shade my eyes from the flashlight beam, look at Lydia and Terry, their guns trained on me.

  —That a trick question?

  Terry circles his finger at me.

  I look over my shoulder at the basement, look back down.

  —Let me finish checking it out. And throw me up a flashlight.

  One of them tosses the light, I miss it and it sails up through the hole, hits the floor, goes dark and skitters away, a little tinkle of sound trailing it.

  I use the light from below as best I can, crawl out of it, into dark, feeling the floor. Put my hand in something wet and knobby-soft, feels like a handful of warm pig fat. I pull my hand back and fingertips skim something on the ground and it makes that tinkle sound as I scatter it.

  Broken glass from the flashlight.

  Fucking thing better work.

  The beams from below are still shooting up through the hole, dancing on the cobwebs overhead. Just ten feet away, but they do me no good. A cramp grabs my guts. Yank, yank, yank. I put my hands down, scatter more glass, hear more tinkles. Feel more warm wet under my knees, soaking through the cold wet clinging to my jeans.

  Man, that thing I killed was full of blood.

  Wait.

  Warm wet.

  How many hours ago did I kill that thing? Yeah. No. I put my hand down. Smell my hand. Vyrus. No. Doesn’t look good for Chubby’s little girl’s boyfriend.

  My hand closes on the flashlight.

  Fucking finally.

  I turn it on. See my hand covered in blood and something green, streaks of pink running through it. See the thing I killed, close up this time. Only. Except wait. It looks more like an inside-out lobster mashed with a porcupine. Wait.

  Look over my shoulder at the beams coming from the hole. Reorient myself to the basement. Flash the beam of my own light to the opposite wall. And there’s the thing I killed.

  Cold.

  Beam on the thing in front of me.

  Warm.

  Scuttle back on my heels.

  Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.

  Look down. Floor is covered in shell casings.

  What are all those black lumps?

  Raise the beam, run it over the far end of the basement near the door, pile of bodies, some in black coveralls and body armor, some in police uniforms, coveralls, tracksuits, blood in runnels, a mass under the pile, still twitching, looks like a ball of flesh whips.

  I can see those doors I felt in the dark a few hours back. They go farther than I thought. A row of them. Six, seven maybe. Half of them open. The basement takes a turn, there could be more doors around the bend. It’s quiet, but I can smell that mystery stink, Vyrus gone wrong, slipping from each of those doors.

  They quiet because there’s no uninfected blood for them to smell?

  Fed and sleeping?

  Dead?

  I’d like to get that lucky. Once in my life, I’d like to get that lucky. But I’m not counting on it.

  I stand, take a few steps toward the hole and something takes me from behind, wraps around my throat, pinning my arms, covering my eyes, my mouth. I’m dragged backward, picturing tentacles, flesh whips, some other madness from Amanda’s lab, the Vyrus stretched to a perverse conclusion.

  —Quiet, Pitt.

  A hand is taken from my eyes.

  Not in the grips of a mutated land squid, simply pinned by another trio of enforcers.

  Predo, his suit clinging
to him where it’s been soaked in blood, a crust of something yellow-gray dried along his jawline, a crosshatch of wounds closing on his forehead.

  He puts his mouth close to my ear.

  —They will hear you.

  I nod.

  The hand is taken from my mouth.

  I look around.

  Predo, a couple of his commandos, another two dozen or so enforcers in various costumes, all jammed into the dead end of the basement, backs against the wall that faces another row of doors. Six. Three are open. Bits and pieces of enforcers are scattered and smeared about. Something that I hope is dead, skin the texture of third-degree burns, underside coated in limp cilia, a row of tiny limbs jutting from its back, lying outside one of the open doors.

  From inside one of the open cells comes the sound of flesh ripping, bone breaking, tendons snapping, a giant chicken being dismembered. Grate of teeth on bone.

  Predo opens and closes his hands and one of the enforcers gives him a snubbed assault rifle.

  He puts his mouth to my ear again.

  —She opened the doors when we were driven down here. It appears that not all of the bolts withdrew. It could be malfunction.

  I hold up a finger.

  —It’s not. She’s fucking with you.

  He nods.

  —My thought. Yes.

  He points at the corner that leads to the central basement, the rest of the cells, the hole, the door.

  —Power junction. Cut the lines before she can open any more.

  I’m looking at that corner, right in the angle of it, up where the wall meets the ceiling, a tiny dot of red light.

  Predo points at the open door that doesn’t have a dead monster in front of it, or a live one beyond it eating enforcer corpses.

  —Not all of them are dangerous. Immobile, it seems.

  I tap his ear, he puts it close.

  —Or not awake yet.

  He shows me the assault rifle.

  —Do you still want one of these, Pitt?

  I nod.

  He nods.

  The hands release me and he gives me the gun.

  —Mind where you point it.

  I point it down the basement to the corner.

  —How many down there?

  He shakes his head.

  —In the midst of chaos, I am afraid I did not bother to count. Three. Perhaps.

  I point at the open cells across from us.

  —Plus one dining and one sleeping.

  —It appears.

  A cramp grabs me, shakes my innards back and forth, let’s go.

  Predo whispers.

  —Are you unwell?

  —Starving. But I’ll live.

  He smiles.

  —I’d not have taken you for an optimist, Pitt.

  —We have to get out of here.

  He nods.

  —That would seem wise. Have you any ideas?

  I point down.

  —Sewer.

  A Klaxon sounds and several of the enforcers jerk their triggers, sending a volley of ricochets off the walls. A few of them scream without being struck by bullets. There’s the sudden thunk of a heavy bolt being sucked back by an electromagnet.

  One of the closed doors swings open.

  Piercing scream, like two voices in one throat, and a low beast, fat and fast, out of the open cell, head prickled with spines, runs into the heart of a fusillade, rams into an enforcer, impales her in twenty places, back into the dark cell, trailing screams.

  And fingers ease from triggers, bathed in the relief that it wasn’t them.

  I haven’t moved. My mouth is still at Predo’s ear.

  He pulls back, blinks, puts his mouth to my ear.

  —The sewer. Yes. That had occurred to us. Until we had to retreat to this dead end.

  I look up at the tiny red light.

  Little girl, punching buttons. Feeding time at her zoo.

  I ball my good hand into a fist, show it to Predo.

  —Group up, guns out, start moving, shoot the hell out of everything and get down the hole.

  Predo looks at his sweating, big-eyed mass of the formerly most dangerous men and women on the planet.

  —Yes, I suppose a few might get out. Those at the middle. More if we had cover fire.

  I point down again.

  —Terry and Lydia and a few dozen partisans and Bulls.

  He draws his brows close.

  —Pitt?

  I shrug.

  —Am I supposed to not be trying to betray and kill you at this point?

  —Yes. No. Of course. Terry and Lydia and a few poorly armed, ill-equipped rebels. A shame that cannon fodder is not what the occasion demands.

  —Hurley’s down there.

  His eyebrows go up.

  —Yes. That might turn the tide.

  His eyebrows drop again.

  —Now you simply need to crawl to that drain and tell them to pop up here, lay down some cover fire, and not kill us as we come around the corner.

  I make the fist again, show it to him.

  —All or nothing.

  He thinks.

  I point at the cells that are still issuing chewing noises.

  —Monsters, Predo. Real monsters.

  He nods.

  —How silly of me not to notice.

  He frowns, nods again, circles a finger in the air to draw the eyes of his people. A few sharp hand gestures later and we’re balled up like a porcupine, guns facing out, tight. Two ranks deep on each side. Front rank squatting and scuttling, second rank on their feet, hunched. Give Predo credit, he’s not at the middle. We’re both frontline, far end, where the mass will round the corner first.

  Into the teeth of battle.

  Or maybe the teeth of the worm.

  Predo holds a hand in the air, counts down one finger at a time. Must be nice, being able to do that kind of thing with both hands.

  First finger and I’m thinking about when I came to after I was infected. Terry trying to explain things to me. How I was checking the angles of the room, looking to see where I could dodge past this psycho. He never used the words Vampyre or monster. I did. A joke. So you’re telling me I’m a vampire? Yeah? Fucking cool, man. Monster. Fucking cool. Looking for something to hit him with. He offered me a suck off a loose pint he had. Thought it was Karo Syrup and red food dye. Trying to humor him. But once I had that suck, I knew it was no sick joke. Cool, I thought, I really am a fucking monster.

  Second finger and I’m remembering when I heard about zombies the first time. Terry again, explaining these poor unfortunates. Thought it was a turn of phrase. Like he was describing one of the underclasses he always went on about. Like it was a metaphor. Didn’t get it till one showed on Avenue D. Back then, it was like Digga’s Harlem, death wagons rolled in the morning to pick the corpses out of the gutters. Some had split skulls, no one looked too hard to see if all the brains were still in there. No one but Terry. We did dead patrol. Looking at the corpses before they got hauled away. Looking for signs of rogue feeding. Found a guy with teeth marks all over his face, neck, what was left of his scalp. Head split with a tire iron, not much inside. Terry took the scent and led us to one of the abandoned tenements that made up the better part of the neighborhood in those days. Found the shambler drifting up and down a staircase, just enough of his own brain left to keep him moving and feeding. Terry got him down and taught me how to break the neck and cut the brain signals running to the autonomic systems of the body. Stepped back and watched it die slow as it stopped breathing and its blood stopped circulating. Thinking to myself, OK, man, now that is a fucking monster.

  Third finger and I’m thinking about the Wraith. Squirming mass of black and cold. Servant to Enclave. Nightmare Vampyres use to scare each other. Saying, Don’t fuck with Enclave or they’ll send a Wraith on your ass. Something to laugh at, till you find yourself half-mad in a basement, about to die, and something so black you could fall into it whips across the room and kills the man about to kill y
ou. Tell yourself, I don’t know what I saw. I saw nothing, I was dreaming bad. Awake in the middle of the day, can’t sleep, sun outside, beating at the walls, trying to get in through the cracks and kill you, the brightest hour, most fearsome, and tell yourself then, Monster. I saw a fucking monster. Come the night again, you don’t know what to believe.

  Fourth finger and I’m thinking about the hole in Queens. Standing at the top, looking down a shaft that dropped away under my feet, down, down, down, work lights at every level, burning at every level, smaller and smaller, until they disappeared in the depth of the thing. The wax skin on a naked girl with an I.V. needle riveted to her arm. Cooler full of cords. Nursery. The men I killed and wished I had the bullets back out of their bodies, so I could kill them again, slow and proper. ‘Cause dead is dead and anything they had coming to them I wasted when I did them quick. Standing at the top of that hole and hearing from down deep, breathing, gasping, one breath taken between each bite. The worm down there at the bottom of that hole, eating itself, spreading its sick madness. Thinking, No monsters in this world. Just us people.

  Fifth finger and I’m thinking about being up in Amanda’s office looking at her slide show. Her explaining to me the origins of life. Vyrus mates with bacteria. How long an idea like that needs to circle around and around in my head before it makes any kind of sense to me. What they call the implications. That HERV thing she talked about. All of us with viral scraps in our DNA, just not all of us have Vyral material as well. That idea finally catching up to me. If it all really started with the Vyrus, then it’s not just in us, in people, it could be in anything. Inactive Vyrus cells in any DNA. Waiting to be activated. And then who knows what the hell you end up with. Phil saying to me, experiments. Little Amanda in her lab, seeing what happens when you activate the Vyrus in all god’s creatures. Thinking now, She’s making monsters.

  And no more fingers to think with.

  We move around the corner, facing that long arm of the L-shaped basement, row of doors, a few of them open. The thing I killed against one wall, just outside an open cell door, another dead monster by the opposite wall, that thing under the pile of dead enforcers still quivering. Light from the Mini Maglites some of the crew have clipped under the barrels of their weapons. Quiet except for our shuffling feet and rapid breathing. Clear shot to the hole in the floor where we can trickle down into the sewer one at a time. No one wanting to be the short straw, last man on top. Edging closer, waiting for that Klaxon to sound, all the doors to slam wide. Feels like the vibration of the bell is hammering the air already, but it’s just heartbeats. Closer to the hole. Ready to go flat and stick my head down there and tell Terry something that will keep him from opening fire on Predo’s crew. No time to be picky about joining up with anyone who has a gun, Ter. The more the merrier. Few more steps and I’ll just start talking, hope the right thing comes out. Something like, Don’t shoot! Monsters!