My Dead Body

  He casts his eyes to the ceiling.

  —She looked, Joe, both perilous and beautiful.

  He brings his eyes to mine.

  —As I imagine death must look.

  Evie knows me. If anybody does. Possible she’d rather she didn’t, but there it is. Some things, by the time we know they’re bad for us, we’re already hooked.

  She gave Chubby the bead on where he might find me. Hard to say how she knew for sure where that was, but figure she started with the idea that I’d be underfoot and went from there. However she sussed it, Chubby took the lead and poked. All the former street kids he has passing through his doors, he was able to put some feelers out. He knows what kind of setup a guy like me would need down here. And there’s only so many places like Freedom Tunnel. Asked some questions of some of the inhabitants who travel up top, got a description of some of the newer faces on the scene, and hit on mine.

  Big guy, limp, attitude, eyepatch.

  I keep to myself, but it’s not like I’m invisible.

  And here we are.

  The gun butt is poking me a little so I shift it.

  —She say anything?

  Chubby is holding a hand out to Dallas, letting the young man pull himself unsteadily to his feet.

  —She said you would take an interest.

  —Not what I mean.

  He lays his palm alongside Dallas’s cheek.

  —I’m sorry, my dear, I should not have involved you in this.

  Dallas gives me a look and touches the bandage on his forehead.

  Chubby winks.

  —Don’t be concerned about that. A small scar, a slight blemish on your great beauty, it will only highlight perfection. And it wouldn’t hurt to add a little of the rough stuff to your resume, would it?

  Dallas juts his chin, frowns at me, turns and walks out the door.

  Chubby shrugs.

  —Temperamental. Like all talent.

  —What else did she say?

  He shoots his French cuffs, fiddles with the links a bit.

  —She said I should tell you she wants you to help find them.

  The gun still isn’t right. I move it again.

  —She thinks they’re important? The baby and all that?

  He licks his lips, pushes out the lower, sucks it back into his mouth, and bites it.

  —She said they’re kids and they need help.

  I stop messing with the gun.

  —I want to see her.

  He looks at the floor.

  —She says no.

  I watch him.

  —There something you’re neglecting to tell me, Chubby?

  He shakes his head.

  I step close.

  —Is she in trouble?

  He shakes his head.

  I step closer.

  —Only if there’s something you’re leaving out, and I dig to it later, I might be upset if it turns out to be important.

  He looks up from the floor.

  —She said to tell you to crawl out of your fucking cave and do something, you son of a bitch. She says find them. She says maybe then she’ll see you.

  I nod, adjust the gun one last time.

  —What do you got for me?

  He sticks his hand inside his jacket and comes out with an envelope.

  —Money. Their names.

  I take the envelope and look at the scrap of paper inside.

  Ben Forest.

  Delilah Cooper.

  —Your real last name Cooper?

  He adjusts the knot in his tie.

  —My name is Freeze. As everyone knows.

  I look at Mr. Chubby Freeze.

  —Any idea where they’d run to with the heat on?

  —Having failed to find safety in the Society, it would be natural for the children to seek it within a racially familiar community. The Hood.

  I slap the envelope into my palm.

  —There a reason Percy isn’t dealing with it himself?

  —He is occupied with Hood politics. And since telling me how I might track you down, he has stopped answering calls.

  —So the kids might already be on Hood turf?

  He shrugs.

  I shake my head.

  —Not where I’m most welcome.

  —From what I gather, Joe, you no longer have any turf at all. In any case, if that’s where they are, you’ll not have far to go.

  I stick the envelope in the pocket with the cosh full of sand.

  —Walking under Harlem is one thing. Walking on top of Harlem is another. Grave Digga may still have issues with me.

  Chubby makes for the door.

  —Who does not, Joe? Who does not.

  Can’t argue that, so I follow him out.

  Find the kids and maybe she’ll see me.

  First thing I’ve had worth dying for in a long time.

  I don’t have any goodbyes to say. Nothing to keep me from following Chubby and Dallas up the tracks toward the north entrance to Freedom Tunnel. The locals give me the same wide berth they always have. I took care of some trouble once or twice down here, but they won’t be sad to see me go. Couple days after I’m out, they’ll figure Q-line’s shack is vacant again and someone will move in and start renovating. Bring in a new color dirt or something.

  Neither Chubby or his boy are doing too well with the rail ties and rocks in the darkness. Chubs isn’t built for it, and Dallas is still a little sloppy on his feet after the concrete to the head. Still, I’m not in a hurry. I dawdle behind, letting the flashlights they brought show the way. Now we’re on the tracks, I can see it’s night up top. The vent shafts are blue-black, moonlight washed out by what the city is shining up there itself. Come late morning, bright columns will cut the dust. You can see the edges of them, sharp and clear. See the line exactly where you’d cross into that light and start to fester.

  One of the flashlight beams picks out some letters on the wall: OBSOLETE MACHINE. Further, the American Way mural. A Dick Tracy figure pushing an armed man out of frame, shouting, Drop the gun, mole! The cover from Dark Side of the Moon, captioned: You shout and no one seems to hear. A Unibomber portrait. Always one of my favorites.

  I smoke and kick some rocks. I’d say I was thinking about Evie, but that would be redundant. She’s my white noise. Always there, crackling static in my brain. Inescapable. Mostly you tune it out. The second you focus on it, it drowns out everything else. This occasion, it drowns out the one guy down here I should maybe say goodbye to. Swallows up the thought of him right until Chubby pauses to loosen his tie.

  —Is it getting hotter down here, Joe?

  I feel it then. Should have felt it before the fat man, but I feel it.

  Heat and carbon dioxide reveal life, and the thing panting in the darkness beyond the reach of the flashlight beams is screaming in this silent language that it is fucking well alive.

  Or about to die.

  Close at the edge of both.

  I freeze.

  —Chubs, you and your boy go on ahead.

  He turns to look at me, the beam of his light rippling over rocks.

  —Speed, Joe, is of the essence.

  I’m looking at the darkness, wondering if it will explode.

  —Pace you two are making, I should be able to catch you up.

  —I’d not like to lose track of you after just finding you.

  I take a step into the heat and the darkness.

  —Chubby, go fuck off up the tunnel. Now.

  No one ever accused Chubby Freeze of being a stupid man. He catches my drift, spares further comment, takes Dallas’s hand and fucks off up the tunnel at a much better clip than they’d been making before.

  I keep my hand away from the gun. I don’t have any weapons to deal with this. Besides, I don’t think he means to kill me. A pretty big assumption when dealing with the mad, but all I can go on here is past experience. He’s never killed me yet.

  There’s a flutter in the air, it gets hotter, a white blur, and he’s in fr
ont of me.

  —Buddy, hey, buddy, leaving somewhere, buddy?

  He’s dispensed with clothes since the last time I saw him. Can’t say why that is. Could be he finally realized that wearing whites down here was a losing proposition. Could be he finally got so skinny there just wasn’t anything he could put on that wouldn’t slip right off. That last time, all he had on was a loincloth and some dirty white rags wrapped around his limbs like bandages. Could also be that he’s white enough now in his own skin not to need to wear any kind of uniform.

  Subway tile white. Glossy porcelain with a thin layer of soot.

  Emaciated doesn’t do him justice anymore. I can see the fibers of his muscle under his skin. His circulatory system so vivid, it looks like a long branching tattoo laced over his entire body.

  He’s at the limit.

  What the Enclave are after as they starve themselves, he’s at the frontier.

  I saw the guy who went furthest. I scooped him off the street when he walked into the daylight believing he had been absorbed by the Vyrus, believing that would make him something the sun didn’t want to kill. He was wrong. But even he, even Daniel hadn’t gone this far.

  The man in front of me shimmers. Like when I was a kid and I’d lie down on the blacktop in summer and watch the air wiggle above it at the end of the playground. He shimmers like that.

  Part it’s the Vyrus, fighting itself and him. Fighting to tear him apart from hunger for blood, and to keep him together so it won’t die with him. Driving him to kill someone and drink their damn blood. And part it’s the heat of that fight.

  He’s what’s behind the missing poster that describes how an MTA worker disappeared in the tunnels. He’s that ghost you see flicker outside the scratched Plexi windows as you rocket down the A express, the one you don’t see clear at all, but still it crawls into your nightmares. He’s what eats the alligators in the sewers. This fucker, he’s the boogeyman.

  He scratches himself and hitches a shoulder at me.

  —Roll me one of them, will ya, buddy.

  I roll him a smoke.

  —Keeping an eye on me are you?

  He laughs. Sounds like a cat coughing up a hair ball.

  —An eye on you. Buddy, no, no buddy. Just I heard you were leaving is all, buddy, an I thought I’d come send ya off is what.

  I hand him the cigarette, half-expecting the paper to ignite when he takes it, but it doesn’t.

  —Must have gotten advance word. Just found out myself.

  I snap a match and he flinches at the light before dipping his face into it to puff the cigarette alive.

  —Don’t need advance word. Got ears, don’t I. Hear it all down here. Want to or not, I hear it all. Hey.

  He cocks an ear, bit of gnarled skin on the side of his head that looks kind of like an ear anyway, hand cupped to it.

  —Hear that, buddy? Course you don’t. I do. I hear down at West Fourth, I hear a platform announcement that the uptown F is running on the downtown track. I hear over at One Eighty-one, I hear a couple rats fighting over a pork rind someone dropped on the track. Hey, and, buddy, hey, Canal Street, I hear a guy, he’s got his hand in a woman’s back, about to push her in front of a train.

  He takes a drag and the cigarette is consumed in one long crackle.

  —I hear everything down here, buddy.

  I start rolling him another smoke.

  —You hear anything up top?

  He spits dry, no moisture left to him.

  —I hear up top, buddy. I hear an asshole parade marching in the alleys is what I hear. Buddy, I hear wolves what were meant to be, dressing in sheep’s clothes, baa-baa-baa.

  He takes the new cigarette. He doesn’t have lips anymore, just a hole slashed in the hide sucked back onto his skull.

  —Buddy, I told you once, I told you a hundred, I told you we don’t belong up there. Walking their walk, talking their lingo, living their rules.

  He cat-coughs again.

  —Know what’s funniest in it, buddy?

  I spark another match and he lights up.

  —No. Tell me what’s funniest. I could use a laugh.

  A tremor rattles through his bones, his body blurs for a moment, then he resolves again.

  —What’s funniest is now they’re fighting a war for the right. That’s what’s got me up late slapping my knee, buddy. Idea of all them, them and their values, killing each other over which color sheep they’re gonna dress as. What kind of prey they want to pretend to be for the privilege of living in the flock.

  He takes a drag, only sucks down half of it this time.

  —Should be ripping their skins off, howling, running pack mad, buddy. Just for fun.

  I light my own smoke.

  —Old man, got to tell you, you’re getting a little weird being down deep all by yourself.

  That laugh.

  —Buddy, I’m the real thing. Or close to it. I’m just about the end of the road.

  He’s been squatting, knees up by his ear, elbows out, looks like a spider someone sprayed with the wrong chemicals. Now he rises, spider morphing into a skeleton, assembling itself from its own jumbled bones.

  —Want to see the future, buddy, look into my eyes.

  I’m game. But there’s nothing to see. They’ve gone black. Blacker than the deepest tunnels below our feet. Light sucks into his eyes. Black like I’ve seen only once before. I look in there, and something rises toward the surface.

  A cold lance cuts through the heat of him.

  I step back, cigarette dropping from my fingers as my hand goes to the gun.

  —Right, buddy, pull the piece. That’ll help ya.

  He smokes the second half of his butt and exhales.

  —We all got it inside, buddy. Waiting to come out. Just it needs to be nurtured some.

  I take another step back.

  —It’s dark. I didn’t see anything. You’re crazy.

  He raises the notched bone of his finger.

  —Two of those three is true, buddy. Pretty good average, two out of three. But the one that’s a lie, it’s a doozy.

  My hand is still on the gun. Just because it likes being there.

  —You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even know what you’re thinking.

  He looks up at the vents.

  —Me buddy? I’m thinking about what I always think about. Daylight.

  —Then you’re thinking about dying.

  He looks back at me.

  —Too late for that.

  He takes a step toward me.

  —Hey, buddy, know why we burn? Know why we get so damn hot when we finally embrace the Vyrus?

  I take a step away.

  He comes closer.

  —It’s ‘cause of what’s growing inside. Buddy, it’s so cold, it just drives the heat out of you. Tell you, it’s like winter in my bowels.

  I’m leaving, I’m walking backward, some lesson about never turning your back on the mad, but I’m leaving.

  —There’s nothing inside of you except crazy. Nothing growing except your own stupid death.

  He’s still following, shimmering at every step.

  —You got one too. Stick around, let it come out. It’s what we’re for. To become what’s real, buddy.

  I’m not walking backward anymore, I’m just going, I’m just leaving.

  —It’s not in me, old man. I’m infected, not possessed. I’m diseased, but I’m me.

  Cat coughs behind me.

  —Ain’t that what I’m saying, buddy? Ain’t that the joke of it? It is you. What we are, it’s what we are inside. Just you have to work at it to make it come out.

  I’m down the tracks now, looking at the rails to where they fade into darkness ahead of me, meeting at a point I can’t see yet.

  He’s crazy. That wasn’t a lie.

  It’s dark down here. That wasn’t a lie.

  And I didn’t see anything when I looked in his eyes.

  Enclave are mad.
None madder. And they kicked him out for going apeshit and killing a bunch of his brothers and sisters. The maddest of the mad. What he says carries no weight. Mad and starving and alone in the dark, he’s making up stories to scare himself. The boogeyman, making up ghosts to haunt himself.

  Wraiths.

  If I saw something once that I can’t explain, that doesn’t make them real. And if a trick of the dark gave me a chill, that doesn’t make them real. And if a madman says what’s at the core of us all is a senseless, flapping quiver of black shade, that’s just one more reason not to believe.

  The only killer I’m carrying around is the one I was born with.

  I didn’t see anything when I looked in his eyes. I didn’t.

  But I see plenty as I run down the tracks.

  That memory, it doesn’t sit on top waiting to be picked up and put down. It’s at the bottom. Something digs it up from down there, everything else gets knocked over and spilled about.

  Think of the Wraith, think of Amanda Horde and her crazy parents.

  The original lost girl. Her mom hiring me to find her. Apeshit daddy Doctor Horde and his biotech millions and his plan to infect people with a fucking zombie bacteria that only he can cure. How I got trailed around on that gig. Something left no trace, left an absence behind itself. Enclave called it a Wraith, I called it bullshit. How I got kicked and stabbed and shot on the gig, starved when the thing with no trace stole my blood bank. Running dry in a basement, I died. Yeah, the real thing. And the Vyrus raised me up. Said, Not fucking yet! Threw all it had left into me, sent me buzz-sawing through dangerous men. But I took too much. The mad doctor had me. Dying the second time in minutes.

  And the Wraith.

  Black fell over that room and when it lifted, I’m there with a frozen corpse in my hands.

  Still pissing myself years later.

  Remember that, more comes tumbling.

  The Count. Loser rich boy Vampyre causing trouble. Dealing anathema; infected blood getting Vampyres high. Exposing the community. Me taking a job with Terry and the Society for the privilege of putting a proper beating on that punk.

  Evie getting sick. HIV sick. AIDS sick. Never knowing what I was. Me never copping to the fact. Never knowing if my blood would kill her or cure her.

  Little Amanda coming back around, launching her own crusade. Clan Cure, all comers welcome. Feed the hungry, while the little super genius tries to save them all.