Chicago Fell First: A Zombie Novel (9 page)

Take her, screamed his shadow-self. No, he screamed back in silence. The two were in conflict now, instinct battling conscience, neither wanting to yield, both denying the validity of the other, each straining to surpass the other in will.

The eyes of Douglas Clancy, with both of him looking out through them, focused on the face of Kacey Sherwood, wanting to know her, but in very different ways; one wanted to preserve, one wanted to destroy.

Kacey smiled, imploring, hoping, waiting for her companion to speak again, wanting the experience of his company to continue to its next step, completely unaware of the battle raging right in front of her but hidden within the soul of this man. She let her smile grow and took a step closer to him.

The eyes of Douglas Clancy watched her face, smiling and sweet, approaching, and the two sides within him crashed against each other with terrific force. The surface Doug and his shadow-self slammed into each other, rock and hard place, irresistible force and immovable object, colliding, fighting, both on fire with lust for the next step. They hit, neither yielded, the interior of the mind exploded with the impact, and everything was cast into blackness.

Kacey watched a grand shudder come over Doug. His shoulders shook with sudden force, his head flew back, his eyes rolled up into his head, his mouth hung open with a look of sudden shock and the whole man fell backwards like a mannequin made unstable by having a bowling ball for a skull. She watched as Doug descended to the asphalt, a horror in slow motion. She heard the ugly thud as the back of his head struck the ground. 

It took both of them to get the child into bed. It wasn’t his weight that made it difficult, but the care they took to avoid waking him. Brandon had just had a hard day, as hard as Danielle or Claire could imagine. They carried him, gently, carefully, into Danielle’s bedroom and lowered him onto the bed, pulled a blanket over him, and quietly walked out of the room, relieved to have accomplished the task, hoping the boy would sleep through the night.

Back in the living room, the two young women settled back onto the couch. Danielle sat first, tired. She could feel a migraine coming. Claire turned on the TV. The news reports were more frantic than earlier. The army had arrived in Chicago and the death toll was uncertain, with wide-ranging estimates. People were still being advised to remain inside, lock the doors. The Cubs and White Sox games had both been cancelled. Fires had broken out in various parts of the city.

Danielle could tell it was serious because no other news was inserted between reports of the outbreaks of violence. With most major stories, even things as big as the White Sox in the playoffs or the threat of a terrorist attack, other stories were mentioned. Amidst the big stories, there usually came a moment when the anchor broke away with the phrase “In other news,” and managed to squeeze in the little things like politics, the latest health advice or the minor sports like golf. Tonight, however, there was no other news. There was only panic, confusion, and death in Chicago. Danielle shivered. Claire tried not to cry.

“So what do we do?” Claire asked, looking over at Danielle, trying to focus on her friend rather than the TV. “If this keeps up, will we even be able to get out of the city? And now the military’s involved. That can’t be good. And we have that kid.”

“Claire,” Danielle countered, “it’s not like I had a choice. If I hadn’t shown up at that house when I did, that thing that used to be his uncle would have killed him.”

“Shit, Danni, how can this happen? Is it really a zombie thing, like some lousy straight-to-DVD movie? I mean, are the dead really getting up and eating people? How can this be happening? You’re the fucking med student! How is this possible?”

“Claire, I can’t explain it. I just can’t. But I know what I saw and what I did at that house and it’s real. It’s all real and now we have to decide what to do, where to go. We have to keep our heads on straight and think!”

Claire stood up, paced back and forth a few times and stopped to gaze out the window. She saw darkness outside, the constant glow of a big city now dimmer than usual. The street outside the apartment was eerily empty with no pedestrians walking by and only a single car, a police cruiser, passing.

“This is seriously fucked up,” she said as she turned her back on the window. “Do you think we’ll lose water?”

“It’s possible,” Danielle warned. “The power’s out in some places. Water could go too, I guess.”

“In that case,” Claire said, “I’m going to the shower. Who knows when I’ll get another chance?”

The art student walked away, slammed the bathroom door behind her and left Danielle alone in front of the nightmare reports that glowed outward from the TV screen. Danielle sat there and weighed what she knew so far against what she guessed might possibly happen next.

The Chicago police had established one of several impromptu command centers on the top floor of a high-rise office building just a block from the hospital that had been the starting point of the most dreadfully interesting day of Lieutenant Steve Klein’s career. Klein stood staring out the window at the half-lit city around him, waiting for two things: the next round of reports from the patrolmen he had sent to search the streets for more signs of the outbreak spreading and the arrival of representatives of the contingent of troops from Rock Island. He had mixed feelings about the army coming in. On one hand, he was glad for the added manpower, but on the other hand, Klein feared losing the ability to do what he thought was right. He didn’t want them taking over the situation and turning his city into a war zone or imposing martial law. He hoped that such extreme measures wouldn’t be necessary, but part of him was beginning to give in to pessimism.

“Impressive set-up for such short notice,” said a voice Klein didn’t recognize. He turned around to see his fellow police officers part like the Red Sea to make a path for the tall, thin, uniformed man who had just stepped out of the elevator.

The new arrival, the first of the visiting military that Klein had seen, wore the silver eagles of a full colonel. He walked like a man used to having others make way for him. A pair of camouflage-clad sergeants flanked him. Klein stepped forward, extending a hand.

“Lieutenant Steven Klein, Homicide Division.”

“I’m Colonel Henry Peterson, just in from Rock Island Arsenal. Are you in charge here, Lieutenant?” The colonel’s handshake was strong and confident.

“I’m in charge here, yes,” Klein confirmed, “but only here. I was under the assumption you’d want to meet with the mayor or the chief of police first.”

“I’m not here to waste time with formalities, Lieutenant,” Peterson said. “This command post seems to be closest to the origin of your little situation. I can deal with the higher-ranking Chicagoans later. Get me up to speed, please.”

Klein had already decided he liked Peterson. The man was obviously a soldier first and not a bureaucrat. Klein walked over to a large easel with a map of the center of the city. The hospital area was highlighted and several other sections were marked in red.

“This,” he began, pointing out the relevant areas, “is where we are. The incident began here at the hospital and seems to be radiating outward as more civilians have become …” he searched for the right word, “… infected. There have been sightings of attackers here, here, here and here so far. We also have reports of occurrences in various other parts of the city, including both business and residential areas, but we have no exact count of causalities or perpetrators.”

“I see,” said the colonel. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant, you’re not alone anymore. The army’s here and others are on the way.”

“What others?” Klein asked.

“FBI, CDC, EPA, etcetera; basically any agency with a neat little three-letter name wants to be a part of this fiasco. This is big, Klein, very big—but we’re going to try to contain it as best as we can.”

The colonel’s choice of word, “fiasco,” made Klein uneasy. It sounded unsympathetic, antiseptic and cold. Suddenly, Klein wasn’t sure the help was going to be so welcome. He wished the situation had not burst into being so quickly.

A mile from the high-rise outpost, Captain Terence Trumbull ran along the street alone. He had broken away from the main body of troops as soon as they had landed and travelled by truck to the center of Chicago. He felt more alive than he had in years, his Special Forces habits coming back like the old cliché about getting back on a bike. He had his Kevlar, his night-vision goggles, his automatic weapon, his grenades hanging from his belt and a big knife sheathed at his side in case anything got too close. The rust was falling away and Trumbull smiled.

He had been to Chicago before and liked it, but it was different now. The city he’d visited had been big, bright and busy. What he saw now was dark, fear-filled, on edge. Nobody walked the streets. The most noticeable sound was the distant wail of sirens from several different directions at once. The air was thick, too: warm like it should be in spring, but heavier than if things were right. It had a smell, too—not the usual mix of blooming trees and car exhaust, but something more primal, something that did not belong in the middle of America in the twenty-first century. The scent was a mixture of sweat borne of fear and the ethereal copper of the spilled blood that now slowly soaked into the skin of the city.

Trumbull looked up at the sky. Even with the power outages, no stars were visible, for the air was choked with the smoke of a thousand scattered fires. He had no idea what phase the moon might be in, but he knew that whatever the old yellow orb may have looked like beyond the darkened skies, tonight it would be a hunter’s moon.

Chapter 8

Doug coughed twice as he opened his eyes. He was looking up at a ceiling of wooden beams holding up an arched, attic-like roof. As he came to consciousness, he was immediately aware of an aching in the back of his head. He felt dizzy, confused. He let out a low moan of pain mixed with uncertainty. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his vision and his mind, things coming more into focus, shadows moving about on the ceiling like they were cast by small lamps sitting low around the room.

“Where?” he managed to ask without too much slurring. For a split second, he remembered where he had been at the last moment he could recall and a hint of relief brushed across his mind, relief that wherever he was, it was not a jail cell. But what had happened?

“You’re awake. Cool!” the voice cut through the fog.

Doug managed to turn his head in the direction of the voice. Kacey stood there, just a few feet away, looking at him with a smile on her lips and concern in her eyes. Doug looked for more words as his world continued to clear.

“Where am I? What happened?”

“Slow down, Doug; one question at a time. My question first: how do you feel?”

“Head hurts, confused, but not too bad.”

“Good.”

“What happened?” Doug asked again.

“We were by the diner, talking. You passed out or something, hit your head on the ground. I called my friend Judd. He’s on the first aid squad. He woke you up long enough to make sure you didn’t have a major concussion or anything. Don’t you remember?”

“No, but where am I now?”

“At my place,” Kacey revealed. “You said you didn’t want to go to the hospital, so Judd helped me get you into my car and I brought you here. You made it up the stairs and you sat on the bed and fell asleep.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s a little after ten. You can stay here tonight. Forget about the motel. I can take you back to your car in the morning. Don’t worry. I know all the cops in town—both of them. They won’t tow your car or anything.”

Doug struggled for a moment, managed to sit up and look around. His assumption about the lamps had been correct. There were three of them, one beside the bed, one atop the small television and one on a small table by the door. He was on a twin bed. The little apartment was sparsely furnished with the basics and not much else, except a few stuffed animals, posters of bands Doug hadn’t heard of, and some books carelessly strewn about. There was a door off to the right, half open to reveal a small bathroom, just big enough for a toilet, sink and snug shower stall.

“We’re in my parents’ garage,” Kacey explained. “They charge me a little rent but not much. It’s not really my own place, but I get enough privacy to make it more bearable than sleeping in my old room. I can at least feel like an adult, even if they don’t think I’m all the way there yet.”

“It’s not bad,” Doug said, now sitting up and his head no longer spinning. It still hurt but there was no more fog or nausea. As he looked around, the particulars of what had happened to bring on the collapse began to swirl back into his memory. It had been conflict, perhaps the worst conflict he had ever felt, as the shadow inside his soul had fought hard to make him do what he had always resisted. He’d come dangerously close to acting on his impulses and his shutting down had probably saved not only him, but the woman he was with. He felt a chill as he understood how close he had come to stepping over a border from which he could never return. He had taken the blow rather than inflict injury on his companion, but he had no way of knowing whether one side of his mind had truly overpowered the other or if things had just worked out the way they had by sheer luck and his inability to withstand the battle that had raged inside his mind.

Kacey was smiling at him, relieved that he had managed to sit up. He looked her over as she watched him. She was still dressed as she had been at the parking lot: black Muse T-shirt, jeans, sneakers. Her hair was a mess, probably the result of her helping her paramedic friend maneuver him into her car.

Doug wondered what to do as unease crept in. Should he ask her to drive him back to his car before there was any hint of his shadow-self coming back to the surface, or should he stay and take his chances until he was sure he was all right? Did he have the right to chance putting Kacey at risk after she had helped him?

She moved closer, sat down on the bed beside him.

“I hope you’re okay with being here. Maybe I should have just had you taken to the hospital.”

“It’s all right. Other than a headache now, I’m glad I’m here, and I’m sorry if I ruined our hanging out.”

“It can’t be ruined if it’s not over, can it? We still have time to talk. But … what happened back there? Is there something wrong with you, some problem?”

“Not physically,” Doug said.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” he told her, wishing he hadn’t just said something so honest that hinted at his inner turmoil. “I’m fine; it’s nothing, really. And thank you for being there when it happened.”

“No problem,” Kacey assured him. As she spoke, Doug realized just how close to him she was sitting.  

Trumbull heard them before he saw them, a metallic crash down a side street. It could have been anything, he thought at first, maybe just a stray cat knocking the lid off a garbage can in search of scraps. He had to check it out anyway. The night-vision goggles were functioning well and he had become accustomed to their weight. They no longer felt as heavy on the bridge of his nose.

He moved with speed and stealth, his footsteps fast but quiet.  He stopped when he saw them moving out of the shadows. There were three of them, a tall male, a shorter male,
and a heavyset female. They were not attacking each other, but rather coming toward him all at once. He had noticed that in Africa too: they would feed on one another, but stop as if compelled to find uninfected humans. There must be a stage when they realized in their limited state of awareness that infected meat was not what they needed to satisfy their lust for food.

They sped up. The shorter male came forward first, flanked by the other two, all three charging, their pace evolving from a walk to a trot. Trumbull raised his weapon and fired. Short man first, tall man second, woman third, three shots, three hits, all went down. Trumbull took in a deep breath and walked forward to examine his kills.

All three kill shots, clean through their foreheads. He smiled, satisfied that the rust had been sloughed from his skills. The three bodies lay crumpled on the ground. They had been human, then they had been Empty Ones, and now they were just dead things, permanently dead. Trumbull knew he had done the right thing by stowing away on that helicopter. 

The silence was awkward in Kacey Sherwood’s room. She sat inches from Doug, but he had stopped talking. He seemed nervous. Kacey was glad he was there, despite the odd circumstances that had led to his presence. She decided she had to break the ice.

“So what’s your high score on those old Pac-Man games?” she asked.

“I haven’t played a machine like that since I was a kid.”

“You haven’t?”

“No. I really don’t like video games so much anymore.”

“Wait a minute. You spend your time fixing old arcade games and you seem to be in demand and pretty successful at it. You get to mess around with games that should probably be in some kind of Eighties museum or something, and you don’t play them?”

“It’s a job.”

“It should be a fun job! You’re missing out! I wish I had a job like that. It beats bringing soup and salad to the same old people that come into that dump of a diner night after night, year after year and order the same shit every time. You should enjoy your work.”

“I do enjoy it.”

“But you don’t play?”

“I’m not interested in what’s on the screen,” Doug admitted, “as much as what’s behind it. It’s the way it works and the reason it works that fascinated me, not the surface of it.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Kacey said, “but I still think you should have some fun with it. You’re missing an opportunity. Those things are supposed to be fun, and you spend all your time around them, and I think you should play. But that’s just me. Whatever.”

Kacey’s dismissive “whatever” bounced around inside Doug’s head like a rubber ball. The things she said struck an unexpected nerve. He knew what she was talking about, just the video games, but he realized that her words could just as easily have applied to the situation between the two of them. He forced himself to wrap his mind around the reality of what was happening to him there in that little room above the garage.

The facts swirled through Doug’s head; the facts, not his fantasies, not his scenarios, not his possibilities. At that moment, he was alone with an attractive young woman. She had brought him there of her own free will in an attempt to help him. She wanted him to stay, wanted to be with him. They were on a bed. It was night. She was close to him. He would be an idiot if he did not act on the opportunity.

But, he asked himself, what about the other part of him? His shadow-self was silent just then. Doug wondered if the impact to his head when he had fallen on the concrete had anything to do with that absence. It was not that Doug could not feel his inner desires or his fascinations, but he felt at that moment that perhaps, for the first time in years, he could keep those interests and urges in check and act not because of them but rather, despite them.

Did he dare? Now or never, now or never, his mind cried out. Could he play the game without acting on the impulse to understand the inner workings of the machine?

Doug made his move. He maneuvered his hand, placed it on Kacey’s. She reciprocated, turning her hand over and intertwining her fingers with his, her soft, warm palm against his. Her skin felt smooth and hot. As they touched, images flashed through Doug’s mind, pictures he had seen in anatomical texts: the bones in the hand, surrounded by tissue and muscles with nerves running through the flesh that caused the parts to move; signals shooting through the metacarpals to manipulate the phalanges; movement of the machine’s components.

No! Doug screamed within his mind, told his own brain to stop thinking that way. It’s a hand, the hand of a girl. It’s not a set of parts. The bones don’t matter. She matters! 

He glanced down at their interconnected hands, his and hers. He looked up at Kacey’s face, saw that she was smiling at him, telling him with her eyes that he had done the right thing by taking hold of her hand. Those eyes were asking him to do more.

Eyes: Complicated systems of lenses, catching light and attached to the optic nerve which sends signals to the brain for interpretation …

No! No! No! Not the eyes, but the meaning behind her eyes, the message and the emotions and the desire.

He met her gaze with his own. He forced himself to think of her as Kacey, as a friend, as someone he had grown to care about. She was not a machine, not just the sum of her parts, but more than that. Doug was looking at a person. He kept telling himself that, over and over as he watched the expectation in her eyes, the hope upon her face.

He pushed aside his fears—fear for himself and fear for her and dove headfirst into an experience he had never had before and never expected to have. He leaned forward, closer and closer to the face that seemed to be inviting him, and kissed her.

He had done the right thing again, if Kacey’s reaction was any indication. Their lips met and pressed together and arms wrapped around each other and Doug could feel the heat radiating from her body as they held each other and both their hearts began to beat faster. 

Doug went with it as it grew more spontaneous, more excited, and even feverish. Kacey’s fingers undid the buttons of Doug’s shirt as he ran his hands through her brownish-blonde hair as they both continued what had become one long kiss. He felt her tongue brush against his and for an instant he thought he could hear his shadow-self somewhere far behind him, trying to point out the nerves and muscles of that oral organ again but the voice was distant and went almost unnoticed.

Kacey broke away from Doug for a second to lift her shirt over her head and cast it onto the floor. She sighed back toward him and as she made contact with him he could feel the warmth of her now bare breasts, small and pert and smooth, against his exposed chest. Their hands instinctively went for each others’ pants buttons and the loosened jeans were soon pushed down to their knees, thighs exposed and underwear soon going down the same path. They could not have reversed their route now even if they wanted to.

Kacey started to turn to the side and bend forward to reach down and get her shoes off but Doug had lost patience. He could feel the long dormant part of him, lustful and driven by adrenaline, surging to action. He gently guided her to lie down and climbed on top, straddling her. She smiled, sighed, forgot about her shoes and let her thighs open just enough to admit him.

She is yours, the shadow-self suddenly roared out from behind Doug’s brain. Take her now, silence her, and you can see how it works!

Doug, doing what he had never thought he could do, heard and responded this time, his mental voice hollering back, the beauty is in the wholeness, in the completion and the actions. I can play the game without violating its structure!