Dead Man Running (51 page)

"I don't eat…..hot dogs," he replied.

I know, you bastard.  I know what you eat and I know what kills you.  And as soon as I can I'll find me something to take off that head of yours.

Mira
Hidar
ended up not enjoying her evening.  The spaghetti – formerly her favorite food – was like rubber and she gave up eating it after a few bites.  She retreated to her kitchen table with the wine, which she drank directly out of the bottle, and a handful of bombs.  She had consumed half
the
bottle and converted the
five
bombs to reverse
devices
when the
cell
phone rang.
 

It was a disposable and Manchester Lee was the only one with the number.

There was no preamble from Lee.  "We have someone in the White House press pool.  The White House posts the president
's
and vice president's schedules out months, logging an event or trip as soon as it is known.  That is the custom."

"And?" she asked.

"And the vice president has been scheduled to visit
China
following the election."

"Won't that still be Biden?"

"You think Wiley will wait until
Jan
uary to take th
e
job?"

"No, so Wiley is heading to
China
."

"Wiley, I believe, is heading there to make his move on the Chinese.  If he can convert the key players in
China
he can lower their air defenses, making two billion people vulnerable to your atomic zombie bomb."

"It's not my bomb."

"Whatever.  The schedule next shows him travelling to
Moscow
.  Ten get
s
you five that he plans to do the same thing to the Russians.  All of Asia and
Europe
will be wide open for his attack."

"We have to destroy him before he gets to
China
."

"The flight over the Pacific would be opportune.  Eight thousand miles of mostly empty
ocean.  He could be destroyed and no one w
ould
find a trace of him."

"And you could coordinate the death of Wi
ley's wife.  She'll be spooked once
she finds
out
that Wiley has been killed, maybe go to ground and disappear."

"We'll need to walk through this when you come back from
Fiji
."

"If I come back."

The two were silent for several moments.

"Elias found you?" Lee asked.  He almost whispered it.

"He did
and you were correct,
he's become a monster."

"Lots of that going around," Lee said and they laughed.

"Did he threaten you?"

"Yes.  I don't believe I'll live
long
after the trial is a success."

"Will it be?"

"Yes."

"
Does
you
r
reverse bomb work?  Can you stop him?"

"I've never tried it on someone so aggressive, who hates me so."

"Why would that make a difference?  Isn't it all just science, chemistry?"

Mira
knew he wouldn't understand, similar to how the other zombie she spoke to that evening had not understood.
  Magic was a living force – it could not be calibrated to reach a one hundred percent success rate nor could it guarantee a vengeful zombie would be converted to human.  They were too many variables to be certain of any outcome.

"It does, just take my word on it."

Lee considered this for a few moments.  "Good luck," he said finally.

"Thanks.  If I'm successful we – you, me and Elias – will get together to plot out the last days of Benjamin Wiley."

She hung up and took another slug of wine.  She stood and took the bottle to the sink.  She poured the rest down the drain, rinsed out the bottle with tap water and sat it in her recyclable bin.

She sat down at the kitchen table.  She gathered the zombie bombs in front of her.  She said one last incantation over the devices and they were complete.

She closed her eyes, projected her mind and found him.  Her lips worked themselves into a fury as she chanted her spell.  After several minutes she was done.
 

She looked at the globes – truly humanity's last hope.  It was appropriate that her last spell would leverage that most human emotion to help assure success
.  If the spell failed, she would rather be dead and she would look forward to any misery
the
zombie
calling itself
Elias Turnbull inflicted upon her.

In his limo zooming down
a
Delaware
highway
Elias Turnbull was upset.

I thought zombies had no emotions?

He shook his head and cursed the lovelorn husk of Elias Turnbull's humanity still residing in this shell.

He was angry because she had gotten to him.  That woman.  That human low
-
life bitch.

He seethed as the limo streaked down Route 1 into northern
Delaware
.  He had to do something.  He ordered his
driver to pull off at the next exit.

After several minutes they approached a roadway chock full of fast food restaurants.  Elias was ravenous – just not for the
fare
they served.

He directed the driver into the parking lot
of something called
Wawa
.  He exited the car and entered the establishment.
Given the lateness
of the hour
the place was nearly deserted.  There was one worker behind a
checkout
counter island in the center of the store and one more employee manning the sandwich and coffee stations.  Elias made his selection and headed for the coffee.  He grabbed a large cup, randomly selected a flavor – Colombian Deep Roast – and filled his cup.  He made eye contact with the coffee/sandwich lady.  She
had
a
n Eastern European
look
,
was
youngish,
big boned
with a friendly smile be
trayed
by her hungry, almost desperate eyes.

"Hi there," Elias said.  "I was wondering if you could help
me.
"

The woman smiled, obviously impressed by Elias' silk suit and gold Rolex hanging off his wrist.

"I'm from NY and I think my battery just went out on me."

"Do you have triple A or someone you can call?"

Elias shook his head.  "It's not my car, it's a limo and the bozo has jumper cables but has no one to call to give him a jump.  I was wondering….do you have a car?  Can you give me a jump?"

The woman looked around at the nearly empty convenience store.  "I shouldn't
really
be leaving my station," she said miserably.

"Don't they give you a break?"  He whipped several hundred dollar
bill
s out of his wallet.  "I'm in a big hurry and I'll certainly make it worth your while."

The woman's eyes flashed on the cash. 
"One minute
,"
she
said.  She walked to the sandwich station
and
hit something underneath the counter which allowed her to exit the area. 

Elias sat his prop coffee down and watched as the co-workers conversed.  The woman at the register looked at Elias, smiled uncertainly, and looked again at the
other
woman.    The matter finally decided, the
sandwich lady
glided back to Elias.

"Becky says that I can take my break early.  I told her you were my boyfriend."  This made the woman smile, that someone would be stupid enough to believe that this fine, rich man
c
ould
possibly
be her boyfriend.

"This won't take long," Elias said.
  He gifted her with his warmest smile.

The woman pulled
the nose of
her car – a ten year old Mazda – in front of the limo.  She popped her hood.  Elias went around to the trunk, he said
,
to retrieve the jumper cables.  He had confided in the woman – her name was Esmeralda – that the limo drive
r
was too lazy to help.

Esmeralda
Mlatic
waited at the front of her car for a couple
of
minutes but Elias had not returned with the cables.  She looked
at the time on her iPhone then glanc
ed back toward the rear of the limo.  The trunk was open but she could not see Elias.
  Her fifteen minute break would be over soon and Esmeralda never took more time than what was allowed.

"Elias?" she called out but there was no response.

She decided to wander back.  She found Elias looking inside the trunk.

"Is there a problem?" she asked.

Elias lifted his head from the trunk. 
The first thing she noticed was the teeth – there were so many.  Second, she noticed the eyes, so much colder than those warm brown eyes he flashed in the store.

Before she could scream a strong arm swept her into the
gaping
trunk.  The trunk door quickly slammed on top of her.  After a moment of shock Esmeralda
Mlatic
screamed for all that she was worth but no one heard her.

In a deserted park
nearby
,
Esmeralda
Mlatic
suffered all the depravity and pain that
Mira
Hidar
could not suffer this evening.  The final act – an act of mercy really – was her dismemberment and consumption by Elias Turnbull and his driver.

Meal complete, Elias continued his journey
south
to
Dover
.  He was in a much improved mood and his outlook was again sunny and bright.

THIRTY

THE TODAY SHOW SET –
NEW YORK
– AUGUST 2012

It was a set-up, of course. 
Wiley.  Matt Lauer.  The Today Show.  The phalanx of physicians from the Mayo Clinic.  It was all carefully orchestrated by the campaign.

The old
Harlem
footage of zombie Wiley being struck by a car, crashing to the ground then straightening his damaged leg had resurfaced.  The enemy campaign was using it in heavy
TV
rotation in the battleground states.  Wiley had attempted the old excuse that his drug addiction –
long
since heroically conquered – had enabled him to perform this superhuman feat.  Their opponents had then edited their commercial to include their
medical
experts, all claiming that drug addiction
wa
s no explanation.  The ads d
idn't
say it but the Republicans
we
re whispering that Wiley
wa
s an alien, sent to Earth to take over
the planet
and that, in Obama,
he had
found a willing partner.

Wiley bound onto the Today Show stage, wearing only a wife beater undershirt and boxers, to prove that he
wa
s not
a brother from another planet
.

Lauer, along with the hosts and producers of most major news programs, had been converted long ago.  This supposedly unbiased participant minutes earlier was in the green room kissing Wiley's staff. 

The man ha
s
gotten in the habit of carrying around what he called his
staff – a six foot
long
pole adorned with the desiccated head of the fierce
Latina
woman he had met, hunted, captured and mostly devoured in upstate NY.  His loyal followers were encouraged to kiss the staff.

Lauer and two Republican observers watched as the Mayo Clinic physicians – handpicked by the opposition
prior to being converted to non living
– seemingly took Wiley's blood.  The newly minted zombie doctors used a special
Hollywood
syringe, made to appear, even in close-ups, as if it was truly piercing the skin and drawling blood.  Zombie blood was black and black blood would belie Wiley's image as a red blooded all
-
American regular guy.  So the syringe was rigged by a movie special effects
technician
to reveal, with a sliding partition hidden inside the syringe, the healthy red blood the syringe contained when it was brought on stage.