Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (11 page)

“Right. I know. I mean to say, are you helping her out?”

“Trying. You the dead Mann?”

“Yeah. If she told you half of what’s been going on, you know there’s trouble. I don’t think she needs more.”

“Shouldn’t that be up to her?”

“I’m not talking emotional stress. Cars are blowing up. People are dying. You tell me, is Misty in any kind of shape to deal with that now?”

Silence.

“Good. I just want her to be safe while I try to work this out.”

“Life ain’t safe.”

“You’re preaching to the choir. Tell her I’ll be back in touch when I can. Tell her not to try to get ahold of me. Tell her…” my voice trailed off.

“To have faith?” Mary offered.

“No reason to talk crazy, but you get the idea.”

“Yeah.”

“And Mary?”

“Yeah?”

“Someone else calls from a public phone, don’t answer. It’s not going to be me. And it’ll probably be someone willing to torture or kill you.”

“Fuck.”

I hung up, thinking it was the smartest thing I’d done in days. Now all I had to do was figure out who was after the vials and find them before they found me.

The GPS from the Subaru had my office, the motel, and the shack on it, so all I had was the card and that fucking word,
kyua
. The card was as big a mystery as the arm, and while I knew what
kyua
meant to me, I didn’t know what it meant to the believers. That’s what the Internet is for. I went back to the car, left the netbook open next to me and started driving, hoping it would beep or fart when it found itself a Wi-Fi signal.

As it turned out, there was no sound. But, as I cruised a liveblood business district, a pop-up told me there were five networks available, two unsecured. I connected and started the browser.

The first thing I saw wasn’t good. The local news feed
on Misty’s home page featured a mug shot, probably taken during a stay in holding. Harsh lighting washed away the haggard skin texture, but the dry hair was a giveaway. If you saw this guy laid out in a coffin, you might think he was sort of handsome before the mortician went and ruined him.

It was me, my mug right below a big headline: C
HAK
W
ANTED IN
P
OLICE
K
ILLING
. That didn’t surprise me as much as the fact that I’d made it this far without being picked up. Maybe
fate
was saving me for something worse. They mentioned Misty, but didn’t have a picture.

I Googled
kyua
and
g
ot about two hundred thousand hits. Most told me that the word was a) Japanese for
cure
, which I already knew, and b) the name of a nineties horror film. Chakz didn’t generally have Web pages, so I wasn’t expecting any sermons or religious blogs. I did hope some overachieving grad student had decided to do a study about nascent chak-culture or some such. Mostly, I wanted to know if there was any kind of organization involved, something I could tag to the arm and the vials.

With so many chakz shipped off, what lame communications I did have with the so-called community had broken down. Jonesey worked hard to keep his hand in, that was his thing. Once he was gone, for me, it was mostly watching Nell Parker on TV. She visited some of the camps, but only to show how nice they were.

I followed some links, found photos of an abandoned cat found in Tokyo, for instance, but one reference stuck out.
Kyua
was the nickname of a local chak-camp, about five miles north of Fort Hammer, near a town called Chambers. More than that, it wasn’t the inmates who
gave it the name, it was livebloods. I was surprised I’d never heard of it, wondering if I had but had forgotten.

Camp Kyua
, provided some more focused results, including a blog by the self-involved Kafka228, a liveblood clerk who handled chak intake forms at The Chambers Observation Center, the camp’s official name. He thought himself too smart for the room and wildly underemployed. He was also deeply amused by how
eager
some chakz were to get into Camp Kyua.

“They seem to think it’s Disney World!” he wrote. “I think some actually failed their tests
on purpose
. Wish it were this easy to get rid of roaches in my kitchen.”

An anonymous comment read, “If there were no kyua, chakz would have to invent one.” Another: “Kyua cures those who cure themselves.” Which, as the real Kafka pointed out, was kind of redundant.

Why the rush to get in? That was the kicker. From what I could piece together, ChemBet, the folks who brought you tomorrow’s zombies today, used this camp to cull “volunteer subjects” for testing.

So, a bunch of my fellow corpses had gotten it into their decomposing heads that Camp Kyua was a good thing. Given how hard we are to destroy, the smart ones figured ChemBet was hunting for a way to
really
kill us, quickly and easily. I could see it. Given the mangled results of failed efforts, that’s not an unwelcome thought, Still, not something I’d
volunteer
for. The not-so-smart ones thought it meant that ChemBet was trying to
improve
the RIP,
really
bring us back to life.

So, the “cure” meant life or death.
Praise Kyua.

And I was still hoping the blue stuff was relatively harmless, like an addictive drug or an explosive. If this
crap was ChemBet’s, it had to be worse. And so was my situation. ChemBet had real power. I’d already figured I was royally screwed, but every time I thought I had a handle on how deep the screw went, it twisted in a little more.

I thought about the briefcase I’d so carefully wrapped in plastic. I thought about the arm, moving on its own. A bit of conversation slipped into my head:

What would I have to gain?

Maybe everything.

The toad, whoever he was, was worried I’d try the stuff myself. Right. Given all Travis and Rebecca Maruta’s great work to date, I’d sooner saw off my head with a Spork. It also meant I couldn’t hand it back to them. These were, after all, the folks who’d fucked up
death
.

There also had to be a story behind that arm. Since it’d cost him, Misty, and myself so much, I wanted to know what it was.

Camp Kyua was ground zero. If there were answers, they’d be there. Under normal circumstances, getting in shouldn’t be a problem, but my corpse-kisser was plastered all over the net. I had a new ID card. I just needed a new face.

At the warehouse, the women’s room still had a mirror. Looking at my photo was one thing, but I had to fight my instincts to give myself a good hard look in the flesh. That was one thing going for me. Livebloods didn’t like looking at us too much either. Can’t blame them. Even if we’re dressed nice, you can never be sure what might pop out from where. Think seeing someone’s flabby gut poke from a T-shirt is freaky? Imagine desiccated intestines slipping over a belt.

But I had to change myself at least a little. Makeup could work, but I didn’t have any. That left the last refuge of the fashion conscious, self-mutilation. If thine eye offend thee cut it out, and replace it with something that matches your hair.

The few chakz who’d gone that way had generally died as teens, and were now trying for echoes of lost angst. Some idiots filed their teeth into points, which
really
made the LBs love them. One girl, featured on Nell Parker’s show, had carefully razored the skin from her hands, creating a kind of muscle-glove effect. Others just carved at themselves idly. None of them kept from going feral long enough to start a trend.

My attachment to my body wasn’t as strong as when I was alive, but it was all I had. I could take a knife to some of the skin, but the wounds would never heal. Break my nose?

I was pissed enough about it all to grab a brick and give myself a half-hearted whack that hurt more than I expected. I clutched my proboscis, danced around, banging into stalls and wall, using all the invectives I had at my disposal. After all that, another look in the mirror told me I’d only scraped the tip, exposing some cartilage, a pebble of white on a little gray hill.

That left getting some makeup.

H
aving seen myself on the net, I wasn’t thrilled about leaving the warehouse again. But, Halloween wasn’t two weeks old. One of those seasonal costume stores might still be open. I cruised until I found a quiet strip mall that had what I wanted, a costume outlet complete with a witty banner reading, E
VERYTHING
M
UST
G
O
—A
S
D
O
W
E
A
LL
!

The display window was full of overturned boxes, scattered masks of clowns, ghosts, and witches. Livebloods didn’t dress as zombies anymore, for obvious reasons, but there’d be plenty of greasepaint and fake wigs.

I had my hat and trench on, and it was cold enough so that pulling the collar up didn’t look out of place. Across the street sat an empty lot with a few sad chak shacks. That meant, I hoped, if I was spotted, my condition wouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

I was about to go in when I learned it wasn’t just the net. My face was also on the TV the pimple-faced clerk
was watching. Next to that was a bank of security monitors, covering the merchandise. If he so much as glanced at a security cam while I was shopping, he’d see one picture right next to the other.

I looked at the chak shacks again. A Subaru would look suspicious parked there, so I walked over. A few goners sat inside a doorless ad hoc square of tin and cardboard, the smell of their decay thicker than the walls. Misty used to tour the Bones, bleach bottle in hand, cleaning up anyone she could, but these days it was like spitting in the ocean.

I stuck my head in and held up a bill, hoping one would remember what money was.

“Anyone want to make five bucks? Buy yourselves some bleach?”

They all picked up their heads. A few could only hiss, but two managed something sounding like, “Yes.”

One was a blond woman with a swollen gash down the center of her face that looked like a big flat worm. The other was a door-wide guy, relatively intact, but having trouble keeping his eyes open. I started with the girl.

I explained what I wanted as carefully as I could, but she wasn’t as smart as she looked. Then again, I didn’t notice the back half of her skull was missing until she had my money in hand and was walking across the street. She never made it into the store, just sort of staggered to the front of Sam’s Liquors, sat down and tried to eat the cash.

I was running out of money, but I pulled out another bill and turned to option two. After checking the back of his head, I went through my instructions again.

He nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah,” like he was listening. That was a good sign.

Better yet, about twenty minutes later, he came back with a big bag.

I hadn’t asked for all the candy, but it looked like he got the rest right.

“Thanks, buddy,” I said.

“You’re welcome,” he answered. He smiled widely, showing a few corn-kernel teeth, pleased he’d remembered his manners.

“Make sure you buy some bleach, you big lug,” I said. I repeated it, slowly, holding my nose for emphasis. “Rot, you know? Big stink.”

He smiled again. “You’re welcome.”

I shoved another bill in his hand.

“Bleach,” I said loudly. I pointed to the others. “For everyone. Understand?”

The smile vanished. He nodded again. “Bleach.”

For Misty’s sake, I walked him back across the street and gave him a push toward a convenience store. He waddled, slowed, but then picked up some steam that took him inside. I could’ve stayed and helped more, I suppose, but I could also end up cleaning rot out of chakz until Judgment Day.

Back at the warehouse, I swapped my usual clothes for a moth-eaten sweater, stained sneakers, and mottled pants. The big guy had done well. Inside the bag, there was a fright wig, greasepaint, spirit gum, latex wounds, vampire blood, a wad of scar wax, and scissors. I was starting to think he’d actually buy that bleach. Whether he’d use it on the rot or try to drink it was another question.

I had to make at least one, big, obvious change, something to act as a distraction from the rest of my face. I
covered my left eye with the scar wax, rubbing what was left of the waxlike crap past my temple. A little black greasepaint made my right eye sink even more. In honor of Jimmy Stewart from the Styx men’s room, I used the spirit gum to stick a nice open wound along my neck.

The fright wig was tougher, the frizzy long hairs didn’t look remotely real. Trimming made it worse. I tried pouring vampire blood on it, to tamp things down. By the time I was finished, it didn’t look exactly like hair, but neither did mine. The result vaguely resembled an oozing scalp. I twisted my head, let my arm dangle, and practiced exaggerating my limp.

Christ, I looked like an asshole.

Finding a bare wall that may have once been white, I stood against it, held the toad’s cell phone camera at arm’s length and kept snapping until the flash card filled.

Phase two would tell me if any of this gaudy shit actually worked.

I drove back into town, found a big-box store with a help-yourself-just-give-us-the-money photo section, and staggered into the fluorescents doing the funky corpse. The aging greeter uttered a muted hello with about the same energy the goner had grunted, “Bleach.”

So far so good.

The sheer size of the place let me keep my distance from the shoppers and minimum-wage clerks. Even if someone saw through the disguise, I’d have a shot at getting away. I did tense up when I noticed I was shambling in front of a wall of TVs showing my face.

No one was around to notice except a chak in a turtleneck standing in the laxative section. Either he’d gotten lost or had swallowed something he shouldn’t have. He
gave me a second look then tsked so loudly it sounded like one of his teeth had snapped. He didn’t say anything. None of his business.

I made it to the photo-printer, fumbled with the tiny data card, but managed to get it in the slot. I picked the best shot, took the receipt and pushed my last bill at the cashier. Too busy chewing on a chocolate bar, she didn’t give me any change. It ticked me off, but I didn’t think I should make a fuss.