I've Been Deader (13 page)

"Good." The kid sat up, holding the gun out in front of him like some trophy.

"Good, good, good. Now, when I open the window, pop her one in the head. But try not to ruin her mascara."

"What - listen -"

Jon hit the button and the window slid down.

"Hey!" Sunshine squealed, leaning away as far from the window as possible. The zombie followed suit, leaning in as far as it could.

"What the fuck?"

Jon kept staring straight ahead, smiling. He was afraid to move his head and awaken the dragon. There was no other gun within reach and he didn't think he could make good use of one if there were. The accident had really incapacitated him.

If he fucks this up, I'm dead
. The thought didn't bother him much.

His head turned away, eyes closed, Sunshine pointed the gun in the general direction of the window and emptied the clip.

Jon's world exploded in thunder.

Each shot felt like a small ball peen hammer tapping on his skull. The pain was so intense that for a moment he was sure the dumb fuck had fired at him.

"Jesus!"

Between thunderclaps, Jon could make out Sunshine shouting nonsense.

The car filled with blue smoke and cordite, a not entirely unpleasant or unfamiliar smell. The thunder receded and now all he heard were dry clicks and whimpering.

Click. Click. Click
.

"Enough, Sunshine. You'll strip the trigger."

Click
.

"Goddamnit! Enough!"

"I think I killed it."

"You think? What do you mean, you think?"

Sunshine's hands shook more than his voice. "I wasn't - that is, I wasn't looking when ...  But it's gone."

Jon winced as a fresh bout of fire engulfed his shoulder.

"Look out the goddamned window and tell me what you see."

There were a few seconds of blessed silence.

"Oh Jesus, she's dead all right."

Jon heard Sunshine retch, followed by the warm splat of vomit hitting the pavement, and something else.

"Oh God, that's disgusting. I think ..." More retching.

Jon rolled his eyes. "For fuck's sake. Is that the first time you killed anything? Don't even answer that. I don't care. You're about to kill a lot more. In the back on the passenger side is a box of clips for the pistol. Go get them."

"Oh God, what a mess. There are puddles where her eyes ..."

"Sunshine," Jon said in a quiet, calm voice, "you don't want me asking you again."

Sunshine didn't like the sound of that. Muttering under his breath he retrieved the ammo, reminding Jon of a Monty Python cartoon.

"You know how to load that?"

"Yes."

"Then do it, goddamnit." Jon heard the satisfying click of a clip sliding into place. "Take two more with you." Another blessed pause.

"With me?"

Jon turned his face toward Sunshine, fresh sweat breaking out across his forehead.

"Listen. We need a new car and I need something to take the edge off. You're going to go inside there and see what you can forage. Pills, liquor, grass - anything. Then we'll work on finding new wheels. You got that?"

Sunshine stared at him in horror.

"You want me to go in there? By myself?"

Jon laughed. "Don't worry. I don't think they'll card you."

"But ..."

"Look. You got two choices. Do what I say or get the fuck out of here. We both know you don't have the sand to make it on your own. So that means you got one choice."

"Okay, okay. I just need a minute."

"We're having a special today. Take two."

Sunshine rolled down the window and cautiously stuck out his head, making Jon think of every
Friday the 13th
movie ever made. Only the trip hammer going off at the base of his neck prevented him from laughing.

"Is she still waiting for her dance?"

His neck hurt too much for him to waste energy turning it, but he could hear Sunshine retching again.

"Oh God. I just puked all over her face."

"I'm sure you aren't her first. Now get out and don't come back without a pocket full of pills, booze, weed or somefuck."

A fresh bout of pain caused Jon to hiss.

"And don't fire that thing more than you have to. This isn't a video game. You don't get more ammo by walking over the corpse. Make every bullet count. Now git."

Restoring his faith in the Almighty, Sunshine shut up and got.

Chapter 20

Zom-bi

The front door opened without a hitch.

Shit.

Sunshine stepped inside and a noxious cloud of cheap perfume, talcum powder, stale beer and desperation assaulted him like a deadbeat in-law. A few lights still worked, but the wattage was so low they made it almost more difficult to see. Except for the buzzing of flies, it was dead quiet.

Thank God for small favors
.

Lucky Chang's seemed larger inside. The floor was movie-theater sticky, and after the thing with the prom queen back at the car, Sunshine was in no mood to investigate the cause. A small alcove opened into the main room. Red and black booths were set against the walls, flanking a small stage. There were a few tables near the stage and he could just make out a bar at the far side of the room.

The place was decorated in cheap red velvet, with dirty Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling … and lots of bodies. Two were lying across the booth closest to him: two men, faces staring up at the ceiling. Both had a god-awful mess where their crotches should have been. Next to them on the floor was another Amazon special. She was a six-footer with a Liza Minnelli hairdo, wearing a red cocktail dress which rode too far up her Heisman trophy thighs. Her face was turned away but he could see her junk peeking out from a pair of torn size forty-six Hello Kitty panties.

He fought down another urge to vomit.

Junk?

Sunshine tore his eyes away from the dead diva.
Enough of the floor show.

To his left was what looked like a hostess station - a small alcove with a counter, cash register and a display case. The case contained cigarette lighters, Tic Tacs, condoms, and an assortment of creams and lotions.

Lovely
.

He made his way behind the counter, praying for a quick score. Underneath the register he found an old shoebox with 'Lost 'n Found' written in red on the side with what he guessed was lipstick. Inside the box he found a memory stick, half a pack of Lifesavers and a bottle of Tylenol. He grabbed the bottle.

Extra strength. Somehow, I don't think this will satisfy Jon
.

The air was humid and stale. Every time he inhaled he could feel his throat being coated in dust and pollen. The adrenaline rush from the encounter with Dancing Queen hadn't worn off, and Sunshine was still a little shaky.

He blinked rapidly in the dim light, trying to keep the sweat out of his eyes and work up the courage to go to the bar.
A couple bottles of Scotch and that’s it
. Jon could either take it or leave it.

Sunshine took a deep breath of dusty air and started across the room.

The buzzing grew louder. As he stepped into the main room he could make out a few flies dancing from patron to patron. In order to walk to the bar he had to navigate between Liza Man-elli on the floor, and the booths of dead customers, keeping as far away as possible from all of them. The two men in the first booth looked like bikers; bushy beards, ear rings, big bellies and bad teeth. Even in death they radiated an aura of menace, although that wasn't such a rare occurrence these days. They were the sort of men that always made him feel like prey. The kind of men -

The kind of men that carry drugs
.

"No. I don't think so. I'll just go to the bar and grab a bottle. If Jon wants to play blind man's buff with Easy Riders here, he can do it. But not me. No, sir."

Run to the bar, nab the Wild Turkey and then run the fuck out of there. Nothing wrong with that plan. Except what if Jon wasn't satisfied with Wild Turkey? What if Jon with the Gun felt cheated? And did he really want to be driving with a drunken gun-waving psychopath?

Taking a deep breath and immediately regretting it, he walked over to the booth.

A bunch of bills were clutched in Biker One's right hand. His left hand rested on what was left of his lap, searching for his missing link.
Replace those bills with a remote control and you'd have a Norman
Rockwell painting from hell
. Screwing up his courage, Sunshine leaned in and searched the vest pockets, upsetting a few flies. Even the denim cloth felt dead to him - stiff and unyielding. Grimacing, he continued to fish through the pockets and came up empty, save for a pack of Parliament Lights.

Fag
. He was on the edge of hysteria and that thought almost pushed him over. He fought an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh. After an eternity the urge passed.

I think I deserve a smoke
. He opened the box.

Bingo!

The box held three cigarettes and six hand-rolled beauties.
Just what the Proctor ordered
. This would have to do.
Time to get the fuck out of Dodge.

He turned back toward the door just as Liza grabbed his ankle.

Chapter 21

Pinch Me

Sunlight shone through the shark tank, bathing Fred in soft greens and blues, making him appear more ghoulish than usual. The residents of the tank were all dead, their bodies littering the bottom.

He sat on a bench, staring vacantly at a pack of Winchester Lights lying on the tiled floor at his feet. He'd give a good six feet of intestine for the ability to enjoy just one smoke - even a Winchester Light. But smoking, while hazardous to a breather's health, was suicide for a zombie. The undead had a tendency to combust even around warm thoughts.

Most of the undead that survived the journey were milling about in the Camden Aquarium's main lobby, but the burned man and Dickless were keeping Fred company - and Aleta and Karen, of course.

The good news was that the zombies were winning again. According to ZNN reports the breathers were in a panic. Stories of mass desertions from the National Guard were broadcast almost daily. Some deserted to be with their loved ones, some left to try their hand at looting, or for other reasons. No surprise that all it took to bring society crashing down was panic, greed, self-interest and a few hundred thousand hungry zombies.

The important thing was that the breathers were becoming disorganized just as Fred and his undead were getting their shit together. Their President was threatening to declare victory in Afghanistan and bring the troops home, but Fred didn't think that would matter much. If outright civil war didn't break out among the breathers, he was confident there'd be anarchy in the streets - and anarchy was like Disneyland for zombies.

The bad news? Well, the bad news was a zombie's shuffle-time on earth was as fleeting as a Robin Williams comeback. True, the numbers of undead continued to increase. Even the deadest of undead could manage to bite two or three people - a whole family more often than not. But between the armed breathers, the unusual flammability of the undead, and the unexplainable fact that many were just up and dying again, the average zombie was not long for this earth. Fred understood that in the end this spelled victory for the undead. But fuck victory. He wanted to live.

He didn't worry about burning up or being shot. He was smart enough to avoid both. If zombies had a Mensa chapter, he'd be president. But knowing when to kill and when to hide meant dodging only two out of three bullets. Even Fred had to worry about just - well, just dying.

He'd decided to relocate his office to Camden. Camden had once been the murder capital of the U.S.A., and it had a fantastic aquarium.

But it wasn't just the view of dead fish that had attracted Fred. His minions had been too successful. After overrunning Wayne and packing the Paradise Buffet with fresh, undead recruits, it was just a matter of time before they caught the attention of whatever passed for the 'Authorities' these days. Like most people from Florida, Fred's gang had overstayed their welcome and it was time to move on. He hadn't been crazy about relocating to Camden, and there weren't many - alive or dead - that could blame him. But he figured Camden wouldn't be one of those places the army was chomping at the bit to control. That Timmy loved aquariums had nothing to do with it. Most of the undead had followed Fred from Paradise, but even on the short commute, quite a few simply stopped unliving. None that would be missed, but it was only a matter of time before he started losing real assets.

With no small effort he picked up the pack of Winchester's, intending to just hold a cigarette for old time's sake. But this proved impossible, and in a matter of moments the crushed box fell to the floor, leaking fresh tobacco. He looked up to the shark tank and its dead inhabitants. He didn't know if it was lack of food or lack of oxygen that had killed them. He assumed the latter, as there was no evidence that the sharks had attacked each other. He supposed that when the electricity went out, the oxygen pumps failed and all the fish suffocated. Here and there the filtered sunlight came through in liquid patches. It was depressing, and made seeing difficult.

He was staring at the soft light in the tank when the waking dream hit him. Not the typical waking nightmare he occasionally experienced: being unable to blink, let alone shut one's eyes, did strange things to a zombie. This was different, and somehow he knew it was coming from the same Broadcaster he'd tuned in to back in Paradise. He'd assumed there were other Broadcasters out there, but now he wondered. Perhaps, like him, the Broadcaster was unique. All the more reason he needed to get his lifeless hands on him.

This dream felt much clearer than the others. At first he'd only a vague sense of the Broadcaster's surroundings. Now he could see everything clear as day. In the vision Fred saw the undead postal worker staring at him. It took a moment for him to realize he was looking at his own reflection in a bathroom mirror. His initial reaction was to try to take over the body. But his trick didn't work like that. He could see as though he was in the postman's head, but that was all he could do. The zombie was behaving like a civil servant and just standing there, apparently ignoring his surroundings and definitely ignoring his personal hygiene. Zombies didn't sleep but they could
unplug
, and this guy was unplugged.