The Queen of the Dead (23 page)

Her Harley-tattooed hand squeezed his wet fingers.

Denise said hoarsely, “You got a brother. I know… I know your eyes. I busted him a couple times for stupid shit. I never forget… but you’re nothing like him.”

It didn’t matter that he was the only one crying. She was strong enough for both of them. He could feel her iron will, her fierce eyes that refused to look away from the black woman who kept coming, feet dragging through the grass. Jack could hear the grass move, the heavy, unbalanced steps being sucked up by mud.

The dead weren’t moved by emotion or martyrdom.

“That woman coming for me, maybe she was a mother and a wife, but she’s still a killer. That priest is going to hurt people. You gotta get his ass. You might have a few minutes left. You can’t let anything happen to Ed or Alexis. Do what’s right.”

Father Jim said he would die. His belly would feel better if the pain inside was ripped out by the dead and devoured. He would be free of the pain, and he’d never have to feel it again. It would be over in just a few minutes. But there was still Ed and his little girl. Just like there had been the cowboy, who fired his revolvers into a crowd of dead with his back to the wall. A man who didn’t owe the human race a damn thing.

“Get yer ass moving,” Denise said.

She had a lot of strength left; she pushed him away with her remaining hand, and he looked at her determined face. Denise was focused on the dead woman, whose shadow passed through the hellish glow from the burning control towers and the eerie sky. The dead Canadian soldier followed on her heels.

Jack grunted and grimaced against the pain; he thought of smoking acid and pictured his insides being cooked in a pan on a hot stove. He held on to his side as if his organs might explode outward. It was nearly impossible to move.

He turned around. The dead woman knelt beside Denise.

“Have some of this,
bitch
,” Denise shouted. “Come get a taste.”  She pulled the corpse forward by the hem of its tank top and shoved its head against the pole. One-handed, she held on to the back of the corpse and slammed it forward with her knees. With a powerful war cry, she wrenched her broken hand out of the cuffs.

She could’ve gotten out, but she waited. She really did make her peace a long time ago.

She was buying him time.

Three human shapes surrounded her. The woman lay twitching face-down on the cement. Jack wanted to go back; she wasn’t going to die!

Denise cold-cocked the Canadian in the head. Ignoring all pain, she whirled and struck another, the details of the battle lost in the darkness and rain.

“HAHAHAHA! That doesn’t even hurt mutherfucker!”

Jack turned away. Her voice followed him; not even thunder could drown her out.

“Is that all you got? Come on and get some more! Does that taste good? Huh? Yeah? DOES IT TASTE GOOD MUTHERFUCKER? DO YOU LIKE THAT? I’M STILL HERE! I AIN’T SCREAMIN’ OH GOD, YOU MUTHERLESS, GODLESS WHORE, EAT SOME OF THIS, EAT SOME, COME ON COME ON COME ON YEAH. TASTE IT. YEAH! HAVE SOME MORE!”

“You’re nothing like him,”
she’d said. It was the only nice thing Jack could remember anyone saying about him.

MINA

Not even the creature Traverse left behind to finish her off wanted to taste her flesh. The zombie’s eyes didn’t seem to see her, and as she wandered the streets covered in gore, not a single corpse displayed interest in her. She moved among them as if she didn’t exist. She was a ghost. Maybe she was already dead. Maybe none of this was real, and her nightmare had extended itself into a special hell reserved for her alone.

The rain didn’t wash away the blood, nor did it cure the growling in her stomach, or the nausea, or the shivers, or her aching bones. Her universe was composed of pain. She wandered into drug stores to find her medication, but found the pharmacies bare. She wouldn’t know exactly what she needed, even if she found anything.

The dead ignored her.

Soaked by the rain, corpses walked like pedestrians who were leaving a sports event in which their team had lost and would never win anything again. The dead grasped at walls and hung out in doorways. Scattered screams and gunshots had become familiar, and their absence produced greater terror, like a bill that was supposed to have been paid six months ago. For the last twenty-four hours, genocide had spared no soul of its tragedy.

She walked but didn’t know where she was going. Her head was filled with the tired rambling of a thousand voices. She heard Daddy, Jim, Patrick, Jake, Jerome; she heard Vincent and Rhonda, Shanna and Derek. She was back at the church and then standing outside the church. She heard Desmond’s voice in a garage, hollow and angry at the same time. She was in her cell and she was out of her cell. She was having sex in front of a camera, and there was another voice.

A voice that spoke very clearly, as if it came from behind her.

What does your soul long for?

She didn’t know how old she was. Blank spaces occupied her history; lying on her back while her Daddy gave her chores to do—walking through alleyways until a man in a sport jacket grabbed her hand and led her to a strange place, a man who became Patrick. Videos and long nights, conversations in the dark. A bed turned into a lake of blood, the police removing her from the scene. Maybe there was a trial. A cold cell with her hands folded neatly between her thighs, patiently waiting for Jake to come back with a message from Jim, who admired her.

Her life, collected in pieces.

Now you know who you are.
Now you know what you are.

Patrick was out there; he showed her what it meant to be a woman.

Sleep or death. Rain or blood. Expensive cars abandoned to a wasteland of metal. Burnt husks lying inert in skeletal vehicles, fire rending the fleshless corpses unto a state between barbecue and ash. Blood draining into the street with water. Paper and clothes soaking into the concrete, stamped there forever. A random burglar alarm from a store or a car provoking a response from wayward zombies who seemed bored with existence.

Exhausted from life, Mina wrestled with a corpse and pounded on it with her fists. A dead policeman, a young man with his throat torn out and half his face missing. The dead man refused to respond to her plight, and she wept upon its shoulder, holding tightly to the unbalanced corpse. She sobbed into the uniform until her tear ducts were dry, the water on her face drowning her emotion in uniformity with the rain. 

She dragged her poisoned body across the Gratiot Boulevard, with all its storefronts and gas stations, car washes and fast food restaurants. This used to be one of the streets where kids would cruise around on a Friday night, looking for a party or a quick thrill, showing off music systems and hydraulics, while cops watched from parking lots. Innocence faded into the thunder, dying with the rumble.

Zombies marched toward shopping centers where people had taken refuge; the screams of the newly-murdered drifted along the street and settled into the damp air. Early evening filled the clouds with new darkness, as Mina shuffled along the street with her bare feet, wondering if she should eat, wondering if she was already a zombie. What was the difference? She’d eaten part of the man Jim gave her, so her stomach was supposed to be full.

You will never be satisfied.

Water flooded some of the suburban side streets, as trees and electrical lines still burned, while a gift-set assortment of cars in blue, red, gold, and white lay crumpled against each other, the might of man’s ingenuity and craftsmanship wasted. The machines were better off dead. No amount of rain could stop the world from burning.

Walking, walking, and walking. Firelight reflected in rain puddles. She felt like she was back in Detroit, liquid fire reflected in the black sky, still blanketed by clouds. Explosions or thunder—it was all the same.

When she heard a voice calling from across the street, she confused it with the mocking beast in her head. How long had she been wandering? Where was she in this desert of death, where the asphalt had been painted in blood? She kept walking.

“I know you’re still alive.”

A man’s voice filled with powerful reassurance, like a man who narrated a trailer for a new comedy film starring Seth Rogen or Adam Sandler, maybe even both of them. Walking, still walking.

“I know you can hear me.”

Nobody was alive out here, least of all her.

“I can help you.”

Stay away from him. He’ll kill us both.

A shape stepped through fire-mirrored puddles, a broad-shouldered man whose face radiated the heat of the ashen ruins around them. A smile stretched beneath his crooked nose, and his hands were folded in front of him like a compliant monk or eager car salesman. Around them, zombies tripped and fell over curbs or bumped into car doors that had been hastily thrown open ages ago, in another lifetime.

A priest, like Jim. Only this was the real thing. Maybe.

Maybe.

The pain which guided her through the fire and thunder subsided for a moment, and she was aware of everything around her. She looked at her bare arms, her ribcage poking against the sheer gown which had soaked through, something rendered useless for all it revealed.

“I think my hair’s a mess,” she said.

“It is.” The priest kept smiling. “Are you hurt?”

“Yes. I hurt.” She opened her palms and stared at the lines in the orange glow of the ember-laden city.

“I’d like to help you, if you’ll let me.”

“I went looking for the moon,” she said, and sat in a puddle.

“I’m sorry you found me instead.” He crouched beside her. He smelled like a wet dog and cheap toothpaste. “If you want to hold me, it’s okay. I’ve heard I’m like a teddy bear, except now I’m a bit soaked from all the rain. A soggy teddy bear, then.”

“Touch my hair,” she said. “Patrick used to do that for me. Sometimes, he would pull it.”

His fingers slipped through the tangles in her long hair. “How can we find Patrick?”

She shrugged. “He tried to find me, I think, only I left him and he didn’t care, but I don’t blame him because Jim’s a scary guy to most people. But I left him. Nobody has eaten you.”

“I’m Father Joe.”

Kill him now! Consume his flesh!

“I’m Mina. I won’t eat you.”

“I’m glad.” Father chuckled and helped her to her feet. “Can you walk a bit? I think I found some people who might be able to help us.”

“I need my medication. Do you have it?”

“I have a feeling all the meds are gone. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?” His hand felt warm, his fingers pressing against her hipbone.

“My stomach hurts a little,” she said. “I think the last man I ate was sick. There’s a monster in my head and it’s not me.”

“You’re not bitten?”

“I don’t think so. I haven’t checked in a while.”

She walked with him for a few yards and she could smell his must; it was a comforting smell, the smell of a man who was still alive. A long time had passed since she wanted to be around anyone besides Patrick; even when she was with Jim, she allowed him to take control, allowed him to prey upon her weaknesses because it was fun, and she believed he would take her back to the man she loved. She had the vague feeling of something like this happening before; she may have been sick, and Daddy lovingly carried her off to bed and brushed her hair away from her eyes before tucking her in.

Her lips were pressed against Father Joe’s neck. It would be so easy to bite him. Blood would fill her mouth, thick and sweet. The last few hours had turned her into a glutton, but she couldn’t resist the temptation. The priest would surrender and he might even forgive her. This was a man who believed that Hell was real. She breathed against his skin and closed her eyes.

The priest will be most delicious. The best meal you’ve ever tasted.
“Are you afraid?” she whispered into the priest’s ear.

His arm tightened around her waist. “Always.”

“I think I want to eat you,” she said, “will you forgive me?”

He remained calm. With her hand pressed against his chest, she could feel his heartbeat pumping at a slow, measured pace. His arms were thick and strong; she was being rescued like a princess.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help you,” he said.

“Hell is real,” she groaned against his neck. The point of her tongue flickered against the edge of his throat.

“And Heaven,” he said.

Her lips brushed against his skin, and the sweat tasted like Patrick’s cum.

She remembered a line from one of Patrick’s movies.
“You don’t know me and you love me anyway.”

But the priest seemed like he couldn’t die, even if she sucked all the blood and marrow from his body. She could take a bite and he wouldn’t even feel it.

“There’s only love,” Father Joe said, as if accepting her tongue as nothing more than a function of the dying, an old man shitting himself in church, or a child’s unwashed breath in the communion line. His eyes looked to the dark sky. “We’re going to die by getting ourselves sick. Wouldn’t that be funny? I mean, not really.”