This Book is Full of Spiders (40 page)

Falconer was marched over and forced to sit next to John. Holy shit, did he look pissed.

Cowboy pulled down his earmuffs and said, “Just to be clear, I got nothin’ but respect for law enforcement, officer—”

“Detective.”

“
Detective
, but at this point in time I’m pretty sure that what you see here is all the law that exists in this town at this here moment. When the feds huddled up behind their barricades on the other side of town, it came down to us to walk these here streets. And now that they left town altogether, well, we’re pretty sure that makes this our town. ’Til we hear different.”

Falconer said, “I understand. Now you tell me specifically what needs to occur before you let me continue what I was doing.”

“You need to convince us that you’re not a zombie.”

John said, “Do we look like zombies?”

“Ain’t you heard? The zombies
look just like everybody else.
”

Falconer said, “This is all some huge prank, isn’t it? Is somebody filming my reaction, to put it up on the Internet?”

“Now,” Cowboy said, “the infection takes root in the mouth, that much we know. Then it spreads to the brain and then the rest of the body. So there’s a real simple test: we have to take somethin’ out of the mouth. If you’re infected, you won’t feel it, because it’s not really part of your body. If you’re clean, it’ll hurt like hell. So I’ll let you pick.”

From his back pocket, Cowboy pulled out a pair of vise-grip pliers.

“We can take a tooth…”

From his other back pocket, he produced a six-inch-long pair of pruning shears.

“… or a piece of tongue.”

11 Hours, 45 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

I was locked in a supply closet while the reds gathered to discuss execution methods. I didn’t care. It’d all gone wrong, the kind of wrong that not even Owen properly understood. Otherwise he’d realize he was about to give me a cleaner end than most people on earth were going to get over the coming weeks and months and years. Including him.

Amy was my only regret. I just wished I knew that she was safe, and if so, that I could get word to her not to come after me. Even if she had made it out of town, Amy wouldn’t just leave the situation alone. She and I had that in common. Can’t stand to be on the other side of a fence from where we want to be. Not a fence somebody else put there, anyway.

I wished there was a way to tell her all that in person. To hug her, feeling her warmth and smelling the fruity shampoo in her hair. If I had that, and if I could hear her laugh one last time, I could carry that with me into eternity and that would be okay.

I kept trying to think back to everything that had happened since I woke up with that spider thing biting me in bed, trying to figure out what I was supposed to have done differently. It was stupid, I knew. Questioning how my life would have gone if I hadn’t made bad choices was like a fish asking how his life would have turned out if he’d only followed through on his dream to play in the NBA. I don’t beat myself up over my choices. My shame circuits burned out from overuse years ago.

Wait. This started before the spider showed up in your bed.

See, that was the thing, right there. I’d been so busy running around since that night that I’d never really had a chance to stop and put it all together. There was a common thread through all of these events that stretched back even before that night.

Tennet.

Goddamned Dr. Bob Tennet. He shows up in my life as my supposed court-appointed paranoia therapist. Asking me about monsters and trying to get me to work through all of that shit. Then the spider shows up and starts spreading this infection. And who’s there the whole time, showing up at quarantine? Dr. Tennet. Monitoring the situation. Watching it unfold. Tapping away at his laptop and recording his observations.

Anyway. So there’s two things I wish I could take care of before my execution. People have died with longer to-do lists.

I leaned my head against the wall and tried to make myself smell shampooed red hair instead of hospital sadness chemicals. I dozed off.

11 Hours, 40 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

John
was actually weighing the “tooth or tongue” options when Falconer said to Cowboy, “Let me say this as a red-blooded, not possessed by any kind of inhuman organism, all-American man. If you get near my mouth with either of those tools I’m going to shove your head into the ground so hard a Chinaman will see it fly out of a volcano.”

Before Cowboy could react, John said, “Hold on. Do you know who this is next to me? This is Detective Lance Falconer.”

Cowboy looked like he sort of recognized the name, but couldn’t place it. John said, “You can’t tell me you haven’t seen him on the news. He caught the Portland Strangler?”

From behind Cowboy, a lady said, “Oh my God, it is him!”

“Show them your ID, detective.”

Falconer did. The lady was duly impressed.

John said, “We were kind of in the middle of getting to the bottom of this whole thing when you showed up.”

Tightpants Cowboy said, “Is that right?”

John said, “Yeah, that is right. It’s looking like the government is behind it all.”

Tightpants cursed and said, “Son of a bitch. I been saying that since day one. Day
one.
” To the guy next to him: “Haven’t I?”

Falconer said, “I’m standing up now.”

He did. No one objected. A kid in the crowd said, “What’s it like to fight somebody on top of a train?”

“Windy.” To Tightpants, “What do you mean the feds left town? When?”

“Breach at their headquarters. Somethin’ blew up. You didn’t hear it?”

“Oh,” said John. “We, uh, were wondering what that was.”

“Convoy headin’ out of town right now. So now we got to do what they couldn’t. Which is the way it always winds up. Which is why I been sayin’ it since day one. Me and my brother went door to door, within two hours of the feds roping off the town, gatherin’ up everybody with a gun and a set of balls. We’re the ones who got shit back under control, not the soldiers tripping around in their space suits. We’re the ones who put a stop to the looting, we’re the ones who have been patrolling the streets every minute of every day, in shifts, outside of the so-called Green Zone the feds set up. There’s almost two hundred of us now, working in three shifts, ’round the clock, pumpin’ buckshot into zombies and feedin’ ’em to Chip back there. Making sure everybody outside that hospital is clean, everybody who ain’t gets put down, and makin’ sure that hospital stays sealed off until the president grows the balls to drop a couple dozen cruise missiles on it.”

This got John’s attention. “Wait, what? They’re dropping cruise missiles? When?”

“When they grow the balls, like I said.”

“We don’t have a more specific timeline on the balls situation?”

“Are you askin’ because you want it to happen, or because you don’t want it to happen?”

“Well what about the people inside who aren’t infected? We got to get them out, right?”

“Buddy, anybody that’s spent a day inside that place is infected by now, five times over. If there’s anybody alive in there, they ain’t human no more. That’s the only thing we know about the infection. Once you get it, there ain’t no cure. You’re walkin’ dead. If you got people you care about in there, you need to treat ’em just like you saw them go into the ground yourself. Picture the dirt goin’ in over the casket. Take time to mourn, do what you got to do. But you got to get past that. Feelin’ sorry for them, it’s like feelin’ sorry for the fire that’s burning down your house. These infected, they’ll say anything, anything at all, to make you let down your guard. They can look just like you and me, can talk just like you and me. Or your neighbor, or your best friend, or your momma. But you cannot hesitate. Think of ’em just like a parrot imitatin’ human speech—the words sound the same, but they ain’t got no soul inside. You come face-to-face with ’em? You. Cannot.
Hesitate
.”

Nearby, somebody said, “Fuckin’ A.”

Falconer said, “See, that just makes me more pissed off at the bastards who are gonna get away with this. They’re going to turn all the victims to ashes and sweep it all under the rug. Somebody needs to answer for this shit.”

About ten different people muttered, “Damn right” or something to that effect.

Tightpants said, “Tell me what you need, detective.”

“As you see, I’m gonna need a ride. Unless you know a tire shop that’s open.”

“What the hell are we waitin’ for? Hop in the truck.” To another guy Tightpants said, “Tell Bobby to follow me. Everybody else should finish their sweep. We’re behind enough as it is. Don’t forget to check in on Eve Bartlett, make sure she got her insulin okay.”

The crowd started to disperse. John didn’t move from the spot where he was sitting in the yard.

Falconer said, “You comin’?”

“Dave is alive. I saw him, when I was on the Sauce earlier. Gonna go find my car and see what I can do.”

The look on Falconer’s face told John that he thought he was looking at a dead man, but knew that there was also no point in trying to talk John out of it. Instead, Falconer shook John’s hand and said, “Don’t fuck everything up, okay?”

3 Hours, 10 Minutes Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

The supply closet door was yanked open and I awoke to see Owen there with his co-chair, Mr. Gun. They led me to the yard and I found that it was morning—I had managed to sleep several hours among the mops and buckets, exhaustion catching up with me. The group of reds had swelled, huddled around the bonfire to hear my sentence.

Owen said to me, “We figure we’ll give you the choice, bro. You can either crawl through that steam tunnel and whatever happens, happens. Or I can shoot you right here and let your fat ass fuel the fire. It’s all the same to me, aside from the second option settin’ me back one bullet.”

I shook my head and said, “Nah, that tunnel smelled like a graveyard for dogshit. Am I allowed a piece of paper and a pen to write a note to my girlfriend, if she’s even still alive? No idea how she’s ever going to see it but I’d feel bad if I didn’t make the effort. You know like when you forget to call home on Mother’s Day.”

Owen didn’t answer, because he was looking past me. Something deep in my nasal passages noted that the scent of the smoke took on a more sophisticated tone. Instead of the meaty smell of barbecue mixed with the acrid smell of particle board and veneer, I suddenly smelled the sweet, rich fragrance of pipe tobacco. I turned and there was Dr. Marconi, puffing on his pipe with one hand dipped into the jacket pocket of a pinstriped suit. He looked so out of place here he seemed like a hologram.

Marconi said, “Can I ask what this gathering is about?”

I said, “I been sentenced to die but Owen here has agreed to let me write a note to Amy before he shoots me.”

Marconi nodded and said, “I see. You realize, David, that other men do not find themselves in this kind of predicament with the same frequency that you do? I’m beginning to think it’s something
you’re
doing.”

To Owen, he said, “Can it wait fifteen minutes? I would like to pull Mr. Wong aside and take him up to my floor. I actually believe I’m on the verge of a breakthrough with detection but I’ll need his skill this one last time.”

No answer from Owen. Marconi said, “It really is for the good of all of us, if it works. You can stand right outside my door, if you think this is a ruse to help him escape, though I personally cannot imagine what such a plan would entail. It would also give him the chance to confess his sins, so it would be a personal favor to me, as a former man of the cloth it would weigh on me greatly if I didn’t at least offer him the opportunity.”

Owen pointed the gun at the sky and said, “If it was anybody but you, doc…”

“You know I do not ask lightly.” To me, he said, “Will you take this opportunity to let me show you something? And to reconcile yourself with the creator you’re about to meet?”

3 Hours Until the Aerial Bombing of Undisclosed

John
jolted awake to find himself staring down a shotgun wielded by his greatest enemy: himself.

He had fallen asleep in the Caddie, his shotgun in his lap. He must have shifted position at some point. If he’d coughed, he’d have vaporized his own skull. The sun stared angrily through his windshield. John blinked and threw open the driver’s-side door, needing to get out and take a piss. He almost fell and broke his neck—the Caddie was sitting six feet off the ground. Then he remembered.

The night before, he’d parted company with the Undisclosed zombie militia and made the nervous trek on foot from Dave’s house up to the burrito stand, only to find the Caddie was not in fact where they’d left it. At that point his only possible hope of finding it again was if it had gotten towed away, back at a stage of the apocalypse when a car partially blocking the street was still considered a priority on somebody’s list. John jogged twelve blocks to the towing company impound yard, expecting to be decapitated by a monster at any moment.

The good news was that he wasn’t. The further good news was that the Caddie was in fact there and that the tall fence had been cut open by some other looter or vandal days ago. The bad news was that the Caddie was apparently the last seized vehicle before towing was shut down—it was still on the back of the tow truck. The truck was the flatbed type, where the whole bed tilted down to form a ramp and let the car roll on and off—a technology that probably came about because the old hook style yanked off too many bumpers in the course of dragging cars out of handicapped parking spaces.

John had jumped up onto the truck’s bed and opened the Caddie’s trunk, expecting to find that everything had been stolen. But apparently even the looters who ransacked the impound yard took one glance at the rusting piece of shit and deduced that there could be nothing in the trunk worth the effort of prying it open. That was probably a good thing for both the citizens and law enforcement of Undisclosed. Inside they’d have found the aforementioned shotgun (a custom-made triple-barrel sawed-off), two hundred shells, Dave’s blood-splattered chainsaw, the green mystery box taken from Dave’s shed, a bag of Dave’s clothes, a bottle of Grey Goose, a bad black velvet painting of Jesus and a fucking flamethrower.