Waking The Zed (16 page)

He thought he should just close the café now and venture out in the delivery van to find Marina. Then he thought he would delay the trip until at least one of the employees showed up to relieve him. They might have some information about the situation, and it seemed too impulsive to venture out without any knowledge about the world outside.

Besides, he still felt groggy from so recently being roused and skipping his shower.
All he could do right now was light the gas burners to boil some strong Greek coffee for his own breakfast. The grinders were electric, and he did not have enough finely ground coffee to serve more than a few customers, but he had plenty for himself. 

They had run out of
fresh pastries yesterday before the lunch rush even ended. He had meant to ask Marina to make a larger batch this morning as the place had gotten increasingly busy. He had even meant to ask her if she knew anybody who could be trained to help her. In the last few years, the older neighborhood had gotten more popular, and The Mediterranean had really outgrown the small staff his parents had always relied upon.  Hercules scratched his head and figured he might be able to offer customers eggs and toast.

While he thought about handling his business
this morning, Hercules added sugar, water, and finely ground coffee to a small pot for his breakfast coffee. He had originally entered the café’s kitchen from the stairs that led to his small upstairs apartment. In all this time he had not actually entered the dining room or looked out at the street. He remembered that Marina usually unlocked the front door when she arrived so the waitresses and morning cook could get in.

Perhaps they are locked outside and I have not been able to hear them knocking.
He should let them in and offer them coffee. If they did show up, whether or not he decided to conduct business, Hercules decided to give each of the women some money from petty cash to compensate them for their lost tips. He would also let them punch in for the day, and he could punch them out later so they would still be paid. He had learned from his parents that it was always good business to treat employees as fairly as possible. He had not thought to clock Marina’s time, but he could do that later. Then he recalled that the electronic time system would not work without electricity anyway. Hercules shrugged. He would figure something else out.

He turned down the flame on the burner under his coffee before making his way out of the kitchen. Daylight already streamed in through the barred windows. He made out several indistinct shapes on the street which was unusual for this time of the morning. Normally people would enter the café in small groups when they first opened, but he still had the better part of an hour before that would happen. Maybe the loss of electricity and the number of people on the street were related. Was there something he should know?

Hercules casually stepped up to the window to get a good look at the street. The scene was so shocking that Hercules stared in open mouthed horror. A prone woman crawled on the ground directly in front of him. A man passed her without even glancing down. The man dragged his leg and his head seemed perched on his neck at an odd angle. Hercules looked back down at the woman and she seemed to be missing part of the back of her head. Her hair and scalp had been scraped off, and he could see the white bones of her skull. He forced himself to look beyond the part of the sidewalk where he had set out a few tables and chairs for diners who preferred to eat outside on pleasant days, and he saw stopped cars with about a dozen of the injured looking people moving slowly between them. The lurching man brushed into one of Hercules’s ornate sidewalk chairs and knocked it over without pausing.

What horror is this? Has somebody dropped a bomb on the city?

He had the initial thought to venture out to help the prone woman, but a sudden flash of memory stopped him. His grandmother had frightened a young Hercules into behaving with stories of the
Twice Dead
from Greek legends. She even had an old book with engraved images that reminded him of the bloody spectacle in front of him. He knew enough of the old language to struggle through the ornate book and his grandmother had filled in the gaps.

Necromancers, or witches, could revive the newly dead for advice or favors before returning them into the underworld. He had not thought about those stories for years, but suddenly the image had popped into his brain.

His grandmother had fancied herself as a sort of a white witch, and the rest of the family mostly put her claims down to eccentricity. But as a child, Hercules had a creative and sensitive nature, and her stories sparked his imagination. Plus when Hercules was a child, a steady stream of visitors called on her. She seemed able to produce cures for everything from high blood pressure to depression.

At least that’s what her clients claimed. Hercules own mother had mostly insisted on taking him to a regular doctor for childhood checkups and treatments.
His own mother was a modern woman, and she insisted that the old woman’s tinctures only made people feel better because the healing herbs had been dissolved in strong alcohol.

How had the dead been revived?
He thought it had something to do with pleas to the old gods, but perhaps one of the narratives had mentioned a potion too. More importantly, he remembered that the dead had been sent back to the afterlife by burning them on a funeral pyre. Since these creatures seemed mobile despite various severe injuries, Hercules wondered if there was another way to rouse them. As he contemplated this fantastic scenario, he stared at the street in wide eyed horror. 

He
finally tore his eyes from the street and glanced up. He believed he saw the shadow of a woman staring down at him from a second floor window across the street. The apartment had a small balcony but the woman did not venture outside. He wondered if he knew her. He knew she could not make out his features because he had the windows treated to block light from the outside. He could see out, but people on the outside could only see shadows from the café.

None of the creatures seemed to pay him any attention, but he stepped back from the window. He wondered if the old book had been left in the small apartment over the shop or if his parents had taken it with them to Florida.
He doubted his mother would bother to pack such a thing, and his father never bothered with what he called women’s lore.

Then he recalled again that the Twice Dead had been revived because the dead were supposed to know everything. They were used
as oracles before being sent back to the underworld. He did not dare open the outside door to listen, but it did not look as if the amblers in the street had anything to say. As Hercules had observed them, they seemed brainless and without purpose. This might be something else, but also more unlike anything else in his experience than to his grandmother’s stories of the Twice Dead.

Hercules did not own a gun. He had long ago resolved to protect himself with a good alarm system, heavy locks, and the resolution to give any thieves whatever money he had on hand. So far the alarm system and locks had thwarted the few burglary attempts he had suffered.

All he had on hand was an old hunting bow that had been handed down from his grandfather. It was a beautiful hand carved artifact from the old country and he had it hung on the wall with a quiver of twenty arrows. Back when Hercules was a child his grandfather had taken the boy out to the country so he could practice shooting at targets.

Hercules remembered asking
during one hunting trip, “Are we ever going to actually hunt anything?”

“You want to hunt something?” his grandfather asked. “Ah, maybe I am a spoiled old man. But I prefer to take pictures of the beautiful wild animals. I’ll get my meat from the store if it’s all the same to you.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” young Hercules had replied, agreeing seriously. “I guess if I had to kill my own food, I’d stick to hummus.” Then both he and his grandfather had laughed.

But Hercules had learned the hunting bow could shoot stu
rdy bolts with surprising power; especially know when strung with modern fibers. He had learned to shoot well enough to send bolts right through wooden targets. He knew this type of bow could penetrate armor or skulls. It was especially effective because each arrow was tipped with a razor sharp steel head as fine as Hercules’ best chefs knives.  Hercules grandfather had told him that a skilled archer could shoot arrows as fast an armed gunman. Of course, that was in the days before automatic weapons were so prevalent on the streets.

Hercules nodded at the thought and pulled his bulk back up the stairs to fetch the bow and quiver. He had forgotten that a sturdy hunting knife and a short ax were sheathed on the same strap that held the quiver. Those seemed like useful tools for a man in the woods, or in the midst of an urban apocalypse.

After a quick glance through the closet, he also found the old book which his grandmother had claimed was the source of most of her knowledge of the old wisdom. It was wrapped in its own finely tooled leather bag. He climbed back down to the dining room, glanced out the window to find the scene unchanged, and then remembered the coffee.

He set the bow, quiver, and dusty old book
bag on a booth so he could read by the light of the window. Just a year ago he had the windows treated so they let light in, but looked shaded from the street. His father had been against it, saying that seeing the busy café would attract more business from the outside. But the salesman had told him it was energy efficient and would save on utility bills in the future. Hercules wanted to invest in money-saving and ecologically responsible ideas so he had the windows treated. Just now that investment had saved him from being seen by the Twice Dead on the streets and seemed like a fortuitous decision.

Hercules had left the sturdy door untreated, but covered it with a decorative shade.
He decided against uncovering the door to see if he could get a better view.

Then he returned to the kitchen to pour himself a double serving of strong Greek coffee. His grandmother had always joked that this stuff had the power to wake the dead, so perhaps it would fortify him.

He opened the small cooler over the counter and found a few slices of pita bread, yesterday’s leftover hummus, and some butter. It would have to do for his breakfast. He took a moment to warm the bread on the gas burner. Then he settled himself in the customer booth, something he rarely did. He picked at the food, and sipped his coffee while trying to learn more about the Twice Dead.

He struggled with the old language, wishing he had his grandmother here to refresh his memory of a character here or a word there. It was hard to concentrate on such a difficult task while those things were lurching about outside and poor Marina was missing. But somehow it seemed important.

Pam honestly felt surprised when she woke up
in an ordinary bed. She did not appear to have any abnormal cravings for human flesh. She was not in the rain ditch, a frozen tank, or even back in the military hospital ward either. The bed felt soft and luxurious, and not like a hard cot or slab. She guessed the whole drive off the military base could not have been an awful nightmare. She opened her eyes slightly. This light only intensified the awful headache with seemed to start at her hairline and extend all the way down to her toes. Pam heard somebody groan, and it took a moment before she realized that the sound came from her own mouth. Her throat felt dry and her voice seemed to come out as a pained croak.

Somebody had cleaned her off. Instead of wearing her stained and smelly work clothes from the day before she seemed to have been dressed in a
large undershirt and a modest robe. Captain Crawford’s gruff voice sounded distant but clear. “Ms. Stone, are you awake?”

“Oh,” Pam said, peering around at the small
and neat bedroom she had somehow ended up in. “Are you here to murder me?”

“No, I’m not here to murder you,” Captain Crawford said. “You obviously misunderstood a conversation you should not have heard. Though it appears from the holy havoc those things have caused it would have been smart to shoot first and ask questions later.
I just wanted the area secured, and I didn’t act fast enough.”

“What happened
last night?” she asked. Her voice seemed to emerge from her throat like a croak when she spoke. “I’m still a little fuzzy.” She rubbed her head and winced when she found the spot where she had struck the big rock.

“
You stole Corporal Gordon’s vehicle, and he gave chase. That ended up being a lucky thing for you as he extricated you from what would have been a terminal situation and hauled you back here. Your hero is actually in my own kitchen making coffee, eggs, and toast right now for breakfast. This place lost electricity, but we still seem to still have gas to power the stove.”

“Did I get bitten?” she asked because with the mass of scrapes and bruises all over her body she had no way to sort out one thing from the other.
Now that Captain Crawford had mentioned food, she did smell coffee. She thought that a hot cup of coffee and about a half dozen pain killers would be just the thing for her right now. Pam swallowed and her throat felt dry.

“You do not appear to be bitten or have the immediately terminal form of the infection,” Crawford said.
“In other words, you don’t have symptoms. The truth is, I found out later than I tested positive for the virus just like you did, but also don’t appear symptomatic. I’m sure I wasn’t bitten, so it must also be airborne. Testing positive for the virus does not appear to produce symptoms, at least it hasn’t yet. Right now, you’re just lucky that you didn’t get a concussion when you fell. You were covered with gore when Gordon extricated you, but that alone doesn’t seem to be enough to trigger the symptoms either. At least, it wasn’t enough to trigger symptoms in you yet. So there’s some good news.”