Zombie, Illinois (20 page)

The bodies look mostly African American, but there are a few whites and Hispanics thrown in. They are wearing street clothes. In most cases, they appear to have been shot through the head at close range. (This does not tell me how they died in life; it's a sign of their recent re-execution for the crime of being zombies.)

Otherwise, there is no unifying feature among the perhaps 200 charred bodies at my feet. Certainly, I recognize no one I know among the half-burned faces. For that, at least, I am thankful.

Then, just a few moments into my investigation of the smoldering pile, I hear a cough in the trees a few feet away. I jump as though it were a gunshot.

My hand goes for my shotgun, which is not there. All it finds is my Maglite, still in my coat pocket. If somebody's got the drop on me, I'm already dead. That much said, if this
is
my last moment, I'd sure like to see who pulls the trigger.

I turn on the flashlight and train it in the direction of the cough.

Nothing.

Nothing at first. Nothing but trees.

Then.. .yes, there is movement in the shadows against a giant oak. I bring the light closer.

I see a sleeveless jacket with pockets down the front, like something a movie director or archaeologist wears. Then a person comes into focus inside the jacket. It's a black woman—maybe a good looking sixty, maybe a terrible looking thirty-five—whose lined face tells the story of a difficult life. Whatever her age, she looks low-class; mean and hard. She's maybe five-foot-one, and a good fifty pounds overweight. A thick roll wobbles around her middle. With one hand, she supports herself against the tree, and with the other, she adjusts her wig, which has fallen askew.

Before I can notice anything else about her, she falls forward into the dirt.

I wait to see if this is some kind of ruse. If she's going to suddenly rise up with a gun and plug me three times in the chest. No such thing occurs. After a few moments, she moans—long and low. That's when I notice the rivulets of blood running out from underneath her coat.

This woman is no threat. She is a victim.

I hurry to her side and take her by the shoulder. She rolls over to face me, responding to my touch. As she does so, I detect the pair of bullet holes in the center of her lower belly. I kneel at her side, remembering that there is no cell phone service (and, probably, no emergency services to be summoned if there were). There is no hope for her. This will not be the first time I've sat with the dying, but it will definitely be the first time I've done so in a cemetery.

“I'm here,” I say, hugging her close. “The pastor's here. I gotcha.”

“Who are you?” she wheezes.

“This is Pastor Leopold Mack from The Church of Heaven's God in Christ Lord Jesus. I'm the one holding your hand. Can you feel that, child? Do you feel my hand? I'm with you.”

“Oh Pastor,” the strange woman says familiarly, as if we knew one another well. “I've got some sins, Pastor.”

“Do I know you, child?” I ask, still thinking she could be a lapsed parishioner who has slipped my mind.

“No,” she says soberly. “But I got sins on my chest. I got to tell somebody.”

“Who did this to you, child?” I ask, struggling to redirect the conversation. “Who were those people?”

The woman looks away from me, unable to make eye contact. She stares up at the sky, then over at the pile of smoldering zombies.

Sins indeed.

“I knowed it was God sent them to punish me. Them walking dead. When they started up—out the ground—I ran and locked myself in the mower shed. I was screamin' and screa-min'. I stayed there with them horrible things bangin' on the door. They just kept on. Then—after forever, it felt like—I heard people out there shootin' ‘em. I was so happy. I busted on out that shed. Then I seen Shawn Michael...and he shot me in the belly. He shot me like I was a dog. A damn dog! I laid down and pretended I was dead.”

This gives me pause. I know a Shawn Michael from around the neighborhood. He works for an alderman.

“Shawn Michael Recinto?” I ask the dying woman. “Him?”

She nods, still unable to look at me. Tears are running down her cheeks. Her expression says that the confession is still coming. I've sat with people who have skeletons in their closets. They know they need to let them out before they go to be with God. But this woman's face says that she has a whole graveyard.

Literally, it turns out.

“Is this where you work, child?”

She looks at me for a moment—and only a moment—and then looks away.

“I'm the cemetery manager. Been for well-on twenty years.”

“And what happened here?” I ask, cradling her closer to me. She responds to the touch almost like a lover, gripping my arm and holding me tight, thankful for the contact.

“I did bad. I helped them bury they dead here. I took they money for it. Been takin' it for years. I buried the bodies all around the graveyard. I never asked no questions.”

“Who?” I ask, now gripping her back. “Whose money did you take, child?”

For the first time, the dying lady smiles. Then her eyes roll and her tongue begins to hang from her mouth. Death is close. I won't have her for much longer.

“I never knew myself, pastor...until tonight.”

She pauses, drifting off again.

“Who was it, child?” I entreat, shaking her as if to jostle a sleeper awake. “You need to tell me.”

“All of them,” she says quietly. “Pastor...it was
all
of them” Then she is gone.

I say a prayer for the cemetery manager—a quick one, lest she decide to reanimate and come after me—and hurriedly make for the front gates. They appear to be ajar. At least I'm not trapped inside with these bodies. A small blessing, but I'll take all I can get tonight.

I pass the pile of burned zombies on my way out. It's like something out of a Holocaust documentary. The stuff of nightmares.

Despite the gruesomeness surrounding me, I feel strangely invigorated. I am, so far, still alive. And I think I have my first clue about what the Hell is going on. The cemetery manager wasn't able to tell me much, but it's enough to get me started. Someone brought her bodies to bury—illegally and secretly— no questions asked. Who was it? “All of them.” Whatever that means. She also told me who shot her. She named a name. And it chills my bones.

Shawn Michael Recinto.

He works for Alderman Marja Mogk, whose ward technically contains this graveyard. He's her assistant, her #1 guy. I've met him at community functions all around the south side. He's a memorable person, to say the least. A tall, smiling man. Physically huge. Played one season as a backup wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys after college. Didn't manage his money well. Ended up back in Chicago looking for a job. Found one with Marja.

Lots of aldermen like to surround themselves with guys like Shawn Michael, especially aldermen who are physically small or female. Drivers. Assistants. Chiefs of staff. Call them whatever you want. They're tough guys on the payroll who do whatever the alderman says. A guy like Recinto is not
technically
hired muscle, but if anybody ever wanted to start some shit, there's no question he'd be able to handle it. (In my darker moments, I have also wondered if Marja sleeps with Shawn Michael. I doubt I am the only one who ponders this.)

Anyhow, what in the name of the Lord is Shawn Michael doing executing a graveyard caretaker? What is he doing with a bunch of people with guns? Why is he piling up zombies and setting them on fire?

I pass through the cemetery's iron gates.

The streets outside are dead. The houses quiet and dark. (I'm guessing anybody who looked out a window and saw what was happening in the cemetery has drawn the shades, hidden under the bed, and prayed not to be discovered.) The streetlights above me blink intermittently. Sirens wail in the distance—not police sirens. Other sirens. Air raid.

I have no food, no car, and no gun. But I am damn straight about to get some answers.

You've been bad, Chicago. I don't know
exactly
what you did...yet. But I know it was bad...really, really bad. Forget the bribes and backscratching and giving your relatives jobs. This is a whole new level of bad. Pastor Mack is coming to hold you accountable. Somebody, somewhere, is about to get the whoopin' of their lives.

And it looks like I might have to be the one to deliver it.

After we have run and then walked for what seems like forever, we stop to rest in front of a looted convenience store. The back door has been pried open with a crowbar, and there is a pallet of neon green energy drinks sitting outside in the snow. We look at one another and wordlessly head for the pallet. Ben and I each drink two of them, relaxing against the store wall to catch our breath.

Between gasps of air and gulps of colored sugar-water, Ben starts to pick my brain.

“Did you know that shooter?” he gasps. “How did he have that letter from your dad?”

“No, and I don't know. Do you think Mack's okay? Did he get shot when he fell over the wall?”

“I couldn't tell. He might have been hit in the back or he might have jumped into the graveyard on his own. It all happened so fast.”

“Who the fuck
were
those people? What were they doing in there?”

“I described everything as well as I could. You know as much as I do.”

“Well.they were inside my dad's house earlier tonight. We know
that
for sure.”

“Huh?” says Ben, a look of consternation settling over his face.

“This note from my dad.he left it for me inside his house. I was supposed to find it. It says he's taking my mother and sister to our aunt's place in Hyde Park. Except.for some reason.he doesn't say that exactly. He's vague and uses code.”

If I were being more forthcoming with Ben, I would tell him that it is unlike my brash, commanding father to communicate in subtle, high-context language. And the fact that he's done so scares me deeply.

I don't want to look at it again, yet I force myself to bring the note out of my pocket and read it to Ben in English.

“Dear Maria,

Your mother and sister are with me and safe. We are heading to the place where your mother and I had our first date. Meet us as soon as you can. My cell phone is broken. Don't talk to anybody from the city, or any other aldermen. Come right away.”

I put the note back in my pocket.

“My mother and father had their first date in my aunt's kitchen,” I explain. “It's a famous family story. He was supposed to take her to the movies, but they got snowed in by a big blizzard, so instead my aunt cooked them dinner, and they watched TV. My father's referring to it so that anyone outside of the family who reads this note won't know where he means. But why? Why would he do that? It's like he
expected
his house to get broken into, right?”

Ben opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. His eyebrows and eyes dance back and forth. He's asking himself if he's heard me right.

He has.

“Yes,” I tell him, rolling my eyes. “The note says
other
aldermen.”

“Your dad is?”

“Frankie Munoz. Alderman for the Fifty-First Ward. Farrell Park”

Ben looks at me with an expression that neatly comports the entirety of “And when
the fuck
were you going to tell me
that?”

“You have different last names. When I met you, you said your last name was Ramirez.”

“I go by my mother's name.”

“Oh,” Ben says cautiously. “Any reason for that?”

“Yeah. I—what's it called again? Oh yeah—
hate
him. I
hate
my dad. That's the reason.”

Ben furrows his brow.

“You hate your dad. You hate Pastor Mack. Who do you
like?”
“Other than my mother? Not too many people over thirty.” I watch Ben swallow hard.

“Does your dad have a lot of enemies? I mean, more than a typical alderman? Is there anybody who'd use a zombie outbreak as an excuse to break into his house?”

I shake my head. Not to indicate no, but because I don't like to think about this. My father's always been such a shit. Sometimes I fear that—as bad as he was when he lived with us—my mother and I only saw a small swath of his crimes.

“I don't know,” I answer honestly. “But probably yes, he does.”

“What interests me,” Ben says, clearly trying to be tactful, “is that the guy who had the note on him was part of the cemetery extermination group. They were the same group.”

“That seems pretty clear, but I don't know how they're connected. Maybe zombies breaking out are a chance to kill everybody you don't like all at once—human and zombie both.”

“You know, come to think of it, I've met your dad a couple of times at city events where I was reporting.” “And what did you think?” Ben shrugs.

“I never really formed an opinion. The paper I work for covers business, and there's not a lot in his ward. Maybe a new dry cleaner opens up or a bank opens a new branch; that's about it. But I know he's the last Latino alderman on the south side. You've got this little pocket of Latino residents here in Farrell Park. They barely have a majority. Maybe Latinos were fifty-five percent as of the last census. And they're about to release a new one and redraw the ward maps like they do every ten years. He's a transplant, right? Most aldermen grow up in the neighborhood they represent. But your dad didn't?”

“No, he didn't. We grew up in Logan Square. My dad ran the Boys and Girls Club there. When he left my mom about ten years ago, he and his new lady moved down here. He got a similar job at a community center. Pretty soon he was running it. Then he ran for alderman. I couldn't believe it when he got elected. I wanted to fucking die. How can the universe reward someone for being a pushy, bullying asshole?”