Zombie Kong (5 page)

She fell to the ground.

Gunfire.

Shouting.

The monstrous roar.

Blood. It was dripping from her mouth––

Candice was lying facedown with her knees scraped and her elbows throbbing, and suddenly
she
was the one being dragged. The ground skimmed along beneath her. Her arms felt like they might get pulled from their sockets. “I’m okay,” she managed to say. “I’m… uh… I’ve got it.”

Her protests went unacknowledged.

And by the time Candice figured out what was happening, she was on the sidewalk a few feet away from the building Jake was in, wondering how she had gotten herself into such as mess. She was a schoolteacher, not part of The A-Team. Her skills included getting a bunch of eleven-year-old brats to sit down and shut up for a while, not this. A tough day at her job meant you had a fight with one of the other teachers, or a kid got hurt during recess, or one of the parents decided to give the school an unexpected visit because they were concerned with the way things were being run––after all, the school teachers were all idiots––why else would snot-nosed Danny be unable to wrap his head around both prime and composite numbers?

Candice pushed the palms of her hands into her eyes, and when she was done, she found that Dale was beside her. He smelled like rotten meat.

Kong’s attention had been swayed elsewhere.

One of the men assisting her barked out a few words that she didn’t quite catch before running to the far side of the street. He pulled a gun from behind his back and began firing. The other––a red haired man with a spray of blood across his white dress shirt––stayed with Candice, saying, “Are you alright? You hurt?”

“I’m okay,” Candice responded, without considering the question. But in fact, she
was
okay. She had managed to run in and out of the war zone without getting herself killed, and that was practically a full-blown miracle.

“Dale?” she asked.

The red-haired man nodded. Dale was right there, less than three feet away.

“Is he alive?” Candice made her way to her husband. Dale’s eyes were closed, his skin was pale; his body was covered in gore. He looked like he had been dragged up from the bottom of a swamp.

“I don’t know,” the man said.

“Help me pull him inside?” Candice asked.

After looking over his shoulder, the man reluctantly said, “Sure, lady. I’ll pull him inside, but I can’t stay. I’ve got––”

“That’s okay. Just help me get him inside the door. I’ll take it from there.”

The man nodded, glad to be let off the hook.

KIRBY

Long before Kirby set foot on the property, he knew there was nobody home. The driveway leading to the back-split home was empty, interior and exterior lights were off, and the front door was locked. If this wasn’t enough, waiting to be picked up on the steps of the porch was a newspaper rolled into a loose, elastic-tied tube. These were all good signs.

He approached the house, hiding a smile and excited about the near future. His original plan included knocking on the front door and assessing the situation from there, but his new plan, the one falling together uncontested, had him thinking the less time he spent standing in front of the house, the better. Not that people were watching. Aside from a single family that was busy loading luggage into their car halfway down the street, the neighborhood appeared to be empty. The time to make a move was upon him.

The gate door, which led to the backyard, squeaked when he opened it, but not enough to draw attention. He peeked through several windows before trying his luck with the side door, which was locked. No biggie. He had figured it would be.

He listened. He knocked lightly. He listened some more. He knocked again, louder this time.

Nothing.

The house was empty. He was sure.

If the bitch owned a pet, he was guessing cat, not dog.

Acting as if the house was
not
empty, Kirby pulled the key ring from his pocket and passed judgment on every key. Two of them were small, like they belonged to a bicycle lock or a file cabinet. Two had the letters
GM
marked on each side, and were obviously for a car––probably the most expensive car General Motors had ever manufactured. Fucking bitch. One of the keys looked old and rustic, as if it had been built for opening a locker or a trunk. Four of the keys appeared to be house keys.

He tried his luck. After three attempts he was in business, and he stepped inside. The kitchen was clean, as were the living room and the dining room. “Hello?”

Nothing.

A little louder: “Hello?”

Still nothing. He was alone.

“Jesus, disease-us,” he said, licking some of the moisture from his lips. The inside of his mouth was constantly filling with blood and fluid. The open wound he had earned earlier needed medical attention and would soon become infected. His face, in an uncompromising state of throbbing, hurt more than he wanted to admit. Thinking about the incident, he said, “Bitch, you’re in for a world of pain now. A
world
of pain!”

Standing in the front hall, away from the big living room windows, he spotted a family portrait on the wall––mother, son… and
father.
There was a
man
in the equation. Well, wasn’t that special? Things might just get interesting for the family of assholes. Oh yes. Things might get very interesting, indeed.

They won’t be expecting a visitor when they arrive home. They won’t be expecting anything at all, apart from another day of sunshine and happiness, until it’s too late, which will be great… except…

A feeling came over him, one he didn’t much care for.

Just
why
, exactly, did he have such a hard-on for this woman? Precisely, what had the woman done?

First of all,
he scolded himself,
this isn’t a woman––this is a corpse-fucker. A cold hearted corpse-fucker-bitch. There’s a difference. She’s no different from the corpse-fuckers in Athlete’s Delight, and no different from the corpse-fuckers that treated me like shit back in high school. In fact, she might even be worse. Probably
is
worse, so don’t start getting all soft. It’s payback time.

Yes, yes. But what did the ‘corpse-fucker’ do that was so terrible?

She planted that spoon inside my face!

How do you like those tomatoes?

The war of words fell silent for a moment as Kirby stepped into the living room, investigating the knickknacks on the shelves, the conservative-style furniture, the family photographs. He didn’t like what he was seeing. The bitch considered herself the cat’s meow. That much was obvious.

Yes, she attacked me,
he thought, righteously.
She’s the one––

But she did that
after
, right? She attacked
after
she was in danger.

That’s not the point.

But it
is
the point. She didn’t do anything wrong. She defended herself after she was in danger, but
WHY
was she in danger? What brought
that
on?

NO! That’s NOT the point! It’s in the way she looks at me, the way she mocks me, the way she judges me. She thinks she’s so smart, so pretty, so perfect. A bitch like that has a way of making everyone feel a little smaller than they really are. She takes away confidence. She instills anxiety. She causes sadness, depression, and despair. A bitch like that has no place on this earth. The world would be a better place without her. And I want to make the world a better place. It’s the right thing to do!

A rogue thought came, one that had him thinking about leaving both house and woman alone.
This isn’t right,
he thought.
I’m not thinking straight
. But he pushed the objections down into that dark place, that secret place, the place he forced all his unwanted thoughts to live. He wasn’t going to leave the woman…
no, scratch that
… the
bitch
alone. Not after what she did. He was going to make her pay.

Yes, she would pay for the things she did. She would pay all that she owed and then some. He would make sure of it. His compensation would not be denied.

Far off but getting closer, he could hear the sound of Kong’s roar. And somehow it made him feel better.

CANDICE

The red-haired man helped haul Dale inside the building. True to his word, he then left Candice to her own devices. This didn’t upset Candice; she was grateful for the help and understood that he had problems of his own.

Just as the man was stepping outside, Dale coughed and turned on his side, spitting god-knows-what from his mouth.

Candice, who had begun accepting the fact that Dale might already be dead, nearly screamed with delight.

“Dale! Dale!” she said, falling to her knees and pulling him close. “Dale! Oh my God, you’re alive!”

Dale struggled to open his eyes, as if his eyelids had been pasted together with slow-bonding glue. They were red and swollen and layered with muck, shifting this way and that as he tried to make sense of his new surroundings. He was free of the beast, but not free of the nightmare.

“Help,” he said, with short, quick breaths. “Help me.”

“I’m right here, baby.” Candice responded, holding his head in her hands.

“Puffer… I… need my… puffer…”

At first Candice wasn’t sure what Dale was saying. But then she knew, and realized just how frightened he had been.

Dale had severe asthma that he kept under control by inhaling a drug called Fluticasone Propionate on a weekly basis. However, if he found himself in close proximity to certain animals, his asthma would flare up and his lungs would close. If this happened he needed to inhale a drug called Terbutamol. Terbutamol relaxes the muscles in the airway, making breathing easier. At one time, Dale had carried his Terbutamol inhaler everywhere. Then he realized that if he used Fluticasone Propionate more consistently, the need for his Terbutamol inhaler became a rarity. The last time he needed the medicine, he had landed in the hospital for two days. That was three years ago.

Candice had almost forgotten about Dale’s last trip to the emergency room and how bad things had become. She had thought she was going to lose him then, and she almost did. Thinking back, she could still see the look of terror claiming his eyes. His lungs were closed. He couldn’t breathe…

“Oh shit,” Candice said. “You’re having a hard time breathing, aren’t you?”

Eyes wide and worried, Dale shook his head. “My puffer… I need… my… puffer…”

For a second, Candice didn’t say anything––she didn’t move. Dale needed to go to the hospital and he needed to go there immediately. He couldn’t breathe. If she wasted too much time, he would soon be dead; of this she had no doubt.

She closed her eyes and blocked out the sounds of the gunfire and the sirens, the screaming and the roars. She blocked out the madness that was playing out on the street and she put herself into a safe little box––a box built for two. Nothing else was important. Just her and Dale. She didn’t have time to waste, but she didn’t have time to make mistakes, either. Dale couldn’t breathe, and the best way to deal with that would be… what… what about Jake?

She had left Jake upstairs.

Dale needed the hospital, but Jake needed his mother.

She had to get Jake.

Eyes opening wide, she said, “Jake’s…” Her voice disappeared for a moment and she needed to clear her throat before it returned. Her husband needed her, but her son did, too. “Jake’s upstairs. Stay right here and I’ll be back in a minute with our son. Then the three of us can make our way to the hospital in no time.”

Dale quickly considered, nodded, and tried to be strong, but the fear never left his face. It was rooted there, and the more his lungs closed, the deeper those roots became. Dying was a real possibility.

Candice stood up. Looking down at her husband, she wasted little time saying, “I love you, Dale. I’ll be right back.” Then she turned away and began running, leaving Dale alone and frightened as his lungs continued squeezing the life out of him. She ran up the stairs, past the fire extinguisher, and along the hall that was in serious need of repair. Slamming on the brakes, she found herself standing in a hallway, wondering which door was the right one. All of the doors were closed now. Why were they closed? Was she on the wrong floor? Maybe. But wasn’t this the right––?

“Damn!”

All at once she saw the note:

Mrs. Wanglund,

My name is Latina Havarti. I live in this apartment. Jake is with me on the first floor––apartment 109. Come right now. We will
not
be there long.

Latina

“Shit!”

Candice read the note a second time, forcing the number 109 to stick in her head. Then she turned around and made her way along the hallway to the staircase and down two flights of stairs.

It seemed that time was slipping away.

Jake was in apartment 109. Was that good news or bad? Did it matter? Maybe, maybe not. It probably didn’t change things one way or another, unless…

She spotted 109 and opened the door without knocking. She raced inside and saw Jake talking with one woman while another woman was hanging up the phone.

“Mom!” Jake shouted, looking excited and more than a little relieved.

Candice acknowledged Jake with her eyes, then asked, “Do you guys have an inhaler? My husband has asthma and he needs an inhaler right now!”

A pause.

“Well, do you have one?!”

“I don’t,” Latina said.

Tobi shook her head. “No. Me neither.”

“Shit! You don’t know of anyone in the building that might have one?”

The answer was no.

Candice started to panic. What was she going to do? Dale needed to get to the hospital, but she didn’t have a car. Well… actually, she did, but Kong had destroyed it earlier in the day. This left her with one clear-cut option––