Zombies! (Episode 4): The Sick and the Dead (7 page)

As he stood there, trying to sort it all out in his head, he thought that she might be right. He thought that she
had
to be right for herself and her family. His concerns were secondary.

***

"
ABBY?
"

…

"Abby?"

…

"Hey, Abby! What the hell?"

Abby looked up to find Whitaker looking strangely at her. "Hmm?"

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. He was holding a stack of papers and looking very much like he'd just run a marathon. Around her, there were people trying out the equipment all over the gym.
Push Ups
was running a special promotion and, much to her surprise, it had brought in a lot of people. Most of them were just taking advantage of the free trial, but they'd signed up a few over the weekend. It was the owner's way of trying to recover from the disaster that had been the New York evacuation. Membership had lapsed and payments by current members hadn't gone through. He blamed the city but the truth was that he himself had disappeared for two weeks while expecting Abby and Whitaker to pick up the slack. Whitaker had left for a week as well.

So they were busy but no one had been hired to help. There was a trainer, but administratively, she and Whitaker were left to run the show, working until their fingertips bled. Whitaker was actually taking to the job. In fact, he was doing much better than Abby at the moment. Her focus was shot to pieces. Three weeks had gone by since she had been trapped by zombies in the emergency room of
Sisters of Charity
and she still hadn't recovered. And, though that incident was the marker by which she kept track of the trauma, she knew that that particular horror had faded into memory. During the entire ordeal, she could think of nothing but her two year old son, Sammy. He'd awakened that morning with fever and an upset stomach. The minute she had seen Karl the zombie get off of that table, the minute she had realized what he was and how he had become that way, she'd feared that Sammy had been infected with the zombie plague. Even through the fighting and the running, it had been that notion that had worn away at her psyche. Nothing in her life had ever prepared her for the fear of losing her child. She supposed parents all over the world went through it every day. Every day another child was diagnosed with cancer or some other debilitating or fatal ailment. Every day another child suffered the worst indignities of which nature was capable. And every day a parent had to thrust her chin into the air, plant a smile on her face, and stare down her own helplessness. How did they do it, she wondered?

"Here!" Whitaker thrust the papers into her hands and she almost dropped them.

"What are these?"

"Membership forms. I've signed up eight more people this morning."

She looked at the disheveled pile in her hands. "Why are they all messed up?"

"Because I dropped them three times just trying to get through this smelly crowd. Do you think you can do some work today?"

A little bit of her grew angry at Whitaker's insolence, but the rational part of her recognized that he was right. She had to get it together or she was going to lose her job and that was not something she could afford. So she gave Whitaker a wink and set herself to the tasks at hand.

It was ten minutes later, when she was finally in a groove, that the door opened and Anthony Heron walked in. Over the last few weeks, she'd had a fair amount of contact with the detective. He'd asked her to keep an eye out for any signs of other customers being infected. She'd agreed, speaking with him regularly and reporting nothing because, of course, the gym hadn't been very busy. People who are running from the city or barricading themselves in their apartments aren't really making time to go and have a workout. It also hadn't helped that the Department of Health had shut the place down while conducting their investigation.

"Busy today," Heron noted.

She nodded.

"Something on your mind?" he asked just as she was wondering the same thing about him. His tone of voice was different from the usual.

She was just about to answer when she caught a glance of Whitaker out of the corner of her eye. He was discussing something with the trainer but spared the time to flash her a disdainful look. A visit from Heron usually meant a break. They couldn't afford to be shorthanded right now.

"I don't really have time to talk," Abby said, motioning toward Whitaker. Heron looked over and saw the expression on the kid's face. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen him looking so intense. Apparently, in recent weeks, Whitaker had developed a taste for hustle and bustle. He was attacking his job with gusto, almost showing ambition.

Heron nodded, a bit disappointed, and turned to leave.

"Just…" Abby called after him, stopping him in his tracks. She came out from around the counter and moved in close to him. "It's going to sound like nothing. It probably
is
nothing."

"Let's have it."

"One of our customers didn't show up for her regular workout today."

"You're right," he said. "That doesn't sound like much of anything."

She frowned. "You don't know Suzanna. She's a workout nut. I mean obsessive.""

"So? There are any number of reasons why she might not have shown up."

"I know, I know. But she was kind of sniffly on Friday when I saw her and Larry Koplowitz was her workout partner, and I think maybe more."

Heron successfully hid his reaction. Larry Koplowitz had changed his life. He'd been the first zombie, killed on the street by Shawn Rudd. The investigation into Koplowitz's identity had led Heron and Stemmy to his apartment where his zombie daughter had taken a bite out of Stemmy's calf.

"I'll check it out. Do you have an address?"

Rushing back to the computer, Abby punched in the information for Suzanna DeForest and scribbled it onto a sticky note. Tearing it off of the pad, she handed it to Heron. "Will you call me when you know?"

"Sure," he answered. "It'll be later, though."

She smiled, relieved. So relieved, in fact, that she was able to slide easily back into her work when he was gone.

***

LATER
that day, Heron and Culph went to the building where Suzanna DeForest kept an apartment. Though Abby's hunch seemed unlikely, Culph had practically begged to come along. Running simulations is fun for a couple of hours, but a man like Culph needs to see some real action. As they marched through the front doors, Heron was vividly reminded of his last call with Stemmy. The attack of poisonous nostalgia was so strong that he needed to look directly at Culph just to soak in the differences between him and his late partner. Their age. Their attitude. Their look.

"What?" Culph asked him.

"Nothing." It didn't help that Eileen had chosen this particular day to shut him out. Even as that thought flitted through his mind, he realized it wasn't fair. She hadn't chosen the day with an ulterior motive. As they rode the elevator up the seven floors Heron realized and maybe even understood just how hard it must have been for Eileen to have that conversation with him. She and her family were suffering in a way he could not even comprehend and it meant nothing to him. He had been selfish. He wondered what would Alicia say when he told her? Would she be relieved that the Stemmys were completely out of their lives? Relieved like she was when she'd learned of Stemmy's death? Wait. That wasn't fair either.

"Get your head in the game," Culph said, tugging him out of the elevator.

Heron looked at him, blankly, and then offended. "I don't need a babysitter," he snapped.

"Look man, you've been off ever since you picked me up. I don't care if you don't want to talk to me, but if you think we're going to meet a zombie, you'd better snap out of it."

It would have been more than difficult for Heron to admit that Culph was right so he didn't bother. Instead, he marched past him with purpose, striding confidently up to Suzanna's apartment door. He knocked.

There was no answer.

He knocked again.

"Ms. DeForest, are you in there?" he called. "My name is Anthony Heron and I'm a policeman."

Culph rolled his eyes.

Heron knocked again.

Still, there was no answer.

Impatient, Culph reached forward and tried the knob. It turned and the door opened a crack. Even through just that crack, they could smell it. They looked at each other as Culph drew his pistol.

Heron put a hand out. "Go gear up."

"What? That'll take twenty minutes. She lives alone. You said so yourself."

"That doesn't mean she
is
alone. Go get your gear."

"Come on, man. Let me just check…"

"
Hey!
" Culph fell silent. "This isn't a video game or some exciting adventure. Go get your gear and
then
you can check it out."

Culph glowered at him for a moment, then turned and left. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he plowed into the stairwell, the door banging against the wall. Heron reached out to close the door and hesitated. They'd just spent ten seconds shouting at each other and there was no sign of any trouble. To the best of his knowledge, any indication of a living meal should have called the undead from anywhere in the apartment to the door that they had stupidly left open. It was possible,
just possible
, that there was nothing more than a dead body inside and this was something he'd be able to turn over to the homicide team.

Not likely.

Pulling his gun, Heron pushed the door open. The odor was stronger now but the apartment was empty. The shades were drawn so it was dark. He reached around the side of the door frame and found a switch. It lit up a sixty watt entryway bulb. It was more than enough light to show him that the small space was clear. Checking first behind the door, he moved inside.

Culph was going to be pissed.

Inside, he discovered a small apartment, perfect for a single woman. There was a certain amount of taste to the décor but it bespoke of a person whose interests lay elsewhere. Much of what he saw was either minimalist or practical or both.

The entryway led into a short corridor. On the left was an opening that showed a sizeable kitchen. On the right was a small square room that clearly served as the living room. Further back, Heron could see an open door with light coming from it. From his less than ideal perspective, he guessed it was a bathroom. Opposite the bathroom was a closed door that had the look of a closet. At the end of the corridor was a darkened bedroom.

Heart beating in his chest, cancerous lungs trying to keep up with his heavy breathing, Heron moved inside, flipping on lights as he went. He took a glance in the kitchen and a glance in the living room. Both empty upon observation. There weren't many places to hide in the kitchen. There was a small table with 2 chairs and a tablecloth. Though he didn't see any shadows under the covering, he checked it just to be sure.

The kitchen was clear.

Next he checked the living room. To say that there were plenty of places to hide in that room was best classified as an accurate overstatement. Compared to the kitchen, this room was a maze of furniture and draperies. Compared to other places, it was practically bare. Heron cleared the room in less than a minute, satisfied that there was nowhere a human, even a child, could hide.

As he moved down the corridor toward the bathroom, the odor grew stronger. It didn't escape him that the fact that the bathroom light was on was a good indication that he would find
something
in there. And so he did. Splattered across the floor was a Jackson Pollack pattern of dark spots and thin lines. Though the hue of the spots was different in different places, it was definitely blood. The greatest concentration of the blood was on the side of the bathtub itself. It looked as if a great big balloon full of blood had been broken against the it. There was also blood on the toilet and blood in the sink. The color of the blood in the sink was lighter, washed out. Someone had tried to clean his hands but not bothered to rinse out the sink.

There was no body.

All of a sudden, Heron felt very trapped in the apartment. He turned on his heels to cover the door and saw nothing in the lit hallway. He began running over his sweep in his mind. Had he covered all of the possible hiding spots? Did the zombie slip past him while he was investigating the bathroom? Basically, he now realized that there must be a zombie in the apartment and it could be anywhere. It didn't occur to him that a zombie likely wouldn't have just walked past the occupied bathroom, ignoring him completely. Sweating, he poked his head out into the corridor. He looked left, toward the darkened bedroom, and right, back the way he had come. There was no indication that anything was different from before. Down the corridor he could see the open front door.
God Damn!
How stupid was he? If it got by him, it could be outside now. Stupid, stupid,
stupid!

He tensed, ready to rush the open door when he heard something from the bedroom. He froze, his body going numb. Heron had not dealt directly with the undead since his chance encounter at
Sisters of Charity
. His surgery had kept him chained to his house and then to a desk for a long time. Though he'd been on the go for a week, he still hadn't taken any calls. That he was there in that apartment was just the result of the favor he was doing for Abby.