A shadow appeared. From that shadow reached an arm. The hand gripped the corner of the wall inches from the light switch. The fingers were a woman's fingers but cold and grey.
"Mrs. Koplowitz?" Anthony stammered.
Stemmy gave him a look.
As she came into the light, such as it was, they could see that there was no Mrs. Koplowitz in that body. She swayed and stumbled a bit, the eyes glassy. Her face was drawn, the skin hanging off of the skull like a shirt that almost but doesn't quite fit. She didn't seem to see the two detectives and yet had clearly come out in response to their presence. One leg was turned at an odd angle but not broken. It looked as if she didn't quite know how to use it. Aside from the rigor, there wasn't a mark on her. There were no wounds and no blood. Unless zombies had somehow learned to wash up she hadn't eaten anyone. And it didn't seem as if Larry had been responsible for her death.
There was a strangled curse from the super behind them but both detectives were too preoccupied with the thing in front of them to look.
"Shoot it," Anthony whispered despite the fact that he had his gun out and aimed.
"I can't just shoot her," Stemmy whispered back. "Maybe they can help her."
At that, Mrs. Koplowitz seemed to finally notice the detectives, Stemmy in particular. Her head shot up and she lunged. She was clumsy and weak but she was only a few feet from him. Both policemen fired at once. Anthony's shot took her in the shoulder. Stemmy's hit her full in the chest. She lurched backward trying in vain to make good use of her legs. Only the wall, so close to her, kept her from falling to the floor. With her dead hands, she gripped it, the paint scraping clean under her fingernails. It took all three of them a moment to recover, the officers only a bit quicker than the zombie. The shot to the shoulder seemed to have no effect at all. She could still use the arm. From the chest wound oozed an odorous blackened substance. It didn't look like blood and it didn't smell like blood. It had the consistency of old motor oil, the kind you should have changed a year before.
Stemmy uttered a curse and shot her in the head.
This time she dropped and did not rise.
Only now did Anthony turn to look back at the super. He was still standing where they had left him, the look of terror on his face indescribable. He didn't move and didn't utter a sound. The leg of his pants was wet.
When he turned back, holstering his weapon at the same time, Stemmy was prodding the body with a broomstick.
"Be careful!" Anthony hissed.
"'I don't believe it," Stemmy was muttering. "I just don't…"
Stemmy's statement was cut off by his strangled cry as something tugged on the leg of his pants and then bit clean through. He dropped the broomstick as he turned. At his feet, crouched like a panther and gnawing on his calf was a little girl. She may have been eight years old with little blond curls. He knew then that he had missed it. He had seen it and he had missed it. There were pictures all over the apartment. Pictures of Larry and his wife and their daughter.
Anthony came up quickly and kicked the little girl in the head. He didn't even think twice about kicking this child. She literally flew away from Stemmy and collided with the wall. In an instant, Anthony had the broom in his hand and was roughly pushing her back into the hallway. As he followed her, his eyes adjusted to the darkness. There was a bathroom coming up on the left. Quickly switching his grip, he took her full in the middle with the broom itself and swept her deep into the room. She fell and he used the opportunity to grab the door handle and pull it shut. He was already on the phone as he went back to his partner.
Stemmy had made it to the couch. He'd grabbed up a pillow and was using it to staunch the blood flow. All that he could think about was that infection and Shawn Rudd saying She was bit. 'S only a matter of time after that. The leg ached but it wasn't the fiery pain that he expected. He thought he might be going into shock. He saw Anthony with the phone but couldn't hear what he was saying over the rush of blood in his ears. Oddly enough, his powers of observation, those powers that had failed him moments ago, returned in spades. The super was gone, only a small puddle left in his wake. There was another person there, an elderly woman just poking her head in, covering her mouth as she saw what she saw. Anthony screamed at her and his screams were like those in a pool of deep water. But all of that was outside this world. Inside this world was the life of Larry Koplowitz and his family. There was his wedding picture; they looked so happy. Then there was one of he and Mrs. Koplowitz. Her belly was huge, the little girl inside almost ready to come out. Larry looked happy in that picture but the missus looked like she was just ready to give birth already. He remembered Eileen when she'd been that big. It was something the first time. But by the fourth time she didn't even put up the pretense of civility. That was when Stemmy had known she was having their last child. And he'd so wanted a son. But instead he'd had four daughters, four wonderful pearls of nature.
I'm never going to see them again.
He felt the pillow being ripped away and looked up to see Anthony with a frosted plastic bottle. All at once, his partner was pouring the contents of that bottle over his exposed muscle…
…and he screamed!
Somewhere in the corner of his mind, he heard himself mutter, "Does alcohol cure a zombie bite?"
Time must have passed because there were more cops now. They were in uniform and Anthony was giving them orders. To tell the truth, he wasn't just giving them orders. He was shouting at them. He took one small rookie and shoved her hard in the direction he wanted her to go.
Paramedics came in and began to dress the wound. They wore latex gloves as they worked which was an important thing. Maybe the bite wasn't the only way the zombie disease was spread. After all, poor Mrs. Koplowitz hadn't had a mark on her. The paramedics gave him a shot and he knew he'd been sedated. Normally he would have protested but he wasn't given the choice and he was too tired from the screaming to really care. As the blackness swept in, Stemmy was grateful. The sedation would save him from the tears that were finally starting to form in the wells of his eyes.
***
SHAWN'S arraignment hadn't gone well. The public defender had seemed competent but inexperienced. The assistant DA had torn him a new one and the result was that Shawn was held without bail.
At least they gave him his own cell.
When an officer came to escort him out, he was curious. All the officer would say was that he had a visitor. Now Shawn didn't know anything about prison but he was pretty sure they would have told him if it was visiting hours. Cuffing his hands, they led back out the way he came in, then down a long corridor into a part of the building he hadn't seen. There were small rooms here, interrogation rooms. He had a momentary bout of panic as the officer showed him into a bare grey room with a one way glass window. There was a table with a chair at either end. Shawn was ushered to far side of the table and told to sit.
He didn't recognize the detective who came to see him right away. After all, he'd had limited exposure to the two cops who'd questioned him when he'd killed those two zombies. And this guy did not look the way he had on that day. The first thing that Shawn noticed was that his confidence was shot. This detective had been tall and strong. He was good looking, too, with thick arms and powerful legs. Out of the two of them, he was the good cop. He was the one who spoke because the other would probably just piss you off. But now his posture was slumped and his eyes were sunken. There was a brown spot on his white shirt that could have been chili sauce. But it could have also been blood. The jacket of his suit was missing. His tie knot was down.
Why would he come to see me? Shawn wondered until, just a split second later, it came to him.
"Do you remember me?" the detective asked as he took a seat at the plain table between them.
Shawn nodded. "Didn't catch the name, though."
"Heron."
"Right. Where's the other
one, the white guy?"
"Surgery."
"Tough break."
"How did you know?"
Shawn's brow came down over his eyes. "Know what?"
"There are no such things as zombies!"
Shawn shrugged. "There are now." But he thought about the question. He hadn't even questioned it when he'd seen the zombie heading down the street. Maybe it had something to do with his age. Kids are always expecting something they see in the movies to become real. Adults are too colored by their experience. They're less likely to believe what's right in front of their eyes if it doesn't fit into the picture of the world they've grown accustomed to.
"And the woman? Why did you kill the woman?"
Shawn threw his hands in the air. "I told you, man. She was bit. There wasn't…"
Silence fell over the room as the two looked at each other. Detective Heron's face never changed but Shawn felt himself lose a shade of color. What he felt in his gut now stomped on his earlier panic at being led to an interrogation room.
"You seen more? Are you bit?"
The cop lowered his eyes. "My partner."
Shawn breathed a little easier. "Tough break, man."
The cop looked back up. There was fire in his eyes now. "This isn't some god damned movie! And it certainly isn't the end of the world. He's in a hospital right now, in surgery. There are doctors who can help him. And if you'd had a brain in your head, you would have realized that and left that woman alone."
Shawn didn't have anything to say. It was a thought that had occurred to him over and over again in the past twenty four hours. Clearly the zombie apocalypse had not come. Outside the walls of this prison there were people doing their jobs and going to school and meeting for lunch. He thought about Marcus often, a hot fire in his gut.
The detective seemed finished with him then, his point made. He stood up and knocked on the door. When the officer opened it for him to leave he turned back to Shawn and said, "When they ask you why you killed that woman you say you were scared."
Shawn pursed his lips and blew. "I ain't scared of nothin'."
"You say it, Shawn," the detective told him. "You tell them you were scared of the end of the world."
***
IT was getting close to dinner time when Heron got back to the Manhattan hospital where Stemmy had undergone surgery. He was out and had been moved to recovery in an isolation ward. They wouldn't tell him where so, despite three cigarettes on the way over, he started to throw a tantrum. It wasn't a childlike kicking and screaming tantrum, though. It was more of an adult shouting and threatening tantrum. When the people at reception had had enough of him, they made a phone call and asked him to wait.
He gave them exactly two minutes.
Captain Lance Naughton appeared from one of the many exiting hallways and walked right up to Heron. Naughton wasn't the kind of guy that just appeared places. If he was there, the situation was serious. He had his hands up in the air before Heron could say anything and beckoned him away from the room full of people staring at him.
"I hear you went to see Shawn Rudd," Naughton said as they passed radiology.
Heron shivered.
"Yeah," the detective said.
"Did he say anything useful?"
Heron shook his head.
"Listen to me, Anthony. Stemmy's still a little groggy but he's awake. We've got him quarantined because the doctors found a rampant bacterial infection on the wound. It seems to be spreading."
Heron went cold inside. All he could think about was the face on that little girl. Eight years old with cute blond curls and a death mask of a face, all grey skin and bugged out eyes. Was that what was going to happen to Stemmy?
Naughton turned them into a short passageway that ended in a metal door with a keypad and a buzzer. The captain hit the buzzer and waited for the door locks to click. He then pushed his way through and Heron followed.
Behind the door was a staircase that led down into the basement of the hospital. The lighting was good for a stairwell. Heron wasn't sure but he felt like they went down at least three flights. At the end was another door with another keypad/buzzer set up. Naughton repeated the process and led the detective into the isolation area. It was darker in here than outside. The labs were well lit but the passages were dim. Inside the rooms he could see various people at work. Most of them gave the two police officers barely a glance as they passed through. Eventually they reached yet another door. This time it opened with just a push of Naughton's hand. In here were the patient rooms. Though there were large windows through which one could see in, the rooms were sealed tight. Naughton stopped.
"Stemmy's at the end of the hall. Don't go in the room."
Heron nodded.
"And, Anthony, the little girl is in the room next to Stemmy. We need her…it…the way it is."
Heron nodded again.
Naughton turned and left him.
Heron took a deep breath before he started down that passageway. There were rooms on either side of him. He could see through the glass into the enclosure. There was a bed and a nightstand and a TV. There was an adjoining bathroom. A large drawer was set below the viewing window. It was hermetically sealed at both ends and could be used for transferring meals or what not. That way people didn't have to put on biohazard suits all of the time.
The empty rooms passed out of his vision on either side as he marched. He stopped when he got to the little girl's room. He didn't even know her name. Turning his head, he looked inside. He didn't want to but he couldn't help himself. She was curled up on the floor but seemed to sense him. Looking up, he could see the hunger in her eyes. She was still unmarked, though there was dried blood around her mouth. Stemmy's blood. They stared at each other for a few moments, the living and the undead. She didn't move but he could see the minute wriggling of her nose. She was sniffing the air, looking for him. She knew he was there but she couldn't smell him and it confused her.
At that moment, he could no longer think of her as a little girl. He felt no pity for this poor child whose abominable fate had been sealed by some unknown plague. This creature had bitten and infected his good friend. What would happen now?
Heron moved on.
Stemmy was in the bed, his injured leg wrapped up and elevated, an IV tube leading from his left arm to a bag on a stand. The bag was filled with a yellowish liquid. On the other side was a monitor with wires that snaked down and disappeared beneath his gown. Stemmy looked up, also sensing Heron's presence. He looked okay.
"Anthony."
He sounded like crap.
"How're you feeling?" Heron asked before he could stop himself.
With some effort, Stemmy raised himself to a sitting position. He was still groggy from the anesthesia. "Yeah, I'm okay. Leg hurts like hell."
Heron nodded, not knowing what to say.
"They've got someone next door. I heard movement, scratching. Is it…her?"
Heron nodded again.
Stemmy shook his head. "I don't remember much. The last thing I remember is shooting that woman in the head. But I have flashes of the pictures all around the apartment and I know the girl bit me."
Heron said nothing.
Stemmy got out of bed and hobbled forward. He forgot the IV stand and had to go back for it when the tube tugged on the needle in his arm. When the same thing happened with the monitor he yanked it forward by the wires in frustration. He came right up to the glass and pressed his face against it, craning to see into the next room. But, of course, he had no view of the zombie inside.
"That's what's going to happen to me, isn't it?" he asked.
Heron said nothing.
Stemmy nodded to himself. Then he looked up at Heron. There was a lot to say and he wanted to say it all. But none of it came. "You don't let that happen, hear?"
Heron said nothing.
Stemmy nodded again, this time to his pa
rtner.
They stood silently for a while. Finally, Stemmy asked, "Did anyone call Eileen?"
"I don't think so."
"It's getting late. Have you got your phone on you? They took mine."
Heron reached into his pocket and pulled out the cell. Surprisingly, he had a decent signal. He guessed they'd installed relays into the superstructure. Pulling out the drawer, he dropped the phone inside and then pushed it through. Stemmy retrieved it on his end and then started back for the bed.
"I'll give you some privacy," Heron said.
"Thanks."
Heron hesitated a moment. Then he turned and went back out the way he'd come. This time he did not look at the little girl.
***
EILEEN sounded frantic when she answered the phone despite the fact that it wasn't really that late; he'd missed dinner. Stemmy had maneuvered himself back over to the bed so he could rest comfortably while speaking with her. He didn't want her to hear the pain. He didn't want her to hear the fear.
"Eileen," he said.
"Oh, my God. It's you. When I saw Anthony's number I didn't know what to think."
He winced. "Look," he said and could sense her relief was washing away. "I'm not going to be able to come home tonight." Before she could ask, he began to explain. "Anthony and I tracked down the identity of that guy, the zombie guy. He had a wife and a little girl and they were both…well…I was bitten."
"Bitten?" She seemed so confused. "Bitten by what?"
"By the girl. The little girl bit me. She's a zombie."
"Johan, you're not making any sense. What do you mean she's a zombie. You mean she's sick?"
He breathed. "I mean she's dead and she bit me and now I'm locked up in quarantine."
"Quarantine? Are you sick?"
He hesitated, not sure what to tell her. He could feel his body fighting the infection. He could feel it losing.
Eileen's breath became heavy and ragged then. He started to say her name but she cut him off. "Aren't there doctors? Can't they do something?"
"They're trying."
"Trying? That's it? Where are you, Johan?"
"It's not important."
"It damned well is! I need to be with you."
"Eileen!" he shouted, frustrated. "You can't come here. You just…you just can't, okay?"
"What am I supposed to do, then? What do I do now?"