Among the Living (2 page)

My desk is covered in crap. I have printouts from web searches I did months ago. About twice a year, I like to gather the stuff up, flip through it, remember I didn’t mean to save ninety percent of it and then toss it all in the recycle dumpster.

My desk is opposite Erin’s, so she is always at my back. The cubicle walls are low and don’t provide much privacy. She and I have been confidants for a year. Her face is hidden behind a newspaper, so I take the opportunity to study the line of her lean legs. They are an olive tan that seems to be the same color all year. She has some Italian in her, but you wouldn’t know it from her last name, Stafford. God I need to get laid. Since Rita left, I haven’t had the best luck with women, not that I would try anything with Erin. She isn’t really my type. She has her shit together.

“I’ll let you get away with it this time.” She smiles, paper in her lap once again. I wonder how long I have been staring.

“Uh, sorry. Just wondering if they go all the way up,” then I choke on the stupid shit that just came out of my mouth.

She laughs and spins around to stare at her computer screen. Jim wanders over with a fresh cup of coffee under his nose. He milks that thing all day. Drinks it by the gallon. I wonder if he ever sleeps.

“Pierce, what’s new?” Jim’s a good guy. Older than I am, wears flannel shirts like it’s still the nineties. He has a massive gray beard that hangs a good six inches from his chin. His large frame lends him the air of a fishing boat captain. He isn’t really overweight; he’s just a big guy.

“Not much. I just walked in the door and the beast is starting up. I’m finishing up the story on the seven most intimidating dives in Seattle. Are we looking into the gas leak at all?” I’m wondering because we are close to the bottom of the neighborhood. It’s blocked off right now with police vehicles, barricades and tons of yellow tape. There are more police arriving every hour; I even saw a military truck trundle past us last night.

“Like we could get you up there.” He sighs. “The local media is having a field day with that one. They’re crawling all over the place like ants at a picnic. Not that they are being provided with all that much info.”

“Well I’m ready if you need me to go by; maybe I could get some statements from some of the folks who are displaced. Let them have a voice since the cops have been the spokesmen for the whole mess.”

“Let me think about it. Anything else?”

“He was checking out my legs; I think I need to talk to HR,” Erin says while staring at me with a frown, but one I know is all sarcasm. Like I said, we have been confidants for a while.

“Then you’ll probably have to file a complaint against half the guys here. The way you wear those skirts, it’s a wonder we don’t have more people walking into stuff and filing workers comp claims,” Jim says.

Erin jumps to her feet and wraps an arm around Jim’s shoulder.

“Did you just pay me a fucking compliment, boss?”

“As long as HR isn’t involved, I guess I did.” The smile turns into a frown when he realizes what they look like standing together.

“Someone’s in a good mood. You must have scored last night.”

Jim puts on a crooked grin and actually blushes under all that beard. It turns his cheeks ruby red, and for a moment he looks like a serial killer version of Santa Claus.

“You two think you can get some work done today?” He untangles himself from Erin’s arm and goes back to his office. I focus on my computer screen. I need to get that damn story done.

My cell phone buzzes in my pocket. I dig it out and check the display. It’s Rita, but I’m not in the mood to speak to my ex-wife just yet. Not this early on the anniversary of Andy’s death. I send her to voicemail.

The morning passes quickly as I wrap up the piece. I had to visit a dozen or so bars while doing my ‘research,’ which meant I spent a week going home on the bus half drunk. I add some humor and point out which of the places bothers having anything close to mid-shelf, let alone top-shelf liquor. I can’t get my mind off the problems on Queen Anne. A gas leak sounds dangerous, and the media has had a good bit of coverage on it, but the facts are scarce. They are saying a lot about the dangers and why they evacuated, but they aren’t providing any facts.

The phone rings. Rita again. I’d put her call out of my mind and didn’t bother to check my voicemail. I stare at the blinking screen as it reaches the fourth ring. If I wait one more, I won’t have to talk to her at all. I won’t have to deal with the pain and the drunken babbling.

I want to feel sorry for her. After all, we were together for almost nine years. A couple can go through a lot in that span, but the last two broke me. I tried and tried to reconcile our feelings, to make her see that Andy’s death was not her fault even though, in the back of my mind, I curse her sometimes for letting him wander away in the parking lot. I would never say that to her face, and even if I did, I doubt she would see past the bottle of vodka to the depths of my soul, which I used to bare on a consistent basis.

She wasn’t always like that; there was darkness at times but never as bad as it is these days.

“Hi, Rita,” I answer after popping the phone open.

“Hi, Mike. Are you going to stop by this Sunday?”

“I’ll try.” I doubt she’ll remember the invitation.

“I thought I saw Andy at the store the other day. He was all smiles. Then I realized it was a kid that just looked like him. You should have seen his smiling face; it was just like the old days.” Her words are heavy and slurred. They drip with sadness. They tug at my heart and make me wish I had the right words for once in my life, the words to make her see how much I care, but my cynicism would only temper them—make them cold and harsh. So I resort to reason.

“Is that so? Rita, how much have you had to drink today?”

“Not much; it’s still early.” Then she sobs into the receiver. “It’s just hard to wake up sometimes, and even when I am awake, I feel like I’m still asleep. Why did it happen? Why did I take my eyes off him? I should have had him at my side every second. Oh God, why couldn’t I have been a better mom?” She trails off in misery.

I know it is hard to read these words and not feel pity, but the truth is she has much worse days. Days when the guilt and dread weigh her down like an anchor. I’ve seen it and I’ve fled from it. I’ve spent entire nights at her side, seen her take enough uppers to make an elephant smile. I’ve seen her study a gun, and I don’t remember which was colder, the barrel or the look in her eyes.

“Rita, do you need me to come over?”

“I’m okay. I have to go.” And just like that, she hangs up.

“Oh my God, what is she wearing? It’s like a cross between a robe and a big ol’ cow.”

“Don’t know, babe. She looks like a sleepwalker to me.”

Angela lies sprawled between two chairs with her legs poking out of a summer dress so she can soak up the afternoon sun. She studies the shambling figure through reflective sunglasses. A floppy pink hat shades the rest of her perky face even though the line of sunlight cuts her torso neatly in half.

The street has been quiet for a couple of hours. Neighbors used to poke their faces out of similar houses along Cole Avenue. They used to walk by with heads held high, aloof, as if oblivious to the fact that they had renters such as Lester and Angela near their precious property value.

Then those fuckers in trucks showed up, drove around yelling through bullhorns about a gas leak, get out, go somewhere else, get a couple days’ clothes, the Red Cross are standing by, so are hotels—bring your credit card. Screw that was Lester’s opinion. There was no way he was leaving his rented house, his supply of weed and alcohol.

A quick call to his attorney informed him that they couldn’t make him leave. They can’t make you, and don’t you let them fucking try it! He could picture Jerry in his office, walking around with that headset plastered to his ear while he screamed about Lester’s rights. He gets worked up because he is a good lawyer, also because he does coke, which he buys from Lester by the truckfull.

So they stayed inside while the guys passed by in their trucks with their green clothes that provided about as much camouflage as if they were dressed in bright red with ‘Eat At Joe’s’ balloons over their heads.

Some of the people who looked like sleepwalkers had been rounded up. That’s when Les knew something was not right in Dodge. Not fucking right at all. Other men came. These were suited up in puffy white outfits, sealed up like they expected a chemical attack at any moment. They patrolled the streets after the soldiers and rounded up a couple of the people who were acting strange. Les had just hit his bong for the second time when one of the walkers attacked a guy in a space suit. He was crazy, like a rabid dog, thrashing and trying to bite the guy. A soldier jumped out of a truck and shocked the guy with a Taser. He hit the ground like a brick, then flopped around like a fish out of water.

But he was back on his feet in half a dozen heartbeats. Lester started giggling at the guys in white—the guys in green for that matter.

Then they brought out the electric guns. Poor bastard. That laid him out for the count. They wrapped him in some kind of plastic that covered him from chest to toe. Then they put something that looked like a hockey mask on the guy like he was Hannibal Lecter himself.

“There are guys who would pay big money to be tied up like that,” Les chuckled.

“That’s sick, Les.” Angela frowned.

Lester and Angela were lying upstairs, peering through slits in the blinds. This let them watch the action without being seen, or so he hoped. They lay side by side, and she kicked her legs up and down like a hyper kid who’d gotten into the chocolate chip cookies. She was also smiling from the weed, a big dopey grin that must reflect the one on his face. Not even the horror outside could crack their glossy stoned smiles.

The house was locked up tight as a drum. When the soldiers came to pound on the door, he and Angela stayed silent except for the sound of the bong gurgling. They fought down giggles as they played grab ass on the guest bed. The invaders yelled and banged on the back door next, but they didn’t break it down.

A shot rang out crisp and loud, shattering the already fucked-up morning with its retort. This would pretty much set the pace for the next two days of Lester’s life.

He slid closer to the window. Did they just shoot someone? And, sure enough, there was a man down in the street bleeding from a shot to the chest. Then the poor injured bastard struggled to his feet, and one of the soldiers shot him in the head. Just stepped up with his M-16 and put a bullet in the guy’s brainpan like he was going for a walk in the park. Blood and gore exploded outward, splattering the street. The noise was gruesome, like a bowl of spaghetti dropped on the floor, and was somehow louder than the actual gunshot. Suddenly the pot was no barrier to shock.

“... the fuck?” he muttered. He stared as the men moved on, but they left the guy in the street. That was yesterday. No one had returned to claim the body.

Now a couple of the walkers have come to make a social call.

Lester raises the rifle to his shoulder and looks into the scope. The figure leaps into view, red from scalp to sternum with a red stain down her robe. She is not a small girl; her neck seems to merge from her chin into a steady flow of skin that marks the beginning of her chest. The white robe is covered in cow spots and blood. Lester can’t help but think of a slaughterhouse.

“This ain’t a damn gas leak. They’re hiding something from us. All those soldiers here yesterday, driving up and down the road in their Humvees.” He lowers the gun and looks at Angela. “It’s bullshit. They’re covering up whatever made these people sick.” He says people because a few of them have wandered past the house. Some walking, some shambling, and some loping like dogs.

“Deader is missing an ear and part of her left arm,” he says in a cold voice. They’d escaped to the shade outside after sitting in the stifling house all morning, but Angela moved her chairs closer to the edge of the porch to tan her legs.

Lester is in a shitty mood. After the power went out in the middle of the night, he started sweating from the humidity and had a hard time going back to sleep. Finally he split an Ambien in half and washed it down with some lukewarm water. He would have taken a full one, but he didn’t want to be a zombie in the morning. So he woke up to sheets drenched in sweat, body awash in its own perspiration.

Then he tried to make coffee with hot water from the tap, but it tasted like shit. He ran it until it was steaming, too. He even let the grounds sit in the water for a few minutes and then strained the mess through a coffee filter. It tasted like some weak-ass tea. He contemplated boiling water in the fireplace, but that would just heat the house and add to the misery. He dug out an old bottle of caffeine pills instead, and chugged a couple.

“Deader?” Angela asks.

“Heard one of the soldier dudes call them that yesterday when they were in the yard looking around my house. I should sue the bastards for trespassing.”

“They were trying to help, Les. They were trying to evacuate everyone, including us.”

“It’s bullshit, babe. Do you smell a gas leak? I sure as hell don’t. Someone fucked up, and now these people are sick. We saw them execute one like he was a criminal. Do you really want those guys ‘escorting’ us off Queen Anne?” In his contempt, he practically snarls his words.