Joe Pitt 5 - My Dead Body (13 page)

Sela is on the balls of her feet, I can see the flutter of pulse under her jaw. Too fast. She’s at zero percent body fat. Her skin is starting to get that stretched look. Everything about her looks stretched to the limit.

--Let her go, Joe.

--Open the door, Phil. Kids, over here.

Phil fiddles with the knob.

--Um, I got this feeling, Uh, like, if I open the door Sela will kill me.

--So stay here, Phil. Be here when Predo comes. Better, Predo doesn’t come, be here when Amanda can’t let enough blood herself to keep Sela alive. Phil, why the fuck do you think you’re still here in the first place?

He hangs his head.

--Maaan. That sucks.

Sela twitches.

--Gonna finally kill Joe Pitt.

--Thought we always got along OK, Sela.

--Till you put a knife at my girl’s throat. Till you found those bleeding children in that hole in Queens and did nothing.

--Oh, that.

Chubby’s daughter has gotten the boy awake. I step from the door to let them past.

--Phil.

--I don’t know, man.

--Just run. Leave the keys. Take the kids and run. She won’t come after you.

--Awww, shiiit!

He yanks the door open and runs, not with the kids, but he does drop the keys.

Exceeding expectations.

Delilah is dawdling.

--And you, sir?

I don’t look from Sela.

--Start downstairs. Don’t stop. Just keep going until they run out.

The boy points at Sela.

--You want help with her? I’m, you know, I’m like you.

--Kid.

Tighten my grip on Amanda.

--Seriously, you’re not.

The girl grabs him and pulls him out the door.

--Come, Benjamin, we must flee.

They’re gone.

Amanda tilts her head a bit, baring her throat further.

--Come on, Joe.

I start backing toward the door.

--Sela, just get him off me, will you, I mean.

She laughs.

--It’s Joe. He won’t hurt me.

Sela takes a step for each of mine.

--Be quiet, baby.

--Just get him off me and go get the girl and the baby.

We’re at the door.

Sela bounces in place.

--Kill you, Joe.

Amanda lifts her chin higher yet.

--Come on, Joe, slit it. Sela, he won’t. He can’t. Just come over here and he’ll push me at you and run. He won’t even use me as a shield. He won’t risk hurting me if you two fight. Just scare him off me, knock him down and, I mean, the baby, Sela.

--Be quiet, babe.

I back us through the door into the hall.

--Pull it closed.

Amanda goes limp.

--No.

Sela steps closer.

--Do not play games with him.

I jerk her upright.

--Amanda.

--Joe, dear.

--I killed your mom. I murdered her.

She stiffens a little.

--That’s a lie.

Sela, getting closer.

--Babe.

I think about Amanda’s mom. Her neck breaking. Just after she kissed me. A long time ago.

--I killed her. And if you want to know why, close the fucking door.

Amanda reaches for the door as I let her go.

Sela moves.

It’s shut. I have the keys, snap a lock, and run.

Amanda grabs me.

--Joe. Tell me.

The door rattles in its frame. Double cylinder locks, take a key to go in or out. Sela will have to find hers to open it. Seconds. More if she loses it and goes feral.

--Joe.

I look at Amanda.

Worm at the middle of the world.

I sheath the blade.

--Girl, you don’t want to know.

I shove her away, vault the banister, hit the next landing down, feel it in my bad knee.

Door being pounded above, Sela screaming. Doors pounded below, howling, increasing floor by floor as Phil and the kids descend.

But all I can hear is her.

--You couldn’t do it, Joe. You couldn’t hurt me. Not really. You couldn’t.

But she’s crying while she says it.

So I know it’s not true.

I can hurt anyone. Experience counts for something.

We’re fucked before we hit the ground floor.

I catch up to Chubby’s kid and her boy. She’s waddling down the stairs, he’s got her arm, helping her. I hit the landing next to them, racket from the door there, whatever’s behind it can smell her blood.

I grab the girl and swing her off the floor and turn to the kid.

--Carry her.

He takes a step back.

--She’s a little heavy right now.

She’s trying to writhe out of my arms.

--No one need carry me.

Door upstairs is hammered. Sela screams.

--She’s going to rip off your legs if she catches you.

I shove the girl into the kid’s arms and drop her and he takes the weight of her before she hits the ground.

--Run.

He takes off, faster now, but not fast enough. I follow to the next landing, one of the empty floors. Quieter upstairs. Sela’s stopped screaming. No smell of blood outside their doors, the good people on the upper floors have settled down.

I hear a jingle of keys at the top.

Because any asshole would know that Amanda has a set of keys. Shit.

When the door on this floor came down they used a catering table as a battering ram. One of the steel legs is on the ground. I pick it up. It’s hollow, the top jagged and bent where it was ripped from the bottom of the table.

I can hear Amanda whispering, jingle of keys, snap of the lock, the bang of the door slamming open and I look up and Sela is over the banister and dropping, flicking her arms, she pushes off the narrow middle of the stairwell, silent now, just the rush of air as she falls at me, little thumps as she controls her plunge, sounds like a giant cat running on a wood floor, headfirst she’s coming, gives a hard shove off the opposite rail just above, changing course, sudden angle onto my landing, heedless, fast, she’ll break me when she hits. The steel table leg will bend around her when I swing it, thin and feeble, but it might knock her off course long enough for me to run another half flight.

Guns. Why am I always losing guns?

She’s in my face.

I jam the jagged end at her, catching the soft flesh above her collarbone, her momentum forcing it deep and she slams into me and we both go down, her blood sprays my face, tastes like acid on my tongue, I can’t reach the blade, she screams and wheels off me, table leg jutting from her shoulder, right arm hanging at her side, something inside severed. I push to the edge of the landing and tumble down, crawl, she’s making wet coughing noises, the end of the leg in her lung. I tumble down the next flight.

--Joe.

Phil and Chubby’s daughter and the boy, standing at the door that opens toward the front of the building.

--Joe! Keys, man!

I stand, bent over goddamn broken ribs, start toward the door under the stairs.

Phil shakes his head.

--Aw shit, no, man. No. This way, man.

I get the keys out.

--Predo will kill us all.

I shake the keys at him.

--And Sela’s not dead.

She screams, there’s movement up there.

Phil grabs the keys.

--Shitshitshit.

He opens the locks.

The kid moves closer, Chubby’s daughter still in his arms.

--I don’t think it’s safe down there.

A sound like rusty chain scraped over a blackboard.

Chubby’s daughter shakes her head.

--There is peril.

I push them both through the door, grab Phil, drag him after, pull the door closed.

--Lock it, Phil.

--What if we want to get out fast?

--Lock the fucking door.

One by one he does the locks, cursing with each one.

--Fucked. Oh, now we’re fucked. Double fucked. Fucked for sure.

Light comes from a half-dead exit lamp over the door. No light down below. Howls. Good news seems to be that whatever lives down here hasn’t killed us already.

Things are looking up.

We go down.

Concrete steps and walls. Phil and the girl keep a hand on the wall as they go down and the light at the top fails their eyes and they become blind. I lead, still able to pick out the shapes of things. Kid is at the rear. No specialist, but he can see.

Hit bottom after a flight, and I can see something dangling from above. See a squat shape in the corner at the base of the stair, smell gasoline. I go over there, feel around, find a primer, pump it, find a handle, pull it. Takes three yanks and the generator kicks to life, feeding power to the work lamp hanging overhead.

--Sir.

I look at the girl.

--I fear we are not safe here.

She’s wearing moccasin boots with a rim of fringe at the top, several lace skirts, a peasant blouse tented over her belly, skinny dreads pulled up on top of her head. No end of bracelets, rings, necklaces and charms. The boy’s got the same boots in black, brown cords tucked into the tops, kind of a pirate shirt, black leather jacket with epaulettes, a load of silver amulets dangling from leather straps around his neck or tied to the jacket, and a thin goatee.

I go to the door under the work lamp.

--You don’t like it down here, go back up.

She rubs her arms.

--It was supposed to be a haven here. Safe from the rising storm.

Another steel door. More locks. And an iron bar braced across it, ends resting in U-joints bolted to the concrete.

Phil raises a finger.

--Joe.

The girl looks at some trash piled near the wall.

--My father spoke so highly of Percy. Our expectations were overmatched by reality. He seemed more a fool than a wise man. And the Hood itself, more a prison than a paradise for people of color. Cure. The very word promised safety. How were we to know?

I think about jamming my fingers in my ears, but keep looking for a way out instead.

There’s no ventilation to speak of. Exhaust from the generator flows into a plastic tube that runs duct-taped to the wall until it reaches a tiny vent above the door up top. A bundle of wires comes in through the same duct, snakes down the wall and into a hole drilled in the concrete wall next to the steel door.

Phil edges closer.

--Joe.

The boy steps up.

--I had the number. It gets passed around. Coalition, Society, people in need can find a number to call to talk to someone at Cure house. I think they ran a help desk when they first started. Or a crisis line. But I had to call a few times before anyone answered. Sela. I told her who we were, what we needed. What Delilah is carrying. She told us to come to the building over there.

He points north.

--On Seventy-second. Cure owns it. Buzz the super and it rings upstairs here and they let you in. Go straight back, Sela was in the alley waiting to bring us into here.

The girl shakes her head.

--That was the first sign that all was not well.

Phil clears his throat.

--Joe.

The boy is nodding.

--Yes. Sela didn’t look very. Healthy. And as soon as we got inside, we could see the situation was not what we were looking for.

The girl points up the stair.

--The Horde woman seemed all but mad. She spoke to comfort us, encouraging us to stay, but I sensed something.

The kid touched his forehead.

--Delilah can see things sometimes. Like she has the sight.

She raises a palm.

--Just what is given to me. And I sensed she had mad designs on the child. Soon, my fears were confirmed. She gave us drink, but it was drugged. We slept.

I’ve got my face close to the door, my nose at the crack.

I can hear that chain-scraping sound. Moaning. Can’t tell how many. Smell Vyrus. Wrong Vyrus. Something wrong. Smell dying. Smell wet concrete and mold and shit.

--Joe.

I look at him.

--What, Phil?

--Joe. We shouldn’t open that door, Joe.

--Why’s that, Phil?

--It’s bad in there.

I look around the space.

--Well, you can stay here and choke on exhaust fumes until Sela gets it together and Amanda opens that door up there for her.

He’s staring at the garbage against the wall.

--She stopped feeding them is all.

I take a closer look at the garbage.

I.V. bags, dry and crusted. No wonder I feel light-headed. Thought it was just the way the girl smells. All that extra blood pumping around inside her.

Phil points up.

--Why Sela is like she is, the blood, what was left, it’s been coming down here, to keep them alive. But Horde stopped.

--Not like it’s a secret her people are starving, Phil.

He shakes his head.

--Uh, no, that’s the thing, I’m not like an expert in the field, but what I’m saying is, on the upstairs floors, those are her people. People who, you know, came here to join, to join Cure and get the, what she promised, get the cure. And yeah, they’re starving too. But this?

He points at the door.

--This is where she keeps, and I’m just the messenger here and I tried not to let you take us down here so don’t be uncool about this, but this is where she keeps her experiments.

He scratches his head.

--In what she call, um, cross-splicing. Which, I don’t know what it means, so don’t ask, but if I were to guess I would say it means like, experiments in playing god. Or something. And what I’m saying is, that these …things … they don’t just, this is the scuttlebutt, they don’t just get into uninfected blood. Sure, yeah, that’s the flavor of choice, but they go any which way.

He points at me.

--If you’re following what I’m saying.

He scratches his head.

--Which is, I’m saying, they drink infected blood too.

The door at the top of the stairs rattles.

The girl points at me.

--Can you not fight?

The kid puts an arm around her shoulders.

--I’ll stand with you, man.

The girl makes a fist.

--And I. She wants our baby. She wants our baby to experiment on. And I will die to save our child.

I sort keys, find the ones that match the brands stamped on the locks.

--No.

She steps back.

I open the first lock.

--She won’t do anything to you or your baby. Not yet.

I open the second lock.

--You’ll be safe.

I fit the key to the last lock.

--Until I get back.

I pick up the iron bar that I took away from the door.

She sticks a finger at me.

--You said you knew a way out.

I heft the bar.

--I was probably wrong.

She steps back.

--We are abandoned.

I could tell her again that I’ll be back, but who the hell am I? What would it mean to her? And I’d probably be wrong anyway.

I get both hands on the bar.

--Open the door, Phil.

--I don’t want to.

--Do it anyway.

He puts his hand on the key.

--Story of my whole life.

He turns the key.

--I don’t wanna do it, but I’m doing it anyway.

He pulls on the door.

--Shit.

It sticks.

--Shit I wish I was high.

He’s not the only one.

They drink infected blood too. Like I don’t have enough to worry about, I got to worry about something trying to go for my neck.

Phil gives the door a good yank and it comes unstuck and something whips out of the darkness and there’s a mist of blood and Phil is gone. So it looks like it really does prefer uninfected blood, and I’m running after, swinging the iron bar, beating on something that has my friend.

Huh. Phil Sax. My friend. You think the craziest shit when things get all fucked up.

I don’t get a look at it.

Not a good one anyway.

It’s brittle is what I know. Fast, but brittle. Every time I bring the iron down, bits of it snap off and clatter to the ground. So I keep hammering, breaking it down, beating a hole in it, trying to ignore the thing sticking up from its shoulder that looks like another head, until I hit it and it snaps off too. Stuff is running down the bar and my bad hand keeps slipping off when I make contact. It’s come away from Phil to rake its claws at me. Gets my thigh, back of my left arm. Lift the bar over my head and bring it down tip first, jamming it into the wound where the head thing was and there’s a sound like when you pull the neck of a balloon and let the air keen out, only loud, and it runs into a wall, bounces off, runs into the wall again, and again, and collapses into a heap stippled with broken spines, looking like one of the slides Amanda showed me.

I’m yelling at the kid to close the door for fuck sake. He starts pushing it closed. I catch a glimpse of Chubby’s daughter throwing up behind him. Their names come back to me: Delilah and Ben.

I hope Sela doesn’t kill them.

Door closes, locks lock.

I keep still.

--Aw shit.

I move forward a step.

--Aw shit, Joe. I think it ate part of my stomach.

Smells like water ahead. Smells like water and waste and wet rusty metal. Smells like sewer grate.

I know where to go.

Phil’s gonna die.

There’s a hole in his side I can stick my hand in. And that’s what I’m doing, trying to shove his shredded shirt into it to slow the blood. Most of his scalp is gone, an ear. His right foot has been twisted around backward. There are pinholes in his cheek. When he talks, little bubbles of blood pop out of them.

He’s gonna die, but there’s still a lot of blood in him.

Enough to do me right.

--Joe.

Light is coming from a blue safety lamp up at the junction that takes you out of this access duct and into the tunnel. The Lexington line. Somewhere close to a platform I think. I can smell people.

It all smells like fresh air.

After the Cure house basement, even the sewer smells like fresh air.

I found the grate not far from the door. Found it when my heel caught in it and I dropped Phil. He started screaming and I thought the rest of whatever was in there would be on us, but they just howled and pounded walls. The one I killed, the only one that had gotten free of its cell. Too dark to know how many more. Ran my hand down the wall, felt at least seven doors, dead bolts, felt some kind of jury-rigged motors hooked to them, wires. Seven doors I could feel, but it’s a big basement.

I got the sewer grate off and pushed Phil through. He got knocked out when he hit his head. Good for him. Got him shouldered, went against the flow of waste. It spills toward bigger and deeper avenues. Felt some dry cold air and scented it back. Had to use the iron bar to open a hole in rotted masonry.

And here we are.

With him dying.

All that blood just spilling out by the second.

--Joe, you can do it.

Him talking nonsense.

--Infect me.

Why would I do such a thing?

--You can save me. And, hey, OK, we’ve had some problems in the past, some times when I’ve been less on the up-and-up than maybe I let on to be, but mostly, mostly you’ve been able to beat a straight answer out of me when you needed one so. Do you know where my pomade is?

He pats around at his hip pocket.

--Had a can. I. My hair feels like it’s messed up. Can you, Joe, you got a mirror or something?

--Hair looks fine.

--Like you know. This, hair like this, it’s a constant maintenance issue. It doesn’t just, you don’t let it be casual or anything. Got to invest in upkeep. Time and effort. And. Joe. Infect me. It’ll take, I know it will. And. Hey, here’s a happy thought, if I’m, aw shit, I got to try not to laugh, but once I’m infected, and I heal, and, think, think of the beatings you can give me then. Huh? Huh? Pretty good, huh?

He giggles.

--Aw, shit, I laughed. Oh, and, Joe, who’s gonna roll you a cigarette? Right? What asshole is gonna line up for that gig? Joe. Bleed a little is all. Just bleed on me a little is all. Come on, saying, I’m just a fucking wound anyway, bleed on me a little. I know it will take.

More of his blood lost, without me drinking it.

His fingers flutter.

--And I know what you’re thinking and OK, I get it, because you already can’t stand me and why have me around even more, but, Joe, it’s what I’ve been after. Saying, why have I Renfielded around so many years if it wasn’t for a shot at this? Know? So, I won’t hold it against you either way, but, Joe, come on. I. I. Man, saying, man, I don’t want to die, not without trying.

I think about Amanda’s slides. I think about what the active Vyral cells do to a person who isn’t Vyral positive. I’ve seen it. There are worse ways to die, I suppose. But it would be a short list.

--Phil.

--Joe. Joe Pitt. My main man, Joe Pitt.

--Phil.

--Come on, Joe.

--If I infect you, I won’t be able to drink your blood.

He blinks.

--Aw shit! Jesus, I’m saying, Jesus, I’m saying, is that what we’ve come to in extremity, Joe? Is that what we, a team we’ve been, is that what it comes to? You don’t want to try and save my life because it will mean you can’t eat my corpse? Is that, is that how, and excuse the term because I know I’m on a limb here, but is that how friends behave?

--Who said we were friends, Phil?

He looks away.

--That hurt, Joe.

I reach into my jacket.

--Phil.

--Don’t even try to apologize.

--Phil.

--I do not want to hear it.

--Sorry about this, Phil.

--What did I just?

The blade comes out and I pull it across my palm and hold my hand over the hole in his stomach and my blood dribbles into the wound.

He looks at me.

--Hey, Joe, hey.

His eyes go side to side.

--Hey, Joe, thanks.

White mucus starts to well at the edges of his eyes. The blood pumping from his wound blackens. A tremor runs through his bones. And I drop the blade and grab his head and yank it hard to the side and pull up and I don’t know for certain, but I think I broke his neck before he felt too much of it. And he lies there dead.

I get up. Pick up the blade. Find my tobacco, but my fingers are too sticky with blood to roll one. Matches are wet anyway. What else I got? I got some keys to the Cure house. Got some car keys. Chubby’s money and phone. Got my wire saw.

I toe Phil’s corpse.

Asshole. I’m an asshole.

An asshole for wasting all that blood for no good reason at all. No reason at all. Just no damn reason at all.

Start walking. I can’t take a train looking like I look. So I start walking down the tunnel. Then I start running.

I don’t know why.

I just do.

• • •

At Sixty-eighth I stop running.

Platform full of people. No dead tunnel to use to cut around. Coated in blood and stuff that you’d have to call ichor. I plant myself against the wall of the tunnel, pressed into the angle of a beam, and wait. Few minutes pass and I feel the first tickle of a breeze. I wait couple seconds and it turns to wind, pushed ahead of a Six local. And then the train, squealing and sparking, clashing past me and into the station, back of the train about fifteen yards away in the light.

I wait till the doors open, wait as people bump each other out of their way getting on and off, wait for the chimes to sound and the doors to close. Wait for a rush of air from the pneumatics and the lurch of the engine pulling. Then I break cover, run, jump onto the stub of platform at the end of the last car, grab a fistful of chain that dangles from the side, and crouch away from the window in the door so any kids staring out at the tunnel disappearing behind them won’t see the blood-covered monster hitching a ride.

Huddled close to the steel, my face turned from the lighted platform, I got no way of knowing if anyone will see me. They do, there’s a good chance they’ll chalk it up at thrill-seeking kids and not bother telling the station master or Port Authority cop. Got no choice either way. No time to do this on foot.

Evie wants me to find Chubby’s kid.

Mission accomplished. But somehow I don’t think I’ll get a break from her if I show up and tell her where I left the girl.

So, more to do.

Always more to do.

At Fifty-ninth I jump off the train as it eases to a stop. I find a service ladder up an air shaft to the yellow line above. Hopping a line can only help if someone saw me on the Six train. Five minutes’ wait gets me an R going downtown. I take another break at Fifty-seventh, jumping tracks to the express side, and hunker down. Seven minutes and a Q rolls in. Expressed past Forty-ninth, and held up at Times Square. I jump off again, waiting deeper in the tunnel this time. Some kids at the end of the platform are throwing snappers up the track. Little bundles of black powder and sawdust wrapped in white tissue, tiny flat cracks when they hit.

The Q jerks forward, I run, coming out of the dark, the kids jump up and down, peppering me with snappers, screaming almost as loud as the things in the basement of the Cure house, pointing as I jump onto the back of the train and grab hold, people all along the platform turning to stare as I roll past and back into the dark at the far end of the station.

They won’t stop between stations, I don’t think. They won’t want to chase some loon through the tunnels. At Thirty-fourth we roll, slowing just slightly to pass through, and I think I see a couple cops at the end of the platform, craning to get a look at the end of the train, but I’ve moved to the roof already. Using my seven fingers and a stub to find a grip in the grooved steel, trying not to skid to the edge and over on the curves. Twenty-third and we roll.

Fourteenth Street next. Big station. Trying to figure if they’ve had time to clear the platform before we pull in. Won’t want to try and deal with a guy riding the open back of a train with people around. Guy that crazy could be any kind of trouble.

I don’t know. And that’s not good enough. So I jump off.

No good way to do it. I just try not to stab myself with my blade as I hit and tumble. And make a point of jumping away from the third rail. Not too bad all in all, but those ribs break one more time. Got a feeling they won’t be knitting again. Not soon, anyway. Not unless I get some more blood.

I get up, go through my pockets to make sure I haven’t lost anything, and something stabs me in the gut and stirs around. I sit, hold my middle, grit my teeth and wait for it to pass.

It does.

I’ve felt it before, the jabs the Vyrus gives you, telling you to kill something and drink it. I just wasn’t expecting it so soon. Just yesterday I took care of the guy who killed the cripple. Should have lasted. Would have lasted if I hadn’t spilled so much of it all over the place. And the healing. Puts a strain on the Vyrus, all that clotting and growing new cells.

I get up and turn around and look back up the tunnel and think about Phil.

Should have never listened to him.

Even dead he’s fucked me again.

I know what I’m doing.

It’s simple.

I’m trying to stay out of the worm’s mouth.

Not forever. The worm always gets you in the end. I’m just trying to stay ahead of its mouth for a little longer. The way you do that is you run up the tail as fast as you can. Real question is how you’ll play it when you come back around and find yourself standing on its neck. Jump again and you’ll be right where you started, mouth about to snap down on you. Stay where you are, and it’ll be there soon enough to do the same.