The Queen of the Dead (12 page)

A crash upstairs didn’t cause anyone to move with urgency; they were used to Mom’s odd mood swings, in which she would suddenly emerge from the clutches of the sofa and break things in fits of rage.

Hours passed and the riots intensified. Cell phones stopped working because the networks were clogged and because the military (according to Jerry and more than one conspiracy theorist) shut them down. The city was under quarantine. Soldiers manning a barricade on the Ambassador Bridge were gunning people down, only they didn’t look like people. The barricades around the Renaissance Center were falling apart and the Mariott was on fire. An hour later, Detroit had become a no-fly zone. There were rumors the Renaissance Center was completely gone. There were rumors that the riots were a response to something more violent, more horrific.

Jack found the motivation to walk upstairs, while Jerry flipped channels and shouted obscenities and prophecies. The upstairs was a completely different world; he always had this feeling when he was too high to think straight. It was a land of silence and questions, mystery and despair.

She was standing over the sink with the lights off in the house. Sirens outside caused Jack to shiver. What was going on?

Mom turned to him. Thick lines of blood stained her wrists and her sweat pants. Her lips were blue, her eyes glassy. The light coming in through the kitchen window was orange; it should’ve been dark outside.

Sirens crashing through the night. Fireworks going off in the neighborhood. Mom opened her mouth. She slid one foot in front of the other along the hardwood floor. She nearly lost her balance as her feet slipped through dark stains that weren’t there before.

Jack shook the memory loose from his mind. He hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t given it a moment to become real. It was as if he still believed there was a home to go back to, a mother to wake up in the mornings and drive to doctor appointments and pharmacies. To the park where she would sit on the bench while drooling upon her shirt.

***

Hours passed. There were attempts to snatch minutes of rest, but sitting and waiting for something to happen, for answers to appear, or for phones to start working again, was starting to weigh the survivors down. FEMA, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard—where the hell were they?

Jack couldn’t give up hope that his brother was still alive out there. A part of him wondered if it might be better that Jerry was dead. With his mother and brother both dead, he would have to fend for himself. So far, he wasn’t doing a good job of it. His stomach rumbled and his eyelids were heavy, but sleep was unwelcome. In the darkness of dream, his shuttered eyes found only the faces of dead people.

The chattering of voices intensified as rain pounded the hangar. The cowboy slept through the thunderstorm. Fresh terror was sweeping through the hangar, causing more sobbing and lamentations, more pining for lost loved ones and prayers to whichever deity was willing to listen.

Those who still had battery power left in their phones revealed the bittersweet news: they could once again connect to the network.

As the old man snored, shouting brought the hangar to life.

“They shut down the freeways to Detroit…”

“If Detroit was under quarantine, then how did this shit get here?”

“Stay indoors? Stay in your homes? That won’t keep anyone safe!”

“The Mackinac Bridge is on fire. Look at this… the whole bridge…”

“Oh, my God, it’s in Windsor, it’s in Flint…”

“Lansing’s evacuated…”

The sound of the world ending. Each voice more desperate, more hopeless than the last. People standing up, revived from their stupor, sharing videos and gasping, reality muted by the horror of hopelessness; they were imprisoned on an island of blood and fire with no way out.

The guessing games resumed, and Jack played the role of spectator. Eyes flickered to the sleeping cowboy on more than one occasion. They were looking for a martyr or maybe a scapegoat. There would be hell to pay, and Jack wondered if he was willing to protect the man, to save him as he’d been saved.

When the pushing and shoving began, Jack stood and clenched his fists, prepared to fight. They might kill him just for standing near the cowboy.

It was almost as if he stood outside, fire and smoke baking the flesh of shuffling figures that refused to crumple onto the lawn. Faces that couldn’t identify morality or fear, faces that saw nothing and everything, eyes activated by black magic or something cooked up in a lab or maybe delivered unto the Earth from the stars. These people would tear him to pieces without thinking twice.

This is why they should die, but you were too weak to kill them when you had the chance.
Jerry mocked his cowardice.

Screams from somewhere in the hangar caused hundreds of eyes to look over shoulders.

“Where’s the doctor?” A panicked voiced asked. “This man’s been stabbed! He’s hurt, please…”

Minutes passed. An hour. His life was in just as much danger here, as the survivors cannibalized themselves by pointing their fingers and shouting.

When the Eastwood woke up, he stepped into the fray, and several voices hushed as those who’d asserted themselves as the stronger members of their fear-collective still argued.

“What’s the point of hiding in here? The damn military took off! They abandoned this place! What makes you think they’re coming back?”

“We were forced to evacuate!” one of the bloodied soldiers stepped up. “You people—brought those things here with you.”

“It couldn’t be contained,” someone commented. “Nobody could stop it. The phone networks crashed and nobody knew what the hell was going on.”

“It was your job to stop them,” a finger jabbed at the soldier’s armored chest. “We came here because
you
were supposed to protect us. You people have the answers…”

The cowboy interjected, “Might as well stop there. Beat us all to death with guesses. Blame. This is how we eat ourselves. We’re no different than those things.”

“This is the killer talking,” a voice from the crowd announced.

Exhausted mothers peered up at the old man, hoping he would perform a miracle to take away their suffering. The cowboy was one of the good guys, someone who would always cling to hope and strive for it no matter how hard life became. He didn’t seem to be aware that his appearance was odd; he absorbed and experienced all the sorrow and the pain, the fear and the dread.

“Could you kill this woman’s boy?”

The cowboy didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

An uproar ignited. “So you’re playing God now? You decide who lives and dies?”

“Sit the fuck down, man! Don’t you know what’s happenin’ out there? Did you see what we all saw?”

Jack stood next to the cowboy while the debate raged. The old man’s bravado didn’t solve any conflicts that would arise; these predictable arguments had been delayed. Jack feared the worst because he was used to thinking that way. He wanted these people to live. Even an asshole didn’t deserve to be eaten alive. 

A woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and jade-colored eyes grabbed the cowboy’s arm; dark splotches stained her navy blue uniform, and the revolver and handcuffs hanging from the belt were enough to make Jack cringe; cops were the enemy when he was drinking and smoking with Jerry on the road. Her nametag read, D. Keefe.

“We’re seconds away from a shooting gallery,” she said to the cowboy, “you got a plan?”

The cowboy smirked. “A plan for what?”

“You’re the only one with a level head in this shit hole,” she said, her green eyes focusing on Jack. “I think I saw you out there…”

“WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!” someone proclaimed.

The officer glared at Jack. “You got a brother? He in here with you?”

“Uh…”

“LISTEN TO ME! THIS IS HELL ON EARTH! THE ONLY WAY TO STOP THIS IS TO KILL OURSELVES! WE CAN’T WIN. WE CAN’T WIN, BUT I CAN HELP ALL OF YOU…”

The officer had her hand on the revolver. “The plan?” she asked the cowboy.

“What did I say?” the cowboy asked. “Caesar was stabbed in the back by his followers because they wanted his love.”

She wasn’t about to listen to anymore of his vague bullshit; she did what Jack should’ve done earlier. “This isn’t about being in charge, and it’s not about any of this crap that comes out of your mouth. You have the strength and the will to keep some of them alive, and you want to sit back and
watch?
”

“It’s been you against the world since you put that uniform on,” Clint said. “Now you feel it. Go ahead and save them. Go ahead.”

“You think it’s funny,” Officer Keefe spat at the cowboy’s feet. “You’re just as bad as those mutherfuckers out there.”

“He’s one of them, get back! Everyone get back!”

Shoving and screaming ensued. The soldier with the boy on his lap was gone, disappearing into the frantic crowd. The banging on the hangar doors intensified. Jack could feel the pressure of time; should he wait on the cowboy-philosopher?

“We gotta get out,” he said, looking at the tattoo on Officer Keefe’s left wrist, Harley Davidson written in script with an orange rose. This woman was someone who didn’t expect to be fucked with, the kind of woman Jerry would’ve insulted at a bar only to end up sleeping with her that same night.

Before Keefe could respond, people were pushed into them; flailing arms and spittle, the smell of body odor, vomit, and feces, slippery flesh compelled to move before the sight of death itself. Jack nearly lost his balance while a thousand colors flashed through his vision; the clothes of countless people who were running and clambering toward something they didn’t know how to find.

Just as quickly as the cowboy had inspired a few moments of order, chaos and fear swept through the survivors and drove them mad.

Several people were already lying beneath his feet. He did his best not to step on them, but their face was stomped into the ground by everyone else who didn’t care to look. Women cried out for the children they couldn’t find.

Pop pop pop,
a gun fired into the crowd.

It was just like being outside on the tarmac. Once again, he could hear gunfire and screams while he tried to push his way through the sea of humanity. His size was an advantage, but it was tough to keep his balance as the tide pushed back.

He looked down and found a boy huddled against the wall, his hands over his face, knees drawn up to his chest. Jack pushed bodies out of the way to get to him. The boy couldn’t be left behind; there was something inside him that needed to make sure the kid lived. He violently shoved people aside to get to him.

The lights finally winked out, leaving them all in total darkness.

As the doors to the hangar began to open, Jack understood it was much harder to survive than it was to die.

He was beside the stairs leading up toward the refueling plane. He reached out with his hand and grasped the nearest set of fingers. He didn’t give a shit who it was, as long as he could take someone up with him. Maybe others would get the hint and hide in the plane.

Dragging someone behind him, he tripped over the steps, panting on his way up as if he were climbing a mountain. He could smell the rain, along with a rotten smell that swept into the hangar. There was nothing to do but go up, and he dared not look back. If he stopped, he might be dragged back down by the weight of humanity.

The plane’s door was wide open, and he wondered why nobody had decided to hide inside.

A man appeared in the entryway. “Hurry the fuck up! Come on!” he urged Jack, extending his hand to help him through the door.

Jack stumbled headlong into the plane, bracing himself against the opposite wall as he let go of whoever he’d been taking with him. He turned around and watched the door close.

“Keep that door open,” a woman demanded, “we can help more of those people…”

“And then we’ll all be crowded into the plane, and we’ll be stuck in the same damn situation,” the man corrected her.

“Open the door!”

It was the cop, D. Keefe. Jack had unknowingly helped her onto the plane, and her sense of duty hadn’t been extinguished by the traumatic event.

“Over my dead body, bitch,” the man replied, his outline barely distinguishable in the cavernous refueling plane. A faint glow of light from the front cockpit was enough to reveal who’d made it inside.

The other side of the hangar was opening, the hum of the doors accompanying the sound of thunder.

Officer Keefe wasn’t about to back down. Opposing her, the man stood a little bit shorter than Jack, which made him about five-six, with a medium build and a receding hairline. Emblazoned on his shirt was an iconic album cover Jack recognized right away: the cover of Dio’s
Holy Diver
album, with a towering, demon-like creature emerging from behind craggy mountains whipping a chain over its head, a priest wearing glasses and bound in chains staring up at the monstrous creature while attempting to keep himself afloat in a raging sea.

Beside him was a young blonde girl of about ten or eleven, a streak of blue in her nest of thick, wavy hair. An ear bud was tucked into one of her ears while the other dangled from its chord around her neck, an accessory kids wore like jewelry, even though the iPod or whatever she had might not even be turned on.

“I’m not going to stand here and do nothing,” Keefe said.

“Then go back out there,” the man said. “You see this girl? That’s Alexis. My daughter. All I have left. Open that door and you kill her.”

“There’s other kids out there…”

“
I don’t care
,” the man roared. “Don’t you get it yet? Don’t you see what’s going on? Look out through the cockpit. Go on! Take a look.”

Nobody moved. Alexis stared at the newcomers, her eyes flickering to Jack and back to Keefe.

Jack winced when he heard the thumping on the door. He didn’t want that door opened. It was wrong to be selfish, but he’d been wrong about everything in his life.

Let them all rot,
Jerry’s voice taunted him.