Zombie, Illinois (39 page)

Maria gives her father a quick version of our story. During the more fantastic moments, the mayor looks around the room doubtfully. Mack and I nod sternly, insisting that no part of our Odyssey is being exaggerated by his daughter.

“You did all that just to get to me?” he says after she finishes.

“Were you even listening?” Maria says. “I came here because my mother and sister are with you, which means they're in danger. Ben and Mack might be curious about what happens to you, but I'm not.”

Maria gestures across the room at us.

“You've got a lot of nerve thinking I did this for
you.
I fucking hate you. You were a virus I had to keep from infecting our family. You were a giant horrible octopus who wanted to pull us down into the depths. I had to spend months and years untangling us from your suckers and tentacles. The balance of my life has been spent thinking of ways I could keep you from hurting the people I actually love. Do you understand that, Dad? Do you?”

Maria crosses her arms and glares.

And for a moment there is no mayor, at least not in here in the room with us. There is no title and no weight of office. There is just a sad, paunchy man in his underwear and a robe. There is only a father who has neglected the things that actually matter, and is beginning to realize it.

The mayor stares up at his daughter—he's taller than her by a foot or so, but she towers over him as he sits on the bed—and waits for this to be over. He has the expression of a powerless man taking a beating. He waits for her to be done. It is what it is.

“Now.” continues Maria. “I'm going to take my mother and my sister, and the three of us are getting out of here. I suppose you should leave too.unless you want to die. Which would probably be what you deserve.”

For whatever reason, I again remember that I'm a reporter and that this pitiful man in front of me may one day be the mayor of a major American city in a proper sense. If Chicago is ever going to be saved—from the zombies—from the violence— from itself
—he
will probably be necessary. I don't know if laws still exist, but if we want them to, then it has to start with the person who is
legally
in charge.

“Mister Mayor,” I say loudly, formally, almost as if I'm hoping to be called on at a press conference. “We need to get

you to safety, sir. We need to keep you protected and find a way to connect you with your constituents when the phone and internet come back on. People are going to be scared, and they're going to need to hear from you. We have to make sure that happens.”

Fuck the Pulitzer, I'm gonna
make
the news.

Clearly, there is a profound hurt within Maria. I may have been too preoccupied to notice it before. But, my God, what this young lady has been through....

And the way her words take down her father—reduce the mayor to a big fat nothing—well, I've never seen anything quite like it.

It's hard to think about what comes next for the mayor. He didn't expect to start his administration hiding in the basement of a church in Austin, but that's the plan. Right now I don't have a better idea. Maybe there have been more inauspicious starts and we just don't know about them. (I can actually think of a few mayors who would have
benefitted
from a forced immersion into their more underserved communities. As I look into the mayor's wan, sad eyes, I consider that this may be just what a man needs to start over. Change and correct himself. Mend his ways. If anything is a ground-clearing, life-altering experience, it's a zombie outbreak. I hope that the mayor is seeing the error of his past actions, and that—if God has so ordained it—he will one day find the strength to rebuild this city.)

As the mayor is pulling on a pair of blue jeans and looking for a shirt, shouts of alarm erupt from the front of the house. There is the sound of scuttling feet across the kitchen floor, which is followed by more raised voices. Then a moment of silence. Then, abruptly, the loud
Ka-chang! Ka-chang!
of powerful guns being discharged. The mayor ducks his head but finishes putting on his pants.

Maria and I look at one another and draw our guns.

“I don't know who—” the mayor begins to say, but he's cut off by an explosion so great I wonder if the front of the house is still there. The foundations seem to shake. The roof creaks above us. It feels like the house just jumped a foot and then resettled.

Maria's cousin comes barreling through the bedroom door, gun in hand. The left side of his face is full of tiny cuts. He is covered in the fine white dust of exploded drywall. The air behind him is swimming with thick gray particles.

“A bunch of guys with guns” he says, spitting the dust from his lips. “Oh, Jesus. They just threw a fucking grenade at the front of the house.”

“Is it the alderman's goon squad?” Ben asks me. “Could they be here already?”

“It has to be,” I say. “Looters wouldn't attack a fortified home.”

“We should have been quicker!” Ben says. “Dammit!”

“Mom and Yuliana are still in the basement!” Maria shouts in alarm.

No sooner are the words out of her mouth than a woman of about fifty and a scared-looking teenager come barreling through the doorway.

“Get in here!” Maria shouts.

The two women run inside the room. For a moment they regard the half-dressed mayor—he smiles at them awkwardly— and then fall on Maria, embracing. They cling to her. Maria seems pleased by this. She stares over at her father and smiles contemptuously.

“My friends!” Franco cries. “They all got exploded out there. Jesus.”

“Where is Pastor Rivers?” I ask seriously. Franco just shakes his head.

“They came up out of nowhere. They looked like they wanted to start some trouble. They pulled out guns, and so we started shooting at them—just warning shots, you know? And then one of them threw a grenade.”

“I heard Shawn Michael Recinto say they wanted to make it look like a random killing—not even leave shell casings,” Maria says from the corner of her mouth. “I guess
that
plan's out the window.”

“We shouldn't be huddled in this room,” I announce. “We need to spread out and defend ourselves. They're out there wondering if that grenade got us all. Pretty soon, they'll get brave and come find out.”

I can hardly believe what's happening. Marja Mogk's troops have caught up to us. I'd thought we had hours on them. Instead, they have almost kept pace. They've found their way through the rubble and barricaded neighborhoods of Chicago, and now they are here to kill the mayor.

But I haven't come this far to give the mayor up without a fight, even if he
is
a corrupt sad sack who takes his damn time putting on his pants. He's bad, no doubt there.but there are worse elements. Worse elements who will take over this city.unless we do something.

Like fight back.

I open the bedroom door. The dust is settling, and the corridor beyond is clear. I gaze up to the front of the house. It hasn't exactly “exploded,” but the damage is severe. The windows have been blasted out of the front kitchen area, and there are softball-sized holes in the wall. My gun at the ready, I creep down the hallway. Through the broken windows, I see a couple of furtive young men outside taking cover behind trees and cars. At least I think they are young and men. Their sexes, ages, and other defining features are almost completely obscured by winterwear.

Around the kitchen, I encounter the remains of Franco's friends. Moments before, we had been drinking coffee and telling our story to these men. Now they are lying in pieces. Near the oven, a bloody torso presents itself like a roast waiting to be cooked. I step over it as respectfully as I can.

I move to the front staircase where I encounter the body of Pastor Rivers. His giant, genial bulk has been blasted against a side pantry. Now he lies like a beached walrus, large and unmoving on the floor, with part of his spine protruding through the back of his turtleneck. The position of his body makes it clear that there is no way he can still be alive.

I lean forward and hazard glances through the broken front windows. Our attackers have assumed defensive positions.

The men—and they
are
men, I now realize—are beginning to spread out. I can see two huddled behind a yellow car directly across the street. They keep looking around to the side of the house though. We are being flanked.

“Maria, Ben,” I call back down the hallway. “South side of the house. Get on it, now!”

My compatriots leave the back bedroom, keeping low. Remembering that Ben is unarmed, I indicate a weapon next to one of Franco's exploded friends. Ignoring the gore that encases it, Ben bravely picks up a bloodslick automatic.

Ben and Maria skulk to a side window near the den. Maria carefully peeks through the blinds. A moment later, she gingerly takes aim.

Ka-pow! Ka-pow!
Maria fires twice.

“Winged him!” she calls.

Moments later I see one of the thugs hobbling back to the front of the yard. He has been shot through the calf and blood is turning one of his white tennis shoes bright red. More of these men could be creeping in from any direction. We need to get a better view.

“Ben” I call. “Take your gun and go upstairs. See what you can see from the windows up there.”

Ben looks warily at the blasted front wall—from where, it feels, we are most vulnerable to another attack—and runs past me up the stairs.

Back on the lawn, I watch the wounded man limp until he is behind the dingy yellow car with the others. A shape moves out from behind it to receive him. It is a large man with his nose padded in gauze and crudely bandaged with medical tape. Shawn Michael Recinto.

He made it after all.

Shawn Michael frowns at his colleague, showing no concern for the wounded man, only annoyance that he has failed at his infiltration. (What had the man hoped to do? Lob in another grenade? Set the side of the house on fire? I suppose both of those might have worked.)

At least we know that this group has a leader. And if the group can be reasoned with—which I'm not sure it can—then he will be the conduit.

I creep to the edge of the shrapnel-riddled front wall. Trying to keep out of the gangsters' line of sight, I crouch down beneath a glassless window.

“Shawn Michael!” I call loudly. “We've got to talk about this, young man.”

For a moment there is silence. Then I hear the sound of a gun being cocked.

“I don't know what you think you're up to...” I call to him. “But one...you can't do it. We won't let you. And two...you don't need to do it.”

At this, I risk a peek around the blasted window frame. There is no visible reaction from the men. Shawn Michael does not show himself. I dip back into cover.

“Fact is, a lot of people already know,” I continue, trying to project so he can hear me. (I have been spoiled, lately, by the microphone system in my pulpit.) “We've spread the word around, son. Told half the city! When this all settles down, everybody's gonna know what Marja Mogk did. Everybody'll know she's a murderer, and murderers can't be mayor, even in Chicago. Unless—that is—you don't do this. If you walk away now, people will say they must have heard wrong. That Pastor Mack is a liar. If Marja were here, she'd tell you to walk away. You know I'm right, son.”

There is a powerful silence. I look over at the remains of Franco's exploded friends, then over at Pastor Rivers, and utter a silent prayer. Please let me reach him. Please, God. No more killing.

Silence.

I wonder if Shawn Michael is formulating a response. Maybe he has elected not to speak with us at all. Maybe he can't even hear me.

I hazard another glance out front. Our attackers remain hidden. I detect movement, however, in the far yard across the street behind Shawn Michael. I rub my eyes and squint. It's...a ragged pair of zombies. The corpses of homeless addicts, it looks like. They parade confidently, like high noon in a Western, hands on their hips. Shawn Michael and his men are bound to notice them soon and to make short work of them. A distraction, but not a threat.

Shawn Michael's voice comes back across the lawn.

“I know you,” he says. “You broke my nose.”

“And I know
you”
I return quickly. “I've seen you with Marja. You're always by her side. Big man on the scene. I'm me; you're you. Who we are is no secret. Neither is what we do. If your men back away now, maybe this was all just a misunderstanding. If you don't, people are gonna know.”

I pray that my words will reach Shawn Michael.

Come on, dammit. See reason.

“Nothing to do about it,” Shawn Michael says. “We both know I got my orders.” I sigh in defeat.

Shawn Michael is right. He has his orders.

That's the problem with Chicago-style politics. It doesn't encourage thinking. You can be somebody who's not paid to think and still rise very high in the ranks. Actually, the less you think, maybe the faster you can count on rising. Shawn Michael is not his own person, really. He's just Marja Mogk's arm. A big, muscled arm that threatens to knock people down whenever they disagree with her.

By telling me he has his orders, he is reminding me that he is an arm. Not a brain. Not a heart. Not any other thinking or feeling apparatus. An arm. There will be no getting through to him.

The young men in South Shore who I counsel about the dangers of gang life are this way. (Hell, I was this way forty-some years ago, when I had a habit to support.) Shawn Michael has turned off the aspect of his brain that registers that other humans also have feelings. You got to turn off that part of your brain to do a crime. To hurt somebody. Otherwise, you won't do it. But some people—once they turn it off—can never turn it back on again. Their switch is broken. Stuck on “off” forever.