Tarah and I drove a few miles before I saw a sign pointing to a medical center and I turned the Chicken Pit van at the next intersection to head toward it. “Would you look at that…you’d have settled for a gas station bandage dispenser and your friend and protector is driving you right up to a full-fledged facility for all of your medical needs.”
“I’m already hurt…don’t make me sick, too, please.”
I stopped the van at the entrance to the sprawling parking lot, dotted with abandoned vehicles. We then followed another sign up an incline to the emergency drop-off, where several vehicles were jammed on the ramp, nearly blocking the entrance to the Emergency Room doors themselves.
“I want to tell you right now that we’re not going to be alone in there,” Tarah said, peeking out from the floor of the van.
Learning a lesson from Roger’s Grocery, I parked where we could make a quick getaway, facing nose-outward at the edge of the jam with a clear line to the parking lot exit.
I opened the rear doors and attempted to help Tarah out of the van, but she waved me off, so I waited until she climbed out and stood up on a shaky leg.
“That’s a good girl,” I said, well out of her reach.
She glared back, then: “Go on ahead and scout it out. I’ll catch up.”
I moved through the line of cars towards the automatic sliding doors, which were propped open by a waist-high waste bin tipped over on its side. I stepped inside and pried a door open for Tarah to limp through, making enough noise anyone nearby could hear, but fighting against the gears of machinery is never quiet.
“There goes the element of surprise,” I said sarcastically.
“Look at us…we’re not surprising anyone. Let’s just find an exam room. Hopefully, there’s one close to where we came in.”
We continued through the waiting room, avoiding toppled chairs and a few bodies, arriving at a ransacked reception desk shaped like half a donut.
I looked at the bodies we passed. Some were revs and some were just dead. “What makes some people turn to revenants and others just die normally?”
Tarah shrugged.
“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“Life isn’t fair…I don’t see why death would be any different.”
Then I heard a high-pitched voice—a child’s—coming from deeper inside the dark hospital.
I felt Tarah’s hand in the middle of my back, giving me a firm push. “Don’t stop. There’s an exam room right over there. We get what we need and leave.”
We continued until I heard the voice again, this time louder, more distinct. “Am I hearing things? There’s a little girl calling for her mother.”
“You’re not hearing things, but I can’t tell what she’s yelling. We already know other people are here. Just keep moving.”
We ignored the girl after we found a mostly intact exam room. Although the cabinets were ransacked thoroughly, we still found what Tarah needed, even down to a stray tube of liquid stitches…as good as gold in our situation.
“I think I can do this right here real quick,” said Tarah. “Then we can go.” She looked at the open drawers and cabinets that had spilled their contents. Wish I could find some painkillers, but I’m sure they’re locked up or long gone by now.”
“You and me both.”
Then the voice again…a clear “Mommy” this time.
I paused my dig through some drawers while Tarah worked on her wound. “Hello?”
Tarah whispered harshly, “Neil, what are you doing?”
“She sounds like she’s right around the corner. I’ll just check it out while you finish doing your thing.”
“Neil, you’re falling for the oldest trick in the book. Don’t get separated. Just give me a couple of minutes and we can get the fuck out of here.”
“And if it’s a kid sitting on the floor next to her dead mom?”
“Look, empathy is great, but things are different now…you need to understand that. People aren’t safe in public anymore. And we’re not heroes. If it doesn’t concern us, we shouldn’t dig our noses into any situations we can’t get out of. Does that make sense?”
“I’m just gonna go peek through those double doors. I’ll be right down the hall.”
“Fine, but I won’t come to save you.”
“Of course you will. Who else are you gonna roll your eyes at?”
She rolled her eyes before returning her attention to her leg. She probably didn’t even know she was doing it.
I walked down the hall towards the double doors that led to exam rooms and admin offices. It was impossible to stay silent in the quiet hallway. My shoes squeaked on the waxed tile floor, my breath bounced off the walls like gasps.
“Mommy, is that you?” asked the little girl, sounding as close as the other side of the double doors.
“Hello?” I said. “Everything OK?”
I reached the doors and found paper from an exam table taped to the narrow windows from the other side, blocking my sight further. I opened the door a crack and peered down the corridor. Not seeing anything but an open hallway lined with doors, I stuck my head through and immediately felt the hard press of a gun barrel against my temple.
The oldest trick in the book, indeed.
Menacing figures appeared from nearby rooms, pointing all kinds of weapons at me. Shady figures, strung-out and desperate. Bloody clothes and dirty faces with the dead eyes of people who have little to lose.
“Got your hall pass, shithead?” one of them asked, while the others grunt-laughed like demons watching a priest trip on a raised cobblestone.
Hands reached out, grabbing and pulling me through the doors. Hands turned me around to face the man holding the pistol to my head. I’d seen these people before. Not them exactly, but people like them…shooting up behind gas stations, planning petty scams that separated easy marks from their money, hoping the next windfall would be enough to improve their character. Unlike these people, I never stepped into that world. No matter how high the problems piled up like snowdrifts of unpaid bills against the front door, I knew the answer wasn’t in banditry. I’m not saying that I’m a candidate for sainthood but there were practicalities involved. Having to look over my shoulder all the time took a lot of energy and would only add to my anxiety, which would have to be stifled through substances I probably shouldn’t be taking. I also had enough enemies just by what people thought they knew about me. People like to make assumptions about why someone’s circle is so small, while still containing several fuck ups and suspicious malcontents. Why confirm their suspicions by further eroding what little remained of my reputation, like sandstone under blasts from an air hose?
Next to the man holding the gun at my head stood a small woman, too old to be his daughter and much older than her girlish yells had led me to believe.
“That was your voice.”
She responded with a sociopath’s smile, giddy like a kid at the candy aisle. I felt dumb falling for her ruse, while she fed off that shame like a black hole. It felt creepy, like being around a vampire. People like her only thrived when they were giving others a hard time.
“Shut up,” the man said. His aggressive posture suggested he was in charge. He looked me up and down, confusion on his face. “Where’s a guy like you headed?”
“What are you using that tone with me? I’m going downtown.”
The bandits tittered in disbelief at the mere utterance of such sheer stupidity.
“Why the fuck you wanna go there? You know there’s a civil emergency going on, right? I think that’s what they call it…or is it something else now? Something more like ‘Hell’s breaking loose.’”
“I’m looking for my brother. They took him there.”
He leaned back, as though blown back by my bad breath. “Look at yourself, kid. You wouldn’t last two minutes in downtown Bridgeport. And your brother? If he’s still alive, he’s a battery for the bad guy now. A bunny with a battery, like in the commercial. You should save yourself or you’ll be a battery, too.”
“What do you mean…‘battery’?”
“Aleister, the big cheese downtown, started all this. He’s some kind of wizard who launched a zombie soldier army. Some of his crew combed the area for survivors to take back to him.”
“What does he do with the survivors?”
“He takes their energy, or souls…or whatever the fuck they are. But one thing’s for sure: He ain’t using magic to pull rabbits out of a hat. He takes their energy to add to his own.” He rubbed the fingers of his free hand together as though sprinkling dust in the air. “Then he uses them up. That’s how he runs his operation.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Oh, I know how it sounds, man. But I also know how it looks. I know all about it from someone who was there.” He turned his head and raised his voice. “Hector!”
A smaller bandit pushed his way through the grime, stepping within the eyesight of his leader. Trembling like an alcoholic suffering from delirium tremens, he looked as though he’d been dragged behind a horse.
“Go ahead, Hector,” the leader said. “Tell the man what you saw in Bridgeport.”
Hector turned to me, wringing his wrinkled hands. “The revenants rule the city and Aleister rules them. He controls them. He creates them in the Body Shop. It’s his city now, he says. Necropolis, he says. D.O.D. Dead on display…DO NOT ENTER…do not enter.” Then, whispering: “His army grows with every death.”
“You were there?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Lift your shirt, Hector,” the leader ordered. “Show the man.”
Hector did so, revealing a series of white scars branching down his spine like lightning across an open, flesh-colored sky.
“What caused that?” I asked.
“That happens when he takes your power. Batteries.”
“If you were there, how did you get out? And why are you here…with this bunch?”
The leader pushed the gun against my head with more intensity. “Hey, mind your manners, shit-for-brains. You’re our guest here. We’re giving you valuable information about your destination and you respond with nothing but disrespect.”
“You’re right. Sorry about that.”
The bandit leader nodded to Hector. “Tell him how you got out.”
“I escaped,” Hector said.
“How?”
“Like a rat. The path of least resistance. Along edges and corners and through holes and down water pipes to the river, yes…the river. No man is an island but Aleister. He is alone with the dead on his dead island.”
“Why do they take some people and not others?”
Hector shrugged.
“Maybe your brother is special,” the leader said. “Just like your mom probably said.”
I kept trying. “The revenants kidnapped you themselves?”
He shook his head. “No, his crew. Living people. He calls them Acolytes. They tied me to a pole and carried me for miles. Then the pole got heavy so they dragged me for the rest. One of the chosen, they said. Aleister told them he could feel energy from the chosen in the air, like static when you put on a sweater.”
The leader waved Hector off. “Now, that information has to be worth something. What do you have for us in return?” He looked around. “Where’s your stuff?”
“My stuff?”
“Come on, man, you’re not walking around empty-handed. Where’s your gear?”
“Oh.” I nodded toward the hall. “Back in that exam room down the hall.”
“You might be dumb enough to hike downtown, but you can’t be dumb enough to do it alone. Who are you with?”
I paused. “I’m with a group who’s scouting around on behalf of an even larger group and if you keep giving me shit, they’ll come and level this entire building…with you in it.”
He laughed. “Come on, man. Why are you here alone? It can’t be for the drugs because we took ‘em all.” The tribe chuckled around him, proud of their accomplishment.
He glanced down the empty hallway behind us, sneering. “You know what? I don’t think your friends are coming. Maybe because there ain’t no friends at all and you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time…” He moved his dirty face closer to mine, his vile breath breezing across my cheeks like hot pollution. “…at the wrong time with the wrong people.”
More chuckles, encouraging this apocalyptic clown to continue his bad guy routine. Deep down, I didn’t think any of these petty scavengers had the nerve to kill in cold blood. Killers murder while frauds hone their bluster into sharp verbal edges…and I was surrounded by the gale-force winds of blowhards who enabled each other’s hostility.
“Let’s go for a little walk down the hall to get your gear…what do ya say? We’ll be quick and if you cooperate, we might let you leave with your life intact…if not your balls.”
With the gun moving from my skull to digging at the small of my back, they pushed me down the hallway towards the open door of the exam room, where I hoped not to find Tarah. The bandits outnumbered us and Tarah was wounded…not a winning combination.
We moved as a group down the hall, weapons poking the air like extremities from a scruffy entourage. I took a step inside the exam room and a hand came out from around the corner and pulled me away from the mob, grip-to-grip like a wallet between pickpockets.
Tarah then swung into view, trading my position with her own. With every gun in the room now pointing at her, she calmly reached up and revealed a grenade in her palm, a single finger threading through the metal pin ring.
“Don’t make a move!” the leader told his crew. Then, to Tarah: “Whatcha got there, little lady?”
“It’s not much, but it’ll do the job well enough.”
“It’s a fake. Lemme see the bottom”
“You wanna try me?” She looked at individual faces in the group to hammer home her point. “If we’re going out, I’m taking you all with us.”
“Come on, lady. Show me the bottom. Dud grenades have holes in the bottom.”
“How would you know that?”
“Lady, don’t play with me. I’ve had my fill with your brainless boyfriend there.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She turned her head to me, glaring. “He’s a sad sack of shit who doesn’t listen.”
Silence hung in the air while rusty gears turned inside drug-addled minds, tension crushing the long seconds.
Tarah looked back to our failing captors. “We’ll be going now. Neil, grab our stuff.”
The bandit leader took half a step forward and Tarah lifted the grenade hanging on her jacket to show the bottom. It was intact. “Feel better now?”
“Get the fuck out of here,” said the leader with a sneer. “Maybe we’ll see you again sometime.”
“Not if we see you first.”
Their guns still drawn, we grabbed our bags and headed out of the hospital. I kicked the ashtray propping the door to the side and the doors slid shut behind us, hopefully causing a barrier for any pursuers. We reached the van and made they hadn’t followed us back for further drama in a new environment. But although the doors remained closed, I knew we were being watched.
We moved to our respective sides of the van when Tarah gasped after opening the side door, raising her rifle. I peered through the driver’s side window and saw Tarah on the other side, caught flat-footed by Hector, holding a tattered backpack with a missing strap.
With the barrel of Tarah’s rifle against his skull, Hector put an index finger to his lips before climbing through the open door like a kid heading for a car seat, whispering, “No talking. Leave first. Act like I’m not here.”
Tarah stood her ground. “We’re not going anywhere until you explain what you’re doing in our van.”
“I was with them for protection. But I can help you.”
Hector had value in his experience, and he knew it. The question was why he wanted to come with us to “help” when he could have an easier time with the bandits like one happy, toxic family of raiders. Few people would volunteer to plod through hell with strangers unless the alternative was worse. So then it had to be.
Once secured in the van, we sped away from the campus as though being chased. Tarah hadn’t taken her eyes off our new passenger and Hector explained himself with rambling, never really answering.
“You’re pretty ballsy to think we’d let you come with us without a word,” said Tarah.
“I can help you. I know where your person is. Perhaps I saw him.”
“What do you know about the guy responsible for all this? This…Aleister.”
“I never saw him. I ran the first opportunity I had right after I woke up. He had already tested me, as you saw under my shirt. I know the way inside…big factory. Metal and smoke, smoke and metal. Body Shop.”
“The Body Shop?”
“That’s what his people call it. Where he builds the bodies.”
“Like Frankenstein?”
“Yes…no…I don’t know what that is.”
“Why are you putting your ass on the line to go back there?” asked Tarah.
“If I’m going to die, I want it to be with a purpose. Some good people are prisoners there. I don’t want to die because of those thieves at the hospital. Maybe something good will come from it…maybe there will be some pride in death.”
I maintained a high speed even after we were far from the hospital, hurdling towards the downtown unfolding before us as though entering a new dimension, a place where space and time lost adhesive around the edges, some terrestrial wormhole, expanding and contracting with every dying breath of the world as we knew it.
Or maybe I was losing my mind a little, along with the rest of my senses. It seemed appropriate.
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