Dead Man Running Page 14

  "Another softball," Gloria said. "He won this thing by trotting out his momma."

  Gretel nodded. That was the boy she taught – yes he was mischievous but at the end of the day he got what he wanted and made others feel good about it. As Wiley spoke about 'strict budget discipline' and 'hyper accountability to the American people' Gretel again drifted away. She was with her father again – this time the family was on a camping trip in the Adirondacks – when the confirmation hearing concluded. Her friend roused her as Wiley was getting a standing ovation from the audience and the Senators who, later that day, would vote unanimously for confirmation.

  Eldina Thomas and her granddaughter Tamesha entered the Save-a-Lot on Cromwell Avenue. Granny T didn't have much money left from her paycheck but she had enough to buy a few items that hopefully would feed her and her granddaughter for the rest of the month.

  She found that canned vegetables were on sale and she stocked up on a dozen cans. It was good thing – fresh vegetables were rare at the store and those that were there were very expensive.

  Next the pair examined the offerings in the meats section. Of particular interest for Granny T were those meats that were discounted because they were close to expiration. Sometimes she could find meats half off or better, depending on how close the expiration date was.

  As she reviewed the contents of the refrigerated cases she found the day's pickings to be slim – she lifted up a package of eighty percent fat free ground beef that expired that day and therefore was half priced. She would take it home, quickly form the meat into hamburger patties, and then freeze her creations.

  Tamesha noticed that her grandmother had not selected much. She knew the hamburger meat would not last them the rest of the month – they needed at least three more items and everything else was out of their price range. Her Granny T cruised around the meat section, unsure what to do. This was the only grocery store within walking distance and they had no car and dared not to take groceries on the bus, which would make them a target for robbers or hooligans.

  "Why don't you ring for Mister Bryant?" she asked finally. She knew that her grandmother didn't like Mister Bryant – and the old man didn't seem to like her either – but he sometimes had some discounted meat in the back that perhaps had just been taken out of the bins in order to be thrown away.

  Eldina Thomas sighed – Michael Bryant could be an ass. She had dated the man in her youth and he never forgave her for dumping him in favor of her eventual husband.

  She didn't answer Tamesha but did not object as the child rang the bell for the meat section staff.

  The door to the meat section quickly swung open and out came Michael Bryant. Except for the blood soaked white apron, the man was neatly dressed in well creased black slacks and a white dress shirt and tie. His blue and white Save-A-Lot hat was propped on his precisely trimmed head.

  He smiled as he approached the pair. Tamesha smiled back at the man. Eldina Thomas did not smile. She immediately recognized Michael Bryant for what he had become – a monster. She took a step away from the creature before her.

  She placed her body between it and her granddaughter. Is this my time?

  "Eldina, hello. How are you?" The creature didn't wait for an answer; instead he reached a hand toward Tamesha. "Hi there, Tamesha. It is so good to see you."

  Granny T tucked her granddaughter completely behind her body, muffling the child's "hello" to the beast that had greeted her so warmly.

  "We…we was wondering if you had any day old meats in the back," she managed.

  The thing wearing Michael Bryant's meat skin laughed. "Eldina, for you, I have anything you'd like." He took her hands in his. They enveloped her small hands and felt cold as ice. She looked up at his wide smile and dead eyes and forced a smile in return.

  "You know I'd appreciate anything you can do, Michael." She smiled again as she extracted her hands from his.

  "Of course," he replied. "Hold on one minute."

  Bryant went back through the swinging doors. Eldina Thomas fought every instinct to run out of the Save-A-Lot. Running would bring their attention to her much sooner and possibly put Tamesha in more of harm's way.

  Bryant returned with his impossibly wide smile – full of teeth although Eldina Thomas had personally witnessed Little Rudy Jones knock three of the teeth out of his mouth in the tenth grade. He placed four cuts of meat into their cart. The meats were discounted to ridiculously low prices – including three fifty for a slab of baby back ribs, food she and her daughter could never afford.

  "I don't know how to thank you, Michael."

  Tamesha emerged from behind Granny T and also thanked the man.

  "I really can't thank you enough," Granny T said as she got behind the cart.

  "My pleasure," the zombie said. "Maybe one day you can have me over, let me eat some of that fine meat." He gave Granny T a look that she had not seen from him in nearly thirty years, one she had not seen from any man since her last boyfriend died ten years prior.

  "Maybe so," she replied as she quickly pushed the cart toward the front of the store.

  They paid and soon Tamesha pulled their hand cart loaded with their food while her grandmother walked behind a pace, deep in thought.

  She needed to arm her granddaughter with ways of identifying these creatures. How would she explain to her virginal granddaughter that these things are as sex crazy as a high school boy?

  FIFTEEN

  GEORGETOWN WASHINGTON DC – APRIL 2011

  The realtor, a middle aged white woman with bad skin but a sunny disposition, let Jan Sugerfoot and Ben Wiley into the Georgetown townhouse. Jan bristled at the price – over a million dollars – but Ben told her not to worry about it. That was his stock answer for everything, delivered in a patronizing tone that irritated the hell out of her. "Don't worry about it - it's all taken care of."

  Months into the 'Wiley Way', it bothered her that she was no longer 'inside', that she had no knowledge of the how's and when's of her man's plans. She knew that he had co-opted many wealthy men, men who could supply enough cash to buy a hundred DC townhomes. She knew that tomorrow he would get final Senate confirmation but that news was all over the Web and cable. Everyone knew that.

  She was being pushed aside – the person who made all of this possible was being pushed aside and Jan Sugerfoot would not abide that.

  As another wronged woman famously declared in Jan's favorite movie: "I will not be ignored."

  It also bothered her that all zombies were rumored to be as sex starved as her Ben. In his frequent time away he certainly was taking advantage of all that undead pussy floating around. Wasn't he?

  She planned to confront Wiley as soon as she could get rid of this white heffa showing them this house. The woman was addressing Jan as the three stood in the kitchen. "This is a professionally sized and equipped kitchen. You have two sets of double ovens, a nook for an oversized refrigerator, a butler's pantry and additional food storage facilities adjoining."

  Jan nodded like she cared about all that stuff. Her Ben didn't eat anything other than the unfortunate souls delivered to him every night by his army of followers. She certainly didn't plan to cook anything – Wiley has a staff of undead maids and cooks waiting to satisfy any need she may have.

  Finally they had seen the entire house. The realtor led them back to the foyer.

  "I'll give you two some time to wander around the house on your own. Just be sure to lock the door once you leave."

  "We'll take it," Wiley said.

  A look of shock on the woman's face was quickly replaced by a dim smile composed of tightly spaced teeth. She looked at Jan, then to Wiley and back to Jan.

  "You don't need time to discuss this? It is one point two million dollars."

  Wiley waved her away like some bothersome fly. His hand held a business card. "Give our lawyer a call. He will make all the arrangements." He handed the woman the card.

  Moments later, after shaking hands with the excited woman,
Jan and Wiley stood alone.

  "Ben, we need to talk."

  "Is it about this house? I know we didn't discuss it but I am so anxious to give us a home in Washington."

  "I know you are but there's something else that I want to talk about."

  He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. "There is something I want to discuss first," he said. "As you know, I have been working with our friends in the New York City government and the courts to have my wife declared legally dead."

  Jan nodded. Given the fact that the mayor is one of her husband's 'disciples', it would take far less than the typical five to ten years to get the bitch declared dead.

  "I've heard personally from Mayor O'Donnell. A state judge has declared Eloise Burnham Wiley legally dead. Now I feel free to take this step."

  Jan's breath caught as Wiley got on one knee. He held the largest diamond ring she had ever seen in his left hand. "I want you to be my wife. Will you marry me?"

  Jan felt the tears sprout from her eyes. She nodded her head and cried like a baby as Wiley placed the impressive engagement ring on her finger.

  She kissed him with a passion that she never felt before. Quickly, the kissing led to the shedding of clothes, then the two passionately made love overtop their coats in the foyer of a home that was claimed but not yet theirs.

  Just a moment to explain sex with a zombie. Contrary to popular belief, zombies are able to 'get it up'. Being dead, they have a problem producing sperm so that they don't exactly fill up the condom. But zombies do take pleasure in many things and sex is one of those things. The fact that they also take pleasure in the first bite into a freshly killed human is not really their fault.

  Afterwards they lay on top of their clothes, Jan drenched in sweat, her arms tight around Wiley. "I want to be like you," she said. Wiley looked at her, not understanding.

  "I want you to kill me, bring me back as an undead. I love you and want to be with you forever."

  Wiley smiled, kissed her gently on her face, both cheeks before finding her lips. "I love you too, Jan." He kissed her again. "You must realize that you have a higher purpose. God has placed you here for a reason and you must be patient until that higher purpose is revealed. Can you be patient? Can you trust in Him and me, His servant?"

  Jan didn't fully understand but nodded anyway. She loved this man and would wait for the time when her role is revealed. She was never a Godly person but she would begin to pray that one day, she would die and be reborn to forever be by the side of her husband. She kissed her fiancé deeply, which led to one more round of lovemaking.

  The sun was going down when they finally emerged from the house. As they drove away in the limo, Jan's thoughts turned away from her husband's 'business', toward thoughts of planning her wedding. She had to do it right, as befits the great man she was marrying. That this man was actually dead never crossed her mind.

  Several days later Wiley, Mookie and Mira stood in a laboratory on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania. Wiley's security detail – four 'men' strong – stood outside the room. Also inside were Hamid Hidar and several Penn scientists, all experts in robotics, all converted to zombies to better assist with the project.

  The lead scientist, Joshua Allen, spoke. "Thank you, Secretary Wiley, for coming so soon. I hope you will be pleased with what we have created." Just days into his new role as HUD Secretary, Wiley was very busy but, upon word from his team researching his 'zombie bomb', a means of converting souls in volume, he quickly cleared his calendar.

  A quick ride up Amtrak and a brief taxi trip and he had made it here in less than two hours.

  "It will be very disappointing to have come all this way for nothing," Wiley replied.

  "We believe that we have created effective prototypes that meet all your requirements. You wanted a mobile delivery system that could efficiently kill in volume without harming the exterior of the subjects. The system had to be capable of converting the dead to undead, with medicine, the so called blue liquid, to prevent deterioration of the subject's body and to allow higher functionality."

  Wiley nodded and the man continued. "James," Allen said and one of the scientists ducked into an alcove and returned with three white globes.

  "We developed two delivery systems. There are the globes that you see here and we have a version where multiple globes can be deployed from a drone."

  "Don't you need a command center to control drones?" asked Mira.

  "We have that," answered Allen. "We have co-opted several labs at the university, installed the necessary equipment."

  "Danger of detection?" asked Wiley.

  "Minimal. This is a huge university. With the large grants provided from your network of contributors, the university is happy to stay out of our way. Besides, we have converted my department head and the assistant provost, further protection to steer away any prying eyes."

  "Excellent," said Wiley. "Please proceed."

  "The globes are heat seeking, attenuated to the exact human body temperature. When deployed they will find the target human or humans." Allen took one of the globes from his assistant, brought it closer to Wiley and the others. "We've outfitted the globe with a rotating track that provides locomotion. We've tested it to a maximum speed of forty-five miles per hour, more than fast enough to catch any human being."

  "Vulnerabilities?" asked Wiley.

  Allen handed the globe to Wiley. "It is made entirely out of plastic, in the event we may want to evade metal detectors. It can be easily destroyed but upon destruction, it will deploy its payload of darts. Unless someone targets the device remotely with a firearm or ordinance, anyone close enough to do damage will be killed."

  Wiley handed back the globe. "Dr. Allen, make a note to develop a more hardened version of this device. This is fine for civilians in the US but as we introduce this device to less hospitable countries we will need devices that are more difficult to stop. Please proceed."

  Allen stepped over to a laptop, hit some keys and a PowerPoint began to play. "This illustrates how the device works. Once it closes to within a meter of the target, its exterior will explode to release a shower of darts. The darts will travel up twenty feet, then rain down in a cylindrical formation, tips at a forty-five degree angle. The darts have been treated with both cyanide and the blue liquid. In the event the person somehow blocks the darts, there is a cloud of cyanide released from the device simultaneously with the darts."

  "Is there enough of the blue liquid to be an effective preservative?" Mira asked. She directed the question at her grandfather.

  The elderly man nodded. "I've played with the formulation. I have made it significantly more concentrated so that the amount stored on the dart is sufficient."

  Mira nodded. "Any impact from mixing the cyanide and the blue liquid?" she asked.

  Allen and her father shook their heads. "We've trialed the formula with nearly three dozen individuals thus far. We've maintained contact, observing their level of deterioration. All is normal thus far," the scientist replied.

  Mira looked at Wiley. "I would like more time to elapse before we say that there is no conflict between the two substances," she said.

  "We need to move forward, boss," said Mookie. "This would come in handy with our plans to convert all the HUD managers."

  Wiley thought a moment, turned to Mira. "Track those you have personally converted versus those converted with the zombie bombs. If we see a pattern of deterioration or other abnormalities among those who were bombed, we'll make adjustments. For now, we proceed. Understood?"

  Mira nodded. "I'll get the data from Dr. Allen and begin tracking those he converted in his trials."

  "Very good," said Wiley. He gestured for Dr. Allen to proceed.

  "The cyanide hits the blood stream and kills within fifteen minutes – there is unconsciousness, convulsions and finally death. The body is fundamentally unharmed although the skin will have a lingering scent of almonds."

  "I used to like almonds," sai
d Mookie.

  Allen smiled, continued. "The cyanide interferes with the red cells' abilities to extract oxygen, causing an 'internal asphyxia'. The victim literally suffocates to death as he breathes in oxygen he cannot use."

  Wiley turned to Hamid. "How did you design in the transformative spell?"

  "Your contacts at the FCC were very helpful in that regard. There is a seldom used broadcast band – intended for use during times of national crisis – that we have been loaned for our purposes. I have been recorded saying the spell and that recording is playing on a permanent loop emanating from co-opted broadcast facilities across the country. Each globe, in its core, contains a device tuned specifically to that transmission."

  "The device is a micro satellite receiver," Allen added. "Twenty minutes after the outer shell is breached – allowing sufficient time for the subject to die – the inner core opens and the device activates."

  "It will play the spell, then the brief orientation welcome that you recorded," said Hamid. "The device will loop the recordings continuously or until the now animated corpse turns off or destroys the apparatus."

  "And this works?" Mookie asked. "I thought you magicians have to do your shit 'live and in person'?"

  "It works," Hamid said. "It was Mira's idea on how to overcome that obstacle." He smiled at his granddaughter. "We bewitched the entire country," he said.

  Mira picked up the story. "Again using your FCC converts, we sent out a subliminal message on all known broadcast channels – cell phone, radio, satellite and broadcast. The message was actually a spell, a very simple one. The spell convinces anyone hearing the messages coming from the device that, instead of a recorded voice only, they are seeing my grandfather in person. We had to change their perspective. "

  She nodded at Mookie, who she merely tolerated as one of Wiley's pets. "Mookie is correct, magic needs to be worked live with the subject. The spell fools the brain into thinking that is the case."