Bob Fingerman - Pariah

Eddie grabbed the bag of porn and stepped onto the fire escape, slamming the window shut after him, hoping against hope that those zombie gavones were the only ones to breach the building. Still, he wouldn’t be coming back to the old roost. On the roof he checked the stairwell door to confirm its security status. It was sealed shut. Relieved, he slumped back against the warty black tar paper and caught his breath, quaking. So, they got in. That meant the half-assed fortification the Guardsmen had installed was wrecked. Great. He gulped air and punched his chest. Now that he was safe, the fear sluiced over him. Though it had to be ninety degrees he was shivering. Calm the fuck down , he admonished himself. Don’t be a fuckin’ girl. Calm the fuck down .

Even alone he won no prize for compassion.

“I’d forgotten how comforting banality can be,” Alan said as he shut off the little DVD player. He’d been watching back-to-back episodes of Three’s Company . “What a stupid show. Why did you have this in your library?”

“It was Mike’s. He loved John Ritter.”

Alan sat back, feeling a little bad about maligning the show. It was bad, though. Seriously bad. Maybe it had been nostalgic for Mike. A lot of boys watched it, along with Wonder Woman and of course Charlie’s Angels, all because of the jiggle factor. Alan never found women who seemed stupid sexy, though, and Suzanne Somers embodied that to a preternatural degree. Watching her and getting aroused would have carried the psychic baggage of getting a boner from a hot retarded girl.

Alan looked over at Ellen. She was doing a crossword puzzle. The scene seemed oddly peaceful. Comforting. It was hard to reconcile this image of domestic tranquility with the sea of undead meat puppets outside. Ellen had filled in a bit and looked more like her old self, which was to say she looked very attractive. But to what end? Mona’s arrival on the scene was a stay of execution, not a repeal. Okay, there were creature comforts. They had food again, and light at night. Alan was clean shaven and well groomed, so when the time came he’d now leave a good-looking corpse, or at least make an attractive main course. Moments ago he’d felt comforted by a moronic sitcom and now he felt like everything was utterly pointless. Seeing the predictable pandemonium that was the bygone world of Jack Tripper, Chrissy Snow, and Janet Wood just amplified the horror of reality. Alan pressed the eject button and replaced the disk in its case, vowing not to revisit their sunny vale of canned mirth. Enervated, he schlepped to the window to soak up a solid dose of actuality.

“That show was kind of funny,” Ellen said, looking up from the puzzle book.

“It was horrendous,” Alan said.

“I thought you just said it was comforting.”

“Yeah, well I misspoke. Sue me.”

“It’s funny.” When Alan didn’t ask what was, Ellen continued, “There’s a clue in this puzzle, ‘ThighMaster mistress from Three’s Company. ’ Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

“Hilarious.”

“Bad moods can be very contagious, especially in close quarters.”

“You saying you want me to leave?”

“No. Don’t put words in my mouth. I’m saying is there anything I can do to alleviate your funk?” Ellen rose from the table and began to undo her blouse, but Alan turned away.

“Not everything can be solved with sex,” he muttered.

“It used to be.”

“There are a lot of used-to-be ’s. Used to be Manhattan wasn’t a massive graveyard full of corpses too stupid to stay still. Used to be we could go outside and walk around and not worry about being eaten. Used to be…”

“Okay, fine. I get the picture,” Ellen snapped, refastening her buttons. “Look, I really don’t want to get into a thing, okay? Why don’t you go to your apartment and do some drawing or something? Maybe take a walk.” Alan raised an eyebrow, but before he could say something snide Ellen added, “ On the roof. Or the hall. Just go out for a while.”

“I thought this was my apartment now.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” Ellen said, and instantly Alan regretted his snippiness.

“I’m sorry,” he said, but Ellen fanned him off, gesturing toward the front door. “Really, I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.”

On the landing Alan stared at the outside of the closed door. A domestic squabble, he thought. How banal. But not in the least bit comforting . Could Jack maintain his pretense as a preening homosexual, keeping Mr. Roper ever at bay? Could Chrissy wear a top that was even lower cut, but not so low cut the network censors wouldn’t let it air? Could Janet utter some pithy platitude that neatly wrapped up their dilemma with a trite little bow? Could he and Ellen pretend to be a happy couple while all else was unimaginably bleak?

Stay tuned.

Karl sat on his bed in his bare-walled apartment.

Along with all the pinups, gone were the posters of heavy metal demigods. Thou shalt have no other gods before me . Since the arrival of Mona he’d reevaluated his secular values and desires and felt nothing but shame. That he’d intended to attempt to bed her was something he’d have to live with in private. Thank God he hadn’t articulated his impure desires to anyone, least of all her. In the passing weeks he’d born witness to her selflessness. And the way she moved unscathed by the ravenous masses outside.

Karl didn’t believe in the Rapture, but he didn’t not believe in it, either. The husks shuffling around outside weren’t “left behind.” At least that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. But maybe they were. The Bible and Bible prophecy were so open to interpretation. He thought if you didn’t get sucked up to Heaven you were to remain on the hellscape that was Earth and live out the remainder of your days, biding time until you went to hell. Where did those things outside fit into God’s plan? Karl remembered some lines from Corinthians. “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” And “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” Death’s sting and victory were pretty evident to Karl’s eyes.

If Karl remembered right, at the Battle of Armageddon everyone who wasn’t a believer would be slaughtered. Were those the zombies? That’s a whole lot of unbelievers. Maybe those things outside were the husks of the righteous who’d ascended to Heaven, sort of the ultimate in recycling. Their earthly bodies no longer needed, they now were used to punish the remaining infidels-like him and his neighbors. Supposedly, after the Battle of Armageddon, Satan would be defeated and Jesus would set up the Millennial Kingdom in Jerusalem. Karl’s posture slumped. It sounded so gaga, but then again, look out the window. People eating people-or at least things that used to be people eating people.

People. People who eat people,

Are the yuckiest people in the world. …

People used to whine about their bad luck or what a cruddy day they’d had. Sometimes people would try to equate a lousy day at work with the calamities of Job. A mean boss was hardly comparable. Your job sucked, but being Job sucked worse, yet he still loved God . So maybe this was the Tribulation. In which case, Karl hadn’t seen the light until it was too late. He wondered if it was too late. It definitely was for those brainless pods outside, but Karl could still fill his heart with love for God. God was supposed to be merciful, though the physical evidence seemed contradictory to that thesis.