Charlie Huston - My Dead Body

– I have a bomb in my hand.

They look at me.

Hurley shakes his head.

– Tis a cell phone.

I shake my head.

– It’s a bomb. And it’s ringing.

I put Chubby’s phone to my ear.

– Digga. It’s Joe. I just killed Predo. Yeah. And his enforcers were just slaughtered at the Cure house. Yeah. The Secretariat is exposed. Run a fleet of Escalades down there with your rhinos and the whole turf will be yours. Yeah. Kill the fuckers now. Sure. My pleasure. I owe ya for not killing me.

I snap the phone closed.

– See, it’s a bomb. It just blew up Terry’s new balance of power.

Terry points the gun that killed Amanda at me.

– If I didn’t think, I don’t know, that it would be easier for you if I shot you right now, Joe.

He lowers the gun.

– But I think I’d rather, and I believe I’ve earned this over the years, I think I’d rather have you starve to death. Just because it will hurt more.

He shakes his head.

– That’s the kind of emotion you’ve brought me to.

– Yeah, I know the feeling.

He keeps shaking his head.

– And it’s all so, what a waste of, all so useless, the gesture. It’s not like, what Digga, you think Digga won’t see sense? You think?

I think it’s getting pretty hard to think. I think about the only thing I can think about right now is my hunger and how much it hurts. I think the smell of Amanda’s blood is making us all a little feverish in here. But I try not to think about it too much because it’s making me dizzy and I don’t want that. I want to stay in this chair. Stay here for just the few minutes more that it will take for her blood to spoil in her dead veins, for it to become useless to the Vyrus. I want the stab of that temptation gone. Before I lose out to it.

I rub my eye.

– Sorry. I think? Right. Yeah. What I think. Yeah. Well, what I think is Digga declared war as soon as he heard about the hole. So, expedience, that’s not really his gig. That other.

I point at the vial.

– Yeah, sure, you make him believe it is what it is, and yeah, he may dance your steps. But you’ll never get a chance to make that threat.

He shoots Lydia, one round, stomach, it pushes her back two steps, she sits heavy, both hands over the hole, dragging her heels back and forth over the floor.

– Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He looks at me.

– OK, I don’t know, but if we can all agree now that Lydia isn’t going to be stopping me, and that you, controversial turn of phrase coming up here, that you are effectively crippled right now, then I think we can also agree that I can make whatever threats I deem necessary, whatever means to the end, because I don’t see who, unless you mean Ben over there, and, Ben, if you make any move I’ll shoot you and your woman because at this point your collective symbolic value is about zero and I’m not the superstitious type so I don’t, you know, have high hopes that she’s carrying the savior. So, in the absence of I don’t know what, Joe, I don’t see where anyone here is going to complicate this rearrangement of power and social values within our community.

I point.

– Hurley is.

Hurley draws his head back.

– An it’s mad ya are at da end, Joe.

Terry’s lips go thin.

– Your brain is boiling, Joe.

It is. My brain is boiling. I have a fever. I’m not sure I’m sweating anymore. Moisture all used up. Skin feels like ash. Touch me and I’ll flake and float away.

I drink whiskey for lubrication.

– Just that Hurley’s of the old school. Germ warfare, extermination of the species, that’s not his thing.

Hurley hooks his thumbs in his suspenders.

– An of course it ain’t. Now, I’m all fer a war, on an intimate scale, mind, a straightaway settlin’ of differences when diplomacy has failed, but every man has his limit, don’t ya know.

I almost laugh, but my throat’s too dry.

– Funny choice of words. I was just thinking along those lines.

He flips his fingers.

– An what worry o mine is it anyway? None. Terry boy, he sees fit ta shake his saber and bug his eyes at Mister DJ Grave Digga an treaten him a bit wit a fate worse dan death, well, so be it an all. Fer goodness sake.

He snaps his suspenders.

– Tis not like he would do it.

Lydia kicks her heels against the floor.

– Hurley.

She loses the words, coughing, but nods her head up and down.

Hurley waves the nods off.

– An yer just feelin’ sore, Lydia, because ya didn’t have yer way. An I know yer worried ‘bout dem kids in Queens an all, but we’ll take car o dat. Dis expedience Terry is talkin’ about, dat word, dat word means we’ll do it quickly is all. Yer just makin’ tings more complicated dan dey is.

– Terry sold zombies to the Chosen in Brooklyn, Hurley.

He frowns, brows drawing down so low they almost cover his eyes.

– Be careful now, Joe. Terry may want ya ta die slow, but if I lose my temper listenin’ ta foul rumor, I won’t be responsible.

My head, it feels like my scalp is a blister. More whiskey for that.

– So maybe I’m provoking you, Hurl. To make it quick. All the same, I gave Terry the zombie juice years ago. It was in these dentures the Horde kid’s dad made. Crazy, huh? Remember that time you saved me from Predo and his goon? Think hard. All that shambler trouble at the time? Doctor Horde was behind that. Terry used the teeth to make a few shamblers, sold them in Brooklyn. That’s where the new ones came from.

Hurley’s frown deepens, eyes hidden in shadow, a cloud over the man that could only be darker if it was spitting rain and lightning bolts.

– Strivin’ ta confuse me with memories o the distant past is a poor course of action.

– Hurl, move a little away from those guns, would you?

Hurley, standing near the gun racks where he’s been gradually drifting for the last minute, born on a tide of uncertainty toward a comfortable shoreline, stops and looks at Terry, and the gun Terry is pointing at him.

– Aw now, Terry boy.

Terry looks at the gun in his own hand.

– Just until your mind clears, Hurley.

Hurley shakes his head. Shakes it again.

– Aw hell, Terry.

– These are complex issues, Hurl, not one of your, I don’t know, strengths, man.

– Sure, and but.

He gives his head a final snapping shake.

– Aw, now that’s done it but good an shaked everythin’ inta place.

He points a sausage finger.

– Zombies, Terry. Of all da tings in da world.

Terry inhales deep, exhales.

– Take a deep one, just draw a deep one in and let it go, just to get some oxygen flowing, clear the cobwebs there. Shine a light on what you believe.

Hurley draws in a deep breath and lets it go in a rush, and shakes his head.

– Naw, dat didn’t shake da taught loose. It’s in dere good.

He takes a step toward Terry.

– Ya did it, didn’t ya? Supplyin’ dem wit zombies? Ya did it. An I mean ta say, zombies. It just goes ta prove what I been tinkin’ fer some time now. Yer not clear in da head yerself, Terry.

Terry raises his shoulders high, drops them.

– Just flex those muscles and relax, go easy on this, old friend.

Hurley raises his shoulders, drops them.

– Still I feel tense as before.

He stops walking toward Terry and rubs his forehead.

– An I do not feel unsure a’tall. An I know it. Yes, I do.

He takes his hand from his forehead.

– Ya did it, Terry, ya did it an it ain’t just a story Joe is tellin’. Ya did it.

– It’s a complicated world, Hurl, like I’ve always said, and some things you do, they have to be done.

– An don’t I know it, havin’ done so many of dose tings? An don’t I know it? But I say it again, zombies . Shame, shame on ya, Terry Bird. Shame.