Anton Strout - Deader Still

I turned back to Mina. I was angry at her for getting me wrapped up in something like this again, for coming back into my life and pulling the comfy rug I had made for myself out from under me. But if I was being honest, I was more upset with myself for ever having associated with someone like her in the first place.

I stormed past her, knocking into her with my shoulder on my way out.

“Hey,” she yelped. A couple of the regulars turned their heads, but I kept on going. Sure, I might have allowed myself to get stuck helping her, but I didn’t have to be pleasant about it.

It was after one when we made our way up to the Museum of Modern Art, but I didn’t speak to Mina. At least the cab ride gave me a chance to cool down a bit. Going into a break-in hotheaded only left room for error, and I was determined not to screw up my one criminal transgression since going straight. Everything about this had to be as discreet as possible, not only because it was wildly insane to go after The Scream itself, but because there was also my future with the Fraternal Order of Goodness to think of. I was pretty sure that helping to steal a painting worth millions didn’t fall under the broad banner of “goodness.” I justified my involvement by telling myself that I was serving a greater good by getting Mina away from everyone I cared about as quickly as I could. Just this one job and she was out of here. And if I could later trick her and turn her over to the authorities in the process . . . well, so be it.

Mina had the cab stop about half a block from the museum entrance, and she got out. She pulled a small plastic shopping bag out of the large duffel and threw it at me. Inside was a fairly realistic, high-quality blond men’s wig and a pair of aviator sunglasses. She stood and crossed to me, pinching my cheeks.

“Who says I don’t take care of my little sunshine?” she said, then pulled out a blond wig of her own. She put on the glasses. I was surprised how well the disguise worked. She helped me with my wig and slid my glasses on. “There. Now Mr. Straight and Narrow can be safe from those pesky cameras.”

Mina’s bravado and odd playfulness were probably all brought on by nerves. It only helped to intensify her already manic disposition. She swiveled around, scooped up her bag, and ran off toward the main entrance of MoMA.

I adjusted my wig in the reflection of one of the panes of glass in the building next to me. I looked ridiculous. I looked like every teen villain in every teen movie from the eighties ever .

My new phone went off in my pocket. I pulled it out. Jane. I walked away from Mina to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Simon. I see they were able to give you the same number.” I hadn’t heard from her since she’d walked out on me at Eccentric Circles earlier, and just the sound of her voice pained me.

“Yeah,” I said. Now was sooo not the time. I stared down the block, watching Mina pace in front of the outer doors to MoMA like a panther. I noticed movement even farther down the block, across from where she stood. Three men on the opposite side of the street were walking toward the museum along Fifty-third Street, stumbling in and out of little pools of light and shadow, but there was something oddly familiar in their movement.

Something from my training in the “Shufflers & Shamblers” seminar last spring kicked in. Zombies.

The bodies moved down the sidewalk with disjointed jerks—classic signs of undead motor skills. What else had the seminar told me to look for? The clothes. None of them was wearing what I would call funereal dress—jeans, a hoodie, a heavy black cable-knit sweater, one in a Misfits T-shirt—which meant these three had been freshly killed for the very purpose of being put to work for a necromancer.

I turned around to see if any passersby were coming from the other end of the block, only to see three more figures shambling toward us from that direction. We were being boxed in from both avenues.

“Simon?” Jane said over the phone. When I had spotted the zombies, I had forgotten I was even on it, so I almost dropped it when she spoke up. “You there?”

“Yeah,” I said, distracted. A passing taxi honked as it narrowly missed running into one of the zombies crossing the street toward us.

“Are you outside?” Jane asked.

I couldn’t deny it, not with all the sounds of the city around me. “Yeah.”

“You and Connor on a stakeout or something?” Jane asked. “You’re not watching me through my window from the opposite rooftop again, are you?”

Running a surveillance job on Jane when she’d been a Sectarian had been one of my more pleasurable (if highly intrusive) ops.

“No, all alone,” I lied. “I just . . . couldn’t sleep so I decided to go for a walk.”

“Oh,” Jane said. “Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I know I’ve been a little absorbed in everything that’s changing in my life.”

“Simon,” Mina shouted from the entrance to MoMA. I threw my hand over the mouthpiece, but was too late. “Hurry up.”

Was she doing this intentionally? I shot her a look that I wished would cause her to burst into flames. Would that I had been blessed with pyrokinesis instead of psychometry. At least then I could end all my troubles in one glorious blaze.

“Was that Mina ?” Jane said, suspicion and anger rising in her voice. “That’s what you call being alone?”

“I am,” I said when I took my hand away again. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Can we get into this later?” I said. The shuffling figures were getting closer by the second. I had to get off the phone fast, even if it meant forcing Jane off it. I went with the behavior that had been getting me in trouble in the first place—jealousy. “What’s the matter, Jane? Feeling guilty about all your time with Director Wesker? Redirecting it at me, perhaps? Why so suspicious?”

“I wouldn’t be suspicious if you weren’t lying to me, jackass.” I was thrown for a minute. The Jane I knew had never called me a jackass before, but there were those evil tendencies of hers rising up again. It was either that or the simple fact that right now I was being a jackass to get her off the line.

I hurried toward MoMA, keeping an eye on the zombies closing in on us.

“Look, I’m sorry,” I said, trying a new tack and going for as close to honesty as I could. “There’s just some old business I need to clear up right now. I can’t really talk about it. Think of it as classified, like all that stuff I can’t tell you about the Fraternal Order of Goodness.”

Jane scoffed over the phone line.

“Don’t think that you can hide any of this with the Order’s secrecy, Simon. If whatever’s going on with you tonight is such a secret, why is Mina there?”

I didn’t really have a good answer. I gave up. “We’ll discuss this later. I promise.” Then I hung up on her.

The walking dead were making good time and closing in on us faster than I would have liked, despite their physical limitations. I put my phone away and dashed the last little bit down the sidewalk to Mina, sliding my lock picks free from inside my sleeve to save time.

Mina gave me an innocent smile. She hadn’t noticed the zombies yet, and why would she have? She lived in a world that didn’t think they existed.

“Don’t give me that look,” I said, irked. “Are you trying to ruin my relationship? Does the word ‘covert’ mean anything to you, Mina?”

Mina laughed. “Oh, don’t get your panties twisted, Simon. I need your full concentration on getting that painting and not pining away on your cell phone. Now, according to my casing of the place, we’ve got about twenty minutes to get into the lobby before the guards come back through here . . .” Mina glanced past my shoulder and finally noticed one of the packs shambling toward us. She squinted. “Are those guys okay?”