Charlie Huston - Already Dead - A Novel

The way the darkness seeped into the room through a crack in the air. How it cut the space between Horde and myself. How it passed through Horde, passed through him as he would have passed through a mist. How it flapped and shivered as with pleasure, gliding up to the shadows in the corner of the room. The things bulging from within the darkness, trying to get out. The shapes bulging from it, pressing it outward from the inside, like people trapped inside a black sheath of rubber. The hole it cut in the shadow. The last shape, digging from within it, before it inked the shadow black and disappeared.

The shape like an oily black relief of Horde's screaming face.

— Stop screaming, Pitt.

I open my eyes. They're already here.

— Little early, guys.

Predo has set the chair from my desk next to the bed and is sitting in it. He looks at his watch.

— It is nearly midnight. You have slept all day. Now it is time to get up.

— Yeah, guess you're right.

I sit up in bed and stretch.

— I'd offer you guys some coffee or something, but I don't like you. So. I throw off the covers and move to get up and Predo's giant holds up a hand.

— If you could just stay on the bed for now, Mr. Pitt.

— Yeah, sure.

I grab my smokes from the nightstand, light up, lean my back against the wall and sit there in my shorts and undershirt, and smoke. Predo lets it go for a minute, then gets tired of it.

— Where is the girl?

I take a drag. I think I can feel some of the smoke going into my right lung. A good sign.

— Say, Mr. Predo.

His eyes tighten, but he waits for it.

— Know what I'm noticing?

He waits.

— No? OK, I'll tell you.

I stub my cigarette in the ashtray.

— I'm noticing how you're not asking what happened to the Hordes.

I grab the pack of Luckys and knock a fresh one out.

— When last seen, one of your enforcers was with them. You'd think he'd have called in by now. But he hasn't. Know how I know he hasn't?

I flip my Zippo open.

— Because I killed him.

I thumb the wheel.

— But I have a feeling you already know that.

I light the butt.

— And that you don't give a fuck.

I close the lighter with a snap.

— Care to comment?

He temples his fingers and presses them to his lips.

— May I have a cigarette?

I pass him one. He taps it against his thumbnail then places it carefully between his lips and leans forward. I flick the Zippo to life and hold it out. He dips the tip of the cigarette in the flame, inhales, leans back and exhales with a slight cough.

— Filterless.

I close the lighter and put it back on the nightstand.

— Yeah.

He takes another drag, exhales without coughing this time.

— One of the advantages of the Vyrus. I do not personally take advantage of it often, but when I do, I prefer filterless. More flavor.

— Yeah.

— You are right.

He picks a flake of tobacco from his tongue.

— My agent did fail to report when expected.

He shakes the tobacco from his fingertip.

— Another of our agents went to the Horde residence and reconstructed some of the action that had taken place there. Based on that reconstruction, and my knowledge of Dr. Horde's predilections, I was able to make an assumption as to where he had taken his… party. The agent went to the school. Yes, I do know about the Hordes and their man. And my agent. And you are correct about something else, as well. I do not give a fuck.

He takes another drag, but pulls a sour face this time and shakes his head.

— What does that say as to how I feel about you?

He drops the freshly lit cigarette to the floor and steps on it.

— You see, you are mistaken about what is happening in this room, Pitt. You think you are maneuvering yourself into position for some kind of bargain. You hope to leave this room not only with your life, but with information, and perhaps some kind of profit. It is true that there is a bargain to be struck here, but what lies in the balance is not your life, but rather the manner of your death.

My cigarette burns a little closer to my fingers.

— You have killed an agent of the Coalition. And so you will die. Put simply, you can tell us where the girl is right now, and we will kill you in some quick and relatively painless manner. Or, if you prefer, you may withhold that information, and force us to extract it from you. After which, we will drive to a location in New Jersey which I understand is excellent for viewing the sunrise. Need I be any more blunt?

The heat of my cigarette's cherry reaches my fingers. I bring it up to my face and eke out a last drag before putting it out. I hold the smoke from that last drag, then jet it out my nostrils.

— I know Horde was the carrier.

I pick up the cigarette Predo crushed on rny floor.

— Yeah, I know, a statement like that is pretty much a conversation killer.

I drop the crushed cigarette in the ashtray.

— Where do you go from there? So let me expound a little bit. Just so you know I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

I gather my thoughts. And hope they don't fall apart too quickly.

— Say you're a man like Horde. Say that in addition to owning a company like Horde Bio Tech, you are also its top researcher. And just for the sake of argument, say you also happen to be a very sick motherfucker who happens to have access to certain facts about how things work on the darker side. That's our side, Predo. Oh, I'm gonna get dressed now.

I scoot to the edge of the bed. The giant takes a step toward me, but Predo shakes his head and he stops. Standing is tricky, but I manage. Predo watches as I shuffle to the closet.

— Not feeling well, Pitt?

— Been better.

I stand in front of the closet for a moment and look at myself in the mirror on the door.

Predo continues to watch the space where I had been sitting on the bed.

— You were saying?

Not surprisingly I look like shit. The bruises around my eyes and nose aren't so bad, but the tooth Tom knocked out is still gone. The Vyrus will knit bone, but it won't grow new ones.

— Yeah. So say you're Horde, and everything I've said is true of you. And it is true. We know that. So that all being the case, who could blame you for taking a professional interest in something like a very bizarre and dangerous bacteria? A bacteria that, I don't know, say a bacteria that consumes its host and compels him to eat human flesh.

The wounds in my arms and left leg are corked with plugs of brick-red scab. I pull off my undershirt.

— It would just make good business sense to look into something like that.

The holes in my belly and chest are scabbed as well and surrounded by angry red skin. If I can get some more blood they'll be gone in a couple days. If I get out of this room alive.

— Just imagine if something like that were to become widespread. Situation like that, the first company on the block with a vaccine would clean up. Face it, who's not gonna pay top dollar to get a shot that's gonna keep them from eating their neighbor's brain?

I open the closet, grab a pair of old jeans, pull them on and get a black T-shirt from the shelf. I face Predo as I shrug into the shirt.

— But where to start? How do you develop that vaccine?

I go to the desk, scoop up my wallet, keys and loose change, and put it all in my pockets.

— Now I don't know much about this kind of thing, but I'm guessing the first thing you'd need is someone already infected with the bacteria. The technical term would be zombie. Not many people know how to come by a zombie, Mr. Predo.

I go sit back on the edge of the bed and wiggle my feet into a pair of socks.

— You know where to get one?