Stefan Petrucha - Dead Mann Walking

It wasn’t ESP, more like my brain was a cave about to crumble. Strong picture, though, colors vivid enough to make you puke. I’d been thinking about the head too damn much, the way I used to close my eyes and see cards if I stayed up all night playing poker.

It was starting to get to me. And I never knew which freaky obsession would be my last. If I wasn’t careful about my mood, I’d wind up sharing a cardboard quilt with the moaner at my feet. If I had a happy place I’d try to go there, but I don’t.

What was wrong with me, other than the usual? Maybe it was all that talk with Turgeon about Lenore. Lenore. There’s a famous poem about someone named Lenore, real famous, but I can never remember it. I wonder if the guy who wrote it knew whether he’d killed his Lenore or not.

Damn it, Lenore!

I may have started moaning right then and there. I’ll never know, because a big distraction showed up. A shadow flew down from the fire escape, right at me, looking like a dark sheet hurled out of a window. One second there was building and sky, the next, just black.

It wasn’t a sheet. It was heavier, and it caught me at just the right angle. I went down. My back slapped the asphalt. I didn’t quite feel it, but I heard the crunch, so I knew it was bad. Praying I hadn’t broken my ribs, I brought my hands up and grabbed what felt like an empty leather wineskin.

It was a neck. I heard teeth gnashing, dried lungs wheezing. Then I caught a flash of red flannel.

“Geez, Jonesey!”

Like I said, any of us can go, and it’s hard to predict when. Once you’re feral, the cops do get involved, especially in the Bones, since we’re so close to that gated neighborhood. They’ll hunt you down, shoot you until you can’t move, then cart you off for a quick D-cap. So they say. More likely they’d need fire or a meat grinder. None of it sounds pleasant.

Feral chakz aren’t much of a threat unless they come at you in numbers. Sort of like a poodle with rabies. You can kick it away, but you really don’t want it to get ahold of you, with its teeth or anything else. They do get all animal, as the name implies, like the body suddenly remembers it has instincts.

I tossed him off—I still have some muscle left. He rolled into a crouch. As I lumbered to my feet, he came at me, mouth open, teeth like rotting bits of a yellow moon.

The reason you don’t want them to get ahold of you isn’t that they’ll infect you. Once a chak grabs onto something, feral or not, he doesn’t let go unless he wants to. If Jonesey grabbed me, I’d have to break his hand off to get free, and unfortunately, I liked him.

I stuck one hand out, open palmed, and planted it in his chest. It stopped him in his tracks long enough for me to give him a good hard slap. His eyes rolled in their sockets. Good sign. He felt it. There was still a light on in the attic.

I slapped him again, harder. “Jonesey! Jonesey! You in there?”

Third time I whacked him so hard I was afraid I’d pulled off some cheek skin.

“Come on out of there, Jonesey!”

Maybe the shirt really was lucky, or maybe it was just another random act of the universe, but he closed his mouth and shivered. I stepped back to put some distance between us, but his head bobbed like I was still slapping him. He brought his hands up to steady his skull. He blinked six or seven times and then aimed his pupils in my direction. They were still vibrating, but after a second they settled down.

“Mann, that you? I am so sorry. . . .”

“You and me both.”

Low-level chakz tend to go feral and stay that way. The “lucky” or smart ones drift in and out first. It’s never a good sign. If a gun would work on him, and I had one, I’d be tempted to put him out of his misery.

I didn’t tell him that. “Christ, Jonesey, if I’d been a liveblood you’d be . . .”

He twisted his lips into a familiar shit-eating smile. “What? Dead?”

“Well, in a lot worse shape than you are now.”

“Worse? Oh, Mann, I know, I know. Funny, I used to tell people that death was just another form of consciousness. I had no idea. No fucking idea. What day is it?”

He had big eyes, the kind that looked soulful back when they had some meat around them. Now they popped like the googlies on a cheap doll. You could still see it, though, the whole charismatic-motivational-speaker thing. Once that grin was exactly the sort a lost soul would trust enough to hand over his hard-earned cash on the chance Jonesey really might teach him the secrets of the universe.

I hate con men. I’d have hated Jonesey when he was alive. Not a problem now.

I checked my watch. “Tuesday. You need the date?”

He nodded, so I checked my watch again. “August twelfth.”

He looked up and groaned. Groaning is better than moaning. It’s intentional. “Six fucking days, Mann, that’s how long I’ve been out.”

I took a step closer. “What happened? You’re usually Mr. Positive Thinking. Someone forget your birthday?”

I was half kidding. Jonesey thought in extremes. He was either a self-styled superhero or a bug lying against the wall too worthless to crush. I don’t know if that was a result of being ripped or if he was bipolar beforehand, too.

“My birthday? Hah. I don’t even remember that! I had a . . . uh, professional setback. One that interfaced negatively with my life plan.”

I gave him a look. His grin widened, his roller coaster on a definite climb.

“Fine, my after life plan. Two livebloods in a blue SUV stole my stash. I lost a half gram of meth. I tried to picture a positive outcome, focused, meditated, tried to make it real, y’know? But when it came down to it, I couldn’t face my supplier. He says I’m the only chak in the world he can count on, and I just couldn’t go there, not with him. I crawled in here to meditate and . . . zoned out.”

“Six days ago. Ever happen before? The feral thing, I mean.”

His brow crunched. “What feral thing?”

I gave him another look. My memory wasn’t that bad yet.

The grin faded a bit. “No. That was the first time. I swear.”

He was lying, but I let it go. Making him think about it too much could send him off again.

“Anything I can do? I’ve got some cash these days.”

“Really? Good for you! I knew you could do it. Were you putting the vibes out there? Acting as if? Faking it until you make it?”

“Sure. Something like that.”

He pushed his head around like he was trying to snap it back into place. “Spot me five for a double espresso? Helps me focus. I know those two addicts. I know where they live. If I really bring the right attitude toward it I can talk them into giving me the stash back, or at least paying something for it. If not, at least I can go feral on someone who deserves it, right?”

“Right. Espresso, huh? That . . . you know, work?”

He shrugged. “Seems to. Maybe it just reminds me.” He tapped his temple. “Head game. But it’s all head games, right?”

Head was the wrong word to use around me at the moment. I pulled out the photo, if only to change the subject. “This is why I was trying to find you. Know him?”

He took it between his fingers, moved it around in the scant light.

“Hair’s a little different, and he doesn’t have all that flesh anymore, but . . . of course I do. What was it? Pimple. Boyle. Frank Boyle. Lives in Bedland. Last I heard, anyway. You got that five?”

I pulled out a crumpled bill, the last I had on me, and stuffed it in his pocket.

“I thought the doubles were only four bucks.”

“I like to tip the barista,” he said. “Keep a good thought, Mann!”

I watched him shamble off, hoping he didn’t go feral in Starbucks.