Stefan Petrucha - Dead Mann Walking

If the shambling didn’t freak him, the moaning would. It rose above the crackle of the car fire, one sandpaper-dry voice overlapping another, making a steady rush, like the ocean on a white-noise machine.

When a chak moans in torpor, I take it for sorrow, profound sorrow. That doesn’t explain it in a feral. At that point, why moan at all? There’s also the weird fact that when a feral shambles, he moans louder, as if there’s a gear connecting the diaphragm and the legs, like the way a pigeon’s head bobs when it walks. Human body is a complicated mother. The dead ones more so. Sometimes my left leg shakes like it’s hooked up to a vibrator.

Sure enough, soon as Frankenstein was three yards off, Turgeon went for his gun. I grabbed his elbow. It was a breach in living/dead etiquette, but too fucking bad if he didn’t like a chak touching him. The fat moved loosely aside under my fingers, as if I hadn’t gauged my own strength correctly. The elbow was surprisingly bony.

He yelped and tried to pull his arm free.

“No!” I said. “Listen to me. If they’re feral, it won’t help. Kneecap one and you’ll only piss the others off.”

His face went blank. “You said to bring a gun.”

“For the hakkers!” I said. “But I guess we should have gone over that in the car, huh?”

“What do we do?”

I was about to tell him to dive for the Humvee, but something caught my eye. The minute I’d said “hakkers,” Frankenstein blinked. Blinking is not something ferals do. It could’ve been a trick of the light, but I didn’t think so. Plus, they were already close enough to charge, but hadn’t.

I raised my voice so anyone listening could hear me. “Mr. Turgeon, I know you’re scared, but please put the gun away for now, nice and slow.”

The moment it disappeared into his pocket, the crowd slowed. I heard a relieved hiss.

Damn.

I rolled my eyes. “Who the fuck do you think you’re playing with?” I yelled.

“What? I did what you asked!” Turgeon said.

“Not you, them !”

I took a step toward the crowd. “I already said I was one of you!” I shone the flashlight up into my face. “You think I need this crap?”

When Frankenstein stopped and squinted, it was obvious even to Turgeon they’d been faking. It was a setup. They’d taken us for hakkers and hoped a mass of ferals might scare us off. If we’d been a bunch of drunks on motorcycles it could’ve worked. Nice.

Frankie held up his hand. “False alarm! Everyone back to places!”

More moans. Not desolate, just annoyed. He jerked a thumb at the burning car. “And somebody put that thing out!”

I stuck my hand out open palmed and took our new friend’s paw in my wrinkled mitt.

“He’s just nervous,” I said, pointing back at Turgeon.

“He’s not the only one, Mann. I’m Thornell. Word is Bedland’s getting hit tonight.”

I let go of his hand and punched the air. “Shit! Shit! Shit! That’s what all the theatrics are about?”

“Hell, yeah,” Thornell said. “It’s not like the cops are going to help.” As if it itched, he rubbed the rim of the hole in his head, then wiped his fingers on his arm. “You’re so worried about it, what’re you doing here? We figured you had to be hakkers. Who else?”

I’d hoped to play this close to the chest, in case anyone working for Boyle’s siblings was here ahead of us. But with the hakker odds ramped up, my strategy shifted.

“Long story short, I’ve got some good news for a chak I heard stays here.”

Thornell laughed. That meant that he was high-functioning, and that he was easing up on us. “Good news? Didn’t know they made that kind.”

“Yeah, there are probably snowballs in hell, too.” I pulled out the photo. “Frank Boyle. Look familiar?”

Thornell stared and scratched his forehead hole again. “We’ve got a Frank, but that’s not him.”

Maybe he wasn’t all that high-functioning. You never know which parts of the brain are working, and that hole meant at least some was missing.

“Look again. Picture him dead a few months.”

He squinted, shook his head a while, but finally nodded. “Yeah, yeah. That is Frank. One of our community organizers. Lives in a room off the front hall of the admin building. Shares a space with Ashby.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Shares? I didn’t think we went for roomies.”

Thornell gave me a good-natured shrug. “I don’t, but he does. It’s company, I guess. Rumor is the kid reminds Frank of someone, maybe a younger brother.”

“Kid?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Ashby’s a juvie. They tried him as an adult for shooting a cop with his own gun during a convenience-store robbery.”

Having been a detective means I heard a lot of the local RAR stories. This one rang a bell because it sucked so much. “Right. Didn’t bother with ballistics, then found out the cop’s gun misfired. He’d accidentally shot himself. Hey, I do remember things sometimes.”

“Good for you,” Thornell said. “Good for Boyle, too, I guess. Hope he stays. This whole thing was his idea. He’s one of the smart ones. We don’t have many.”

That bit of news lowered my threat level from panicked to anxious. Not only was Boyle here, but we’d be able to talk to him. I nudged Turgeon, but he didn’t look as happy as I thought he should. He was probably still thinking about the hakkers.

Thornell looked over his shoulder at the smoldering car fire. “Better get back to my spot. Whatever business you’ve got with Frank, be quick.”

He trudged off, calling the names of a few stragglers. Some tripped, bumped into one another, backed up, and bumped into one another again.

The smart ones are pretty rare. It must have taken hours for them to set that trap up.

Turgeon still seemed out of it, so I said, “We could come back in the morning.”

Stunned as he was, he shook his head no. Right answer. One, we were too close to give up now, and two, by morning, after the hakker attack, Boyle might not be one of the smart ones anymore.

I didn’t feel good about leaving the Humvee behind, but the smoldering car was blocking the road. Pointing the flashlight at the broken asphalt, I nodded for Turgeon to follow. He stayed so close behind me, if I so much as slowed down, he’d smack into me. I had to tell him twice to give me some space.

Like the dead, the place had yet to be completely reclaimed by nature. We made our way along a concrete path shattered and cracked a thousand times by years, neglect, and pretty thick weeds. Whenever we passed some chakz, they’d moan, not stopping until I pointed the light up at my kisser and mentioned Thornell. Then they cursed us out.

Admin was a smaller building sitting to the right of the massive factory, the upscale Bedland neighborhood, compared to the middle-class factory and the makeshift shelter ghetto. By the time we reached it, all the fires inside had gone out, leaving the place as pitch-black as it gets.

Back when I lived here, I’d managed a spot in the factory, but admin was where I’d want to hole up in case of attack. The concrete walls were so thick and strong, they seemed smug. The windows were tall and narrow, more for light than air, not wide enough for a man to pass through. The only spot that might be vulnerable was the front entrance.

Still, even as we walked up to it I couldn’t see inside. The dirt on the glass doors was so thick it sent the flashlight beam bouncing back empty-handed. There could be an army or a toy store in there and I wouldn’t know until it was too late. Good for Boyle. If he was really lucky there’d be a rear entrance and a basement.

Turgeon was getting too close again. I put a hand back to restore some distance, then pushed the door open with my foot. It swung in noiselessly. Someone kept the hinges oiled.