The Rising Dead (10 page)

They are doing it again
, Gunner thought. They were making him sound crazy when he wasn't.

“Come on,” Gunner barked. “Think about it! These people have been behind every major catastrophe since the dawn of time. They know the only way to keep control is to keep us in the dark, to leave us guessing.”

Neither officer spoke. It was too late. He had lost them and he knew it. Why was it so hard to convince people of the truth? Why wouldn't anyone listen to him? It made him so angry, he could barely see straight.

“You know,” the second officer said, “We talked to several of your coworkers before taking your statement. I think what they say about you is right.”

Gunner cocked his head to the side, cracking his neck in the process. He knew what was coming next, but he took the bait anyway.

“Oh yeah? What's that?”

“That you’re dangerous,” he said, his eyes locked dead-on with Gunner. “They say you are anti-social and affected, that you behave inappropriately, that you often over react to simple things, and that you've lost touch with reality. Are you aware that others hold this opinion of you? Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life, being treated like a mentally deranged lunatic people are afraid might go off at any moment? They think you're a ticking time bomb and well, I'm gonna have to agree with them after what I've heard here today.”

Gunner didn't hesitate. If this punk kid wanted a lesson in respect, he was going to give him one he would never forget. Gunner lunged forward and grabbed the second officer by the shirt, pulling the kid's surprised face toward his gritted teeth.

“You want a piece of me?!”

The first officer stumbled forward and easily separated them with his huge hands.

“Knock it off, now!”

The second officer tumbled back, almost falling over. His face was flushed with anger and humiliation. Gunner could see him formulating a revenge plan, his eyes rapidly shifting back and forth. He wished they hadn't taken his gun away. For all he knew the man could be one of their agents, a pawn in their game.

“Get a spit mask on this freak now!” The second officer wasn't smiling anymore. “I don't give a shit if he served a hundred tours and killed Bin Laden with his bare hands. I want him taken in and held for observation!”

“Are you one of them?” Gunner's voice was deadly calm now.

Both officers looked genuinely confused.

“One of
who
?”

Gunner had been pushed far enough. If he was going to be murdered by an idiot like this punk kid, he wasn't going to die alone and he sure as hell wasn't going to die without a fight!

“Show yourself, you coward!” Gunner roared. His outburst knocked the anger from officers face, replacing it with confusion and a tinge of fear. What had started out as simple teasing was getting wildly out of control.

“This is why I didn't want you to go there,” the first officer said. “The captain has warned you about this before.”

“Shut up Andy,” the cop said. It was escalating too quickly. The second officer relaxed his posture a little, hoping the shift in body language would sooth Gunner some. “What are you looking at? You need help. You know that, right? You’ve lost all touch with reality, man.”

“Go to hell,” Gunner said, not taking his eyes off the second officer, not blinking. “Damn demon.”

“I feel sorry for you, buddy.”

“I think you’re one of them,” Gunner countered.

“One of
who
?”

“We're done here,” the first officer said, pulling his partner away.

Gunner kept his eyes locked on them. When they were just out of earshot he slumped over, fighting off tears as he let his mind take him back
there
, back to a world of death and blood and screams and sand.

CHAPTER NINE

Travis felt a little guilty as he stared at the photo collection he'd secretly amassed of his crush. There were shots of her crossing campus, shots from class, and a few bikini shots from the personal stash he'd acquired. It was more than a little creepy, he was well aware of that. It would be bad enough if he had taken all of them on his own, but he hadn't. The ugly truth of it was he'd gotten some of them by paying a guy to raid her dorm last year. That's how he'd gotten his favorite shot of her, the one in the string bikini by a pool somewhere down in sunny Florida. He kept promising himself he was going to get rid of his stash but when the time came to ditch all of it he'd chicken out. Once, in a moment of self-disgust, he'd wrapped all the photos in plastic bags, then taken them out in the trash, only to dig through the dumpster an hour later and retrieve them.

These are my only link to her
, Travis thought.
What else do I have at this point?

He swore he would get rid of them for good by the end of summer, that he'd burn them and bury the ashes along with his shame, but there he was again sitting in the semi-dark in the middle of his bed, obsessing harder than ever over a girl who he'd never officially met. It wasn't the first promise he'd broken to himself over her. It was just the latest. He'd swore to himself that he would
man up
and ask her out before the semester ended . . . and yet summer started and that didn't happen either. Whenever he got within fifty feet of her, his mouth just seemed to go dry at the same time his knees went weak. Was it fear of rejection? Fear of being ridiculed? He wasn't sure. Maybe both. He felt like he knew Gemma so well that they shared a special connection--and she didn't even know his name.

“You have no idea how perfect we'd be for each other” Travis muttered to her bikini photo, sliding the rest of the images back under his pillow. “I'd take you on the most romantic date of your life and you'd instantly fall in love. Oh Travis. You're the best. How did I ever live without you? That's what you'd say. And I'd say, I have no idea and . . .”

A loud banging on the door made Travis jump mid-sentence. Someone called out his name. He couldn't tell who it was.

“Travis McAnus. You in there?”

“Who is it?” Travis looked around for a place to hide his stash but there wasn't any time. The door was already swinging open. He couldn't risk trying to move them now so he sat back on them. Thank God he hadn't left the door ajar or they might have seen the whole thing! He'd never live that down. He quickly grabbed his copy of
Being and Nothingness
from the nightstand and pretended to be studying, slipping his string bikini Gemma shot into the back of the book.

Flynn, Garrett, and Vance marched in, all talking at once. Flynn had on a full face of makeup like a chick and a blonde wig.

“Guys! Guys! Guys!” Travis yelled until they quieted down. “What the fuck?”

“You sure do have a lot of crap,” Garrett said, swinging his big head around to take it all in. Travis had spent the last few years covering nearly every square inch of his room with posters and paraphernalia, alternating between zombies and movie star goddesses. Selma Hayek was nestled comfortably between
Dawn of the Dead
and
Night of the Living Dead,
while a breathtaking shot of Miranda Kerr wearing almost nothing and rolling around on warm sand in paradise was juxtaposed against a zombie Marilyn Monroe, eating out James Dean’s heart in black and white. His mom had commissioned a street artist to do that on the Venice Beach boardwalk during their vacation to Los Angeles. The guy who did it looked, and smelled, half dead himself. He practically ripped the twenty dollar bill out of his mom's hands, then whipped it out in less than five minutes of frantic scribbling. It had quickly grown to be Travis's favorite.

“Yeah,” Travis mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “I guess. What do you want?”

Flynn stepped forward.

“Garrett and I need exhibitor badges to the Zombie Con. We're also doing the zombie walk, obviously, but he won't hand over his info unless it's directly to you. He's acting like a real faggot.”

Garrett immediately protested, talking over Flynn before he could say anything else.

“That's because I want to end up being in the parade this time,” he complained, “instead of having some homophobic riot cop shove me out of the way because I don't have the right badge.”

“How many times do I have to apologize for that?” Flynn flashed an angry glare at him. “Besides that was in Austin. This is Vegas. There are no rules here. People are going to be just filing in off the street with fucking oversized drinks in their fat hands and food crusted down the front of them.”

“And don't forget the escort fliers jammed in their overflowing pockets,” Vance said with a laugh.

Travis nodded, sagely taking it all in. Secretly he just wished they get the fuck out of his room. He'd loved the rowdy atmosphere of Thunderdome when he first moved in - but it had quickly faded as the months went by. He'd shacked up with Garrett who he knew from some undergrad classes at UNLV. The rent was unbelievably cheap, even before they added Parker to the mix. Parker, a star pitcher with a dark streak, spent most of his time out partying. Travis dug that. He'd been counting on that when they let him take over the extra room, the one that barely fit a normal sized bed. Parker was just looking for a place to get away every now and then, someplace off campus and away from the Frat house. He wasn't much like any jock Travis had ever met in his life.

“It's like having an invisible roommate,” Garrett said after the first month. Parker had crashed a handful of times and always left early in the morning. It wasn't until much later that he and Travis struck up a real friendship.

What Travis hadn't expected was that Garrett's boyfriend Flynn would be over pretty much every hour of the day. Travis didn't mind that Garrett was gay. Not at all. It's just that Flynn was a drama queen, blowing everything out of proportion. The few times Travis had hung out with Garrett alone thing had been cool. They'd watched football, drank beers, gone to a game on campus. Garrett was a mellow guy. Mix him with Flynn, and it was like he became another person altogether. It was like he was trying to act more gay, to prove something to Flynn. All of it gave Travis a headache under normal circumstances. Today as he literally sat on his deepest shame it was almost more than he could bear.

Living at Thunderdome had other unexpected consequences. There were always people over. No one knocked, they just dropped by your place unannounced and invited themselves in. If your door was locked it meant that you were out. Most people just left their front door ajar, letting friends and guests come in and out at will. Anything you wanted to keep got locked up or taken with you. Still crime was pretty low around Thunderdome, owing mostly to being under the watchful eyes of your neighbors. You never knew who was watching you or what they might do if you tried to pull some shit. Kept things real chill. Travis liked that part, even if he hated having to lug his valuables with him everywhere he went.

For almost three years Travis had been trying to get Las Vegas to let him have a Zombie Walk. In every instance he'd come close then failed to meet the signature requirement. This year something had happened he'd never dreamed of in a million years. This year Asphyxia Stardust had taken up residence in Thunderdome, coming to UNLV to pursue a Masters in communications and bringing with her the first ever Zombie Con to Sin City.

“Vance? How'd they get you spun up in their spiderweb again?”

Vance shrugged his shoulders as both Flynn and Garrett turned on him.

“Well,” Vance began, looking beyond uncomfortable at being dragged into the whole thing. “All I know is, I was planning on degreasing an engine from a '67 Chevy this weekend but I got a call from Garrett that he was heading to grab some moonshine from Pyro, you know, from Satan's Disciples out in Barstow? Guess he was on a run and ended up dropping through Paradise to see an old lady. I figured if I couldn't get the engine clean with it I could always sell it to tourists. It's kinda a long story. So the next thing I knew we picked up Flynn from the Strip I was here at Thunderdome. Tell you the truth they've been making out at nearly every stop light on the way over. I'm actually glad they're fighting. It was starting to make me squirm, all that gay PDA.”

Flynn laughed and Garrett shot him a deadly glare that quieted him back down.

“And,” Travis prompted.

“And that's it,” Vance said. “Ain't nothin' more to tell brother.”

“So where did all that makeup come from then?” Travis stood up and walked around Flynn who puffed up his chest to be admired like a proud peacock.

“I did it myself,” he confessed. “We were trying to get a cowboy to kiss me and take a picture. You know how much I love messing with the straights.”

“You're going to get yourself hurt one day,” Travis chastised.

“All I needed was the wig and a tight pair of jeans,” Flynn said ignoring the warning. “They had their hands all over me. They loved me you know.”

“I'm sure they did,” Garrett scoffed. “All that was missing was three sets of tits glued on you. They're drunken sheep out there.”

“Oh no,” Flynn said, growing deadly serious. “You've got it all wrong. Summer is over honey baby. It's now officially game on out there now.”

“He's right,” Vance chimed in, nodding his head.

“We've got a whole new influx of idiots out there,” Flynn continued. “Lots of money, lots of nice suits. It's a higher class of people than the old hicks with jean shorts and lowbrow ironic t-shirts wearing American flag baseball caps. And there wasn't a single chunti ass chola with her eyebrows Sharpie penned on handing out strip club announcements in sight!”

“You had me up until you said that,” Travis chuckled. “So they loved you huh? What is that you've got on?”

“Smoky eyes,” Flynn said with a wink. “I've spent hours perfecting the look. By this time tomorrow my gender will be so bent I'll have everything with a pulse looking to climb into my sweet little pink hole and love me.”

“Let's take it down a notch,” said Garrett in a sullen tone before turning to Travis. “There seems to be a pretty big and relatively obvious influx of zombie fans out there as well. I'd say most of the convention folk have started to arrive by now. By tomorrow night's walk we could have thousands in the streets.”