Zombies! Episode 3 - Love Bites (6 page)

When she paused, he thought he might have
won. "You're not taking drugs are you?"

"Ma, I don't do that stuff. I ain't changed
who I am."

"So you were always a murderer?"

"They was zombies!" He could feel his command
of English lapsing. Whenever challenged, that front slipped into
place. Even with his mother. He worked hard to try and wrest
control.

His mother let out a snort of disbelief.
"
Zombies!
What does your friend
Marcus
think?"

He loves me
, thought Shawn. "He thinks
enough of me to invite me to stay at his house and I'm gonna
stay."

Over the phone, he could hear her grinding
her teeth. That meant she thought letting him stay was the right
thing to do but she wasn't about to stand for him giving the
orders.

"Look, Ma," he said. "I'm sorry, okay? I need
you to cut me some slack. Please?"

"Okay," she nodded. "I'll trust you. But if
you end up in prison again, you're on your own."

Not likely
, he thought. "Thanks, Ma.
Really."

"Take care of yourself, Shawn. You call me in
the morning."

He was smiling from ear to ear. "You got it,
Ma. I'll do it for sure."

As he hung up the phone, Marcus asked,
"Chinese or Italian?"

***

PATRICK
Cho smiled and nodded at
Marcus as he came in and began perusing a menu. Marcus was a
regular at
Best Chinese
where Patrick worked for his mother
and father. Though Patrick had been living in the United States for
fifteen of his seventeen years and was fluent in English and mostly
without accent, he rarely spoke. A man like Marcus always
intimidated him. Patrick was larger than most of his peers, with a
round face and large lips. He lacked a chin, which gave him kind of
a goofy look. He did his job in loose fitting jeans and a stained
white apron while men like Marcus entered the place in their
business clothes always looking and smelling fresh even on a Friday
evening. While Patrick was a complete fob around women, he was sure
that Marcus had the ladies lining up at his doorstep.

When Marcus put the menu on the table,
Patrick looked it over (dinner for two) and turned it in to his
dad, who did the cooking. He rang up the order and Marcus covered
it with his American Express card. Then he sat down to wait.

Patrick watched him without trying to be too
conspicuous. It was a pastime of his to simply observe the people
around him. He had aspirations on being a writer but didn't think
it would ever materialize. It was his unique talent to strip a
person down to his or her basics just by observation. He could then
parlay that information into a poem or an essay. They were good but
there wasn't really a market for fictional character studies of
real people.

A tiny beeping brought him out of his reverie
and he watched as Marcus pulled a small phone out of his pocket,
looked at the number, and answered it.

"Hello?" he said into the phone and then
paused. Patrick watched the changes in his expression. He cracked a
smile once, and then got very serious. "I can't tonight. It's none
of your business, why, I just can't." There was more of a pause.
"Then go. Go without me. Have fun and tell me about it tomorrow."
More waiting. "Yes. We're still on for tomorrow night. Do you have
the address? Good, I'll see you there at nine."

Patrick's father nudged him. He looked back
to see that the order was ready to be boxed and bagged so he got to
it. The timing was perfect. Another second and Marcus would have
looked up and seen Patrick watching him, eavesdropping. As it was,
he smiled wide when Patrick handed him the food, offered up a very
sincere
thank you
, and left the restaurant.

***

JOHN
Arrick had spent three hours
meticulously cleaning his apartment. Late that night, bone weary
and with a sore back, he'd gone to bed very glad that he didn't
have to get up for work in the morning. Of course, that didn't
preclude the early morning visitor. In fact, when he opened his
eyes to someone pounding on his door and looked at the clock, he
couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Rolling out of bed, he made his way to the
front room and called out, "Who is it?"

"John? Oh, God, John, you have to help
me!"

"Suzanna?" He was puzzled. It was definitely
her but her tone of voice had utterly changed. He reached for the
door and then hesitated. "Suzanna, what's wrong?"

"Please, John!" she sounded desperate and
weak. "I'm so sick."

That last but came out as a strangled shriek
and he recoiled from the door. "You need to go to the hospital," he
said to her through the door. "Please, Suzanna, go get
real
help."

"I'm scared," she called back, rattling the
knob. "I'm so scared. I need you, John. Please let me in."

"I…can't. I'm sorry, Suzanna, but…"

Then his blood froze as he heard a key in the
lock and he remembered. There had been that time, a month ago, not
too long before all of this zombie nonsense. They'd gone their
separate ways after a day out and he'd given her the key so she
could get back in later. In case he was out. He'd never gotten that
key back.

And he didn't want it back now.

Rushing forward, he grabbed hold of the knob
but he was too late. Suzanna pushed her way in and he went
sprawling, partly out of surprise and partly out of a desperate
need to get away. Stepping over the threshold, she closed the door
behind her and looked up at the chain, shaking her head. He noticed
that she was still wearing his sweats. She didn't look sick.

"You don't…" he stammered. "You're not…"

"Of course I'm not sick, you idiot. I have a
cold." She was laughing at him, as if she'd just pulled off the
greatest prank of the century. Some prank! Then she stopped
suddenly and sniffed the air. Instantly, her whole demeanor
changed. "Did you clean up in here, John? Did you
disinfect
?"

Now he shrunk back because he knew that she
was going to blow her top. And she did. She railed on him about how
he thought she was a plague victim and he couldn't get rid of her
quickly enough so that he could sterilize the apartment.

"Were you glad when I left?" she spat at him.
"Were you relieved?"

He didn't say anything. He couldn't think of
anything to say.

But surprisingly a smile spread across
Suzanna's face. "This is great, just great!"

"I think you should go," he managed.

"I'll bet you do," she replied. "But I think
I'll stay the night."

"Suzanna…"

Her hands came to her face in mock hurt. "You
don't want me to stay, John? Why ever not?"

"Please…"

"Shut up. If you want me to leave you're
going to have to make me leave."

So he stood and for a moment, he saw her
shrink away from him. For just a moment, she actually thought there
was something he could do to make her leave. But in the end he did
nothing. He wouldn't touch her, certainly wouldn't ever have hit
her even if he wasn't afraid of her
cold
. It was a little
silly to call the police. If he didn't tell them why he wanted her
out, she would. What would they do then? Would they help him or
would they run away?

"I can't make you leave. You know that as
well as I." But a wicked smile crept across his face anyway. "But I
suppose I can find a room for the night."

And with that hanging in the air, he grabbed
up his wallet and his keys and left the apartment in the shorts and
T-shirt in which he'd been sleeping. Suzanna stood there,
flabbergasted, for ten minutes waiting for him to reappear. But he
didn't. He was either being very stubborn or he was really afraid.
Either way, she decided that she couldn't stand there forever. She
locked the door and hooked on the chain. Then she stripped to her
underwear and crawled into his still warm bed to sleep.

***

SATURDAY
morning came and went. Shawn
Rudd spent the night with Marcus. Suzanna DeForest spent the night
in John Arrick's bed while John Arrick slept in a hotel. The day
passed as most Saturdays do. The streets were empty while the malls
were crowded. People took their kids and themselves places. The
businesses thrived.

When Arrick awoke late Saturday morning, he
was still angry. In fact, he was more angry. After a poor night's
interrupted sleep he was displaced from his home and left with the
choice of allowing it or endangering himself by confronting
Suzanna. The more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed
that Suzanna was, in fact, infected with the zombie plague. She was
right that people wouldn't stop getting just head colds even though
there was something far more dangerous out there. But that
rationalization didn't make it any easier for him to go home.

The day was chilly and he had nothing but the
same shorts and T-shirt he'd worn out the door. He showered, put
them back on, and went to a store to buy himself some clothing.
That was the benefit of a credit card. It was easy to become a
whole person from nothing just as long as you could pay the minimum
at the end of the month. He also bought a tooth brush and tooth
paste because a person wasn't truly whole without a clean mouth.
Returning to his hotel room, he dressed and brushed his teeth. He
put his night clothes into a plastic bag, checked out, and went for
breakfast. Arrick found himself unusually hungry that morning and
put his credit card to good use.

He also took his time. It was pushing noon by
the time he emerged from the coffee shop onto the streets of
Brooklyn. He considered several options but decided not to go home
right away. Instead, he spent the afternoon in Manhattan. He went
to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took a walk through Central
Park, and had an early dinner downtown in the Village. All in all
it was a nice day, just nice enough to prepare him for what he
would have to face at home.

When he arrived at his building, he said a
silent prayer in the hope that she had left. That was a good
possibility. Suzanna was spiteful but spite was pretty poor
company. Without him around as the victim, he could imagine her
becoming easily bored.

No such luck.

The door was locked so he unlocked it, but
when he pushed it open he found that the chain was on. Swearing a
silent Scottish curse, he called out, "Suzanna, open the bloody
door!"

He waited several seconds before calling out
again. The longer he waited, the more frustrated his became. "I
swear to God, I will rip the chain out of the wall if you do not
open it."

"Shut up!" she called from inside. He couldn't see
her but he heard the footsteps as they came forward. Then she
nudged the door against him and he yielded so that she could close
it. There was a rattle as she fussed with the chain and then
nothing. Arrick thought she would open the door, but she didn't so
he did.

Suzanna was sprawled out on the couch. She'd put on a
different sweat shirt and pants but she also had a blanket wrapped
around her. In her hand was a tissue. There was blood on the
tissue. Arrick stopped up short when he saw her. He didn't know
what to do. Suddenly he was so panicked that all rational thought
fled.

She looked up at him. There was little left of the
callous veneer. The infection had stripped her of just about every
last ounce of her strength. "Please, John," she said to him in a
very weak voice. "Help me."

Swallowing the ball of mucus that had built in his
throat, he went to her. For all of his worth, he could never
imagine what made him do it, but he sat next to her on the sofa and
took her into his arms.

"I want to go home." There were tears in her eyes.
"Can you take me home, John?"

He stood up and called a cab. He cleaned off her nose
and made her wash her face. In her condition it took several
minutes and the cab was outside, the driver honking the horn, by
the time they were finished. Before they left, he grabbed a wad of
cash for the poor slob whose cab they were about to infect.

Downstairs, a black car waited with a nondescript
little man in the driver's seat. Arrick hurried Suzanna to the car,
opened the back door, and slid inside. The driver asked where they
were going and Arrick told him. Suzanna huddled close to him, her
head cradled in his side. He had instructed her to keep her arm by
her nose in case she started bleeding again. So far she was
obeying. But if she weakened, she might just drift off.

The car pulled away from the curb and went two blocks
before the cabby looked in the rearview mirror.

"What's wrong with the lady?" he asked warily.

Arrick stroked her head. "A wee bit too much to
drink."

"Early night?"

Arrick found his best fake smile, something knowing
and malicious. "The night's not over, lad."

They shared a laugh.

When the cabbie pulled up in front of
Suzanna's apartment building, Arrick had a sudden attack of guilt.
"Listen," he said the driver, handing him some money. "She's not
drunk. She's sick. Don't take any more passengers tonight and get
your car cleaned."