Dead Horizon (5 page)

Jesus, he could smell it.

Or maybe it was his own stench.

He crossed through a section of the park and onto a deserted street. His mind was confused. He looked both ways.

A dog barked somewhere in the distance.

He decided to go left. No reason in particular, except it felt right to him. He stayed on the sidewalk and kept moving.

The dog barked again, closer this time.

He looked over his shoulder. It was coming after him, running full tilt. He felt the urge to run, but his legs wouldn’t hear of it. He still wasn’t used to being dead, then born again, but still technically dead. Could you get used to a thing like that?

He pushed on, but the dog was catching up to him. He saw that the front of its chest was mangled and raw. One eye dangled and flopped.

The dog was born again too.

He stopped and turned just as the mutt was snapping at his ankles. He concentrated and managed to kick the mutt. His foot connected with the dog’s head, causing the born again mutt to yelp as it went sideways.

The dog came back for another attack.

A gunshot erupted.

The dog’s head exploded in a shower of bone fragment and jellied blood.

“Goddamn dead things,” a voice came from one of the houses.

He didn’t wait around to see who had shot the dog. He knew he’d be next. He crossed the street as quickly as his legs would take him, then he took a shortcut between two darkened houses, hoping the bearer of the gun didn’t take it upon himself to follow.

The next street he came to was well lit. He recognized it. There was a meat market on the corner.

He salivated at the thought. Raw meat.

Bloody meat.

He went in the direction of the market. Maybe he could break the glass. He couldn’t feel anything in his stomach to signify hunger, but he felt it nonetheless, a hunger for meat.

There were others when he got there. They were inside the market and outside, feasting on raw meat, shoving it into their mouths by the handfuls.

He headed in the opposite direction. He had more dignity than to get involved in a mess like that. His wife and child would feed him. They would be happy to see him. They would give him meat.

There were more gunshots.

Distant gunshots and more screaming.

He stopped under the yellow light of a street lamp and stood next to a car. He could see himself in its side window. The shock of it caught him by surprise. He wasn’t in as good a shape as he’d thought. Half of his face was missing. Half of his goddamn face was just gone.

He hadn’t died naturally.

He couldn’t remember how he’d come to be in that dark, damp, dirty grave, but now he knew for sure it hadn’t been a natural death.

Claire would help him remember.

Claire always helped him remember.

He needed to remember. There was so much he couldn’t recall, and now, seeing half his face gone, he wondered if maybe half his brain had gone with it. That didn’t seem likely, though, or he wouldn’t be walking around. If he remembered the George Romero movies, dead things didn’t keep walking once they lost their heads. Wasn’t that the way it was?

Or maybe it was just the brain. Maybe his brain was still in good enough shape to keep him walking. That had to be it. He was still walking. Dead things were really dead when you took out their brains.

But he couldn’t remember much of anything. His wife’s name and his daughter’s name. That was something, but he couldn’t remember dying. He just simply couldn’t remember . . .

The world around him seemed to be spinning. He heard screams inside his head and the sound of a little girl’s voice screaming, “Daddy, nooooo.”

The sound of that voice was more awful than anything he had heard on this dark, ugly night—more awful than even seeing half his face gone.

He had to get home, but he was lost now. Not sure which way he should go. Not sure of anything now, except he knew half his face was gone and he didn’t want to be out here anymore. All he wanted was to get home to Claire and Jenny.

Claire would have his answers.

He found a direction that felt right. He felt himself swaying as he walked, wishing there was something he could put his hands on to steady himself. He had no control. His legs wobbled and his knees buckled. It was all he could do to continue standing.

Only his wife and his little girl kept him going. The thought of seeing them again was the thing that made him continue walking.

It began to rain. It felt good to him. He thought it felt good to him anyway, but he really couldn’t feel it. All he could feel was his hunger, and he really couldn’t feel that either, but it was there.

Raw meat.

At least the rain would wash away some of the dirt and rot. He needed to be presentable when he saw his wife and daughter.

As presentable as one could be with half his face missing.

Lights swept over him, and he heard a car engine revving as it came down the street in his direction. He thought he should hide. He couldn’t just keep walking and pretend to be normal. Not now. Not with half his face missing. There was no way to be normal with half of your face gone.

The car was coming fast.

Too fast.

The tires squealed and the car suddenly swerved off the road, into a tree.

He crossed the street and looked inside. The driver was against the steering wheel. She made a low noise but didn’t move. Her head was cracked and bleeding.

He jerked the door open and pulled her out, dropping her onto the wet ground. He knelt beside her and touched the blood on her head.

He licked it from his fingers.

It tasted good.

He bent down and sank his teeth into her neck. He felt the warm splash of blood over his lips as he tore her throat away and chewed.

There was another smell he recognized. He didn’t pay attention at first because the meat tasted so good.

He took another bite, then another. Each bite brought more warm flesh into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed.

That other smell.

He sucked strings of bloody flesh into his mouth like . . . like . . .

. . . noodles.

He remembered noodles, but noodles wouldn’t satisfy him now. Not noodles. He needed meat, and here in front of him was plenty of meat.

And that other smell.

He climbed inside the car. That other smell was coming from inside the car. He remembered the smell, whatever it was. He didn’t have a name, but he knew the smell as sure as he remembered Claire and Jenny.

He saw it on the floor. A bottle. An open bottle, leaking onto the floor of the car. He picked it up and held it to the light. Jim Beam. He knew that name. He remembered meeting him on several occasions.

Jim Beam smelled familiar.

There was an urge he couldn’t quite place. An urge as strong as the urge for meat. He started to shake, clutching the bottle of Jim Beam tighter as he knelt down for more meat.

He ripped more meat away with his teeth, swallowing and washing it down with Jim beam. When he was full, he walked away. There would be others behind him, feasting on what he’d left behind, but he took the Jim Beam with him. He wasn’t going to leave that behind for anybody.

He staggered down the sidewalk, still heading for where he thought home was. His wife and daughter would be waiting for him. They would be happy to see him.

Memories came back as he staggered with the bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. The way he walked, the way he held the bottle, the way the taste of it seemed to make everything better.

He tried drinking from the bottle as he walked. With half of his face missing, the liquid ran down the front of him, but what little he could get down his throat was as satisfying as the meat.

He heard the sound of squealing tires and remembered the car hitting the tree. He still tasted the blood from the meat.

No feeling in his head, but something made him stop. He listened and heard the squeal of tires again, then the sound of metal folding in on itself.

No other cars, nobody else on the street but him.

He drank from the bottle again and ambled along the sidewalk, remembering more now. Remembering that he liked the taste of Jim Beam and the way it made him feel, even though he couldn’t feel it now.

He couldn’t feel it, but he knew he needed it, just like he knew he needed the raw meat.

Hunger.

Need.

Demons.

Claire would know how he died.

Claire would tell him.

He was close now.

So close.

He turned at the next corner and knew he was about to go home. He was about to see Claire and Jenny again.

They would accept him for what he was. They wouldn’t mind that half his face was gone or that he needed raw meat or that Jim Beam tasted good to him. Those things wouldn’t matter when he was home again.

Wouldn’t matter at all.

The rain had let up.

The street was thick with silence.

He stopped and stared at the houses on either side. Most were dark. One or two with lights. None of the ones with lights were his.

He recognized a house further down. The front gate swung gently on its hinges in a breeze he hadn’t noticed before.

He felt cold. Did that mean he was starting to feel again, and if so, was he going to be all right again?

He approached the gate and turned into the yard.

A white house with a screened porch.

No lights.

He moved slowly along the sidewalk, arms dangling at his sides, the bottle of Jim Beam clutched tightly in his right hand.

He heard more tires squealing, more metal folding in on itself. The noise brought him to his knees at the foot of the steps leading up to the screened porch. The voice of a little girl again, screaming, “Daddy, nooooo.”

And another voice—Claire’s voice—screaming, “Rogerrrrrrr . . .”

His name was Roger.

Roger before he was dead.

Now he was just dead.

Sirens.

He remembered the sound of sirens.

Sirens and flashing lights.

Still alive, with half of his face gone.

People everywhere, and voices that seemed to come from far away.

Couldn’t make out the voices at first.

Something about dying.

He was dying.

Dying . . . but he was here now.

Home.

So dark.

Claire and Jenny were sleeping. It was late, and how were they to know he would be home tonight?

How were they to know he would be born again?

Born again, with half his face gone, raw meat smeared on the part of his face that remained, and the rest of the Jim Beam in his hand.

He looked up at the dark screened porch and tried to see beyond the murky blackness. The front door was there, waiting for him. He didn’t have a key. He would knock, then Claire would show up at the door, and she would be so happy to see him.

So happy.

And she would call Jenny and they would all hug.

He stood and climbed the stairs. Each time he lifted one of his legs it was an effort. He paused and drank what was left of the Jim Beam, then he pushed the door to the screened porch open and went inside.

He knocked on the front door. It was unlocked and swung open gently.

He entered the house and tried to remember.

A light switch.

He flipped the switch.

Nothing happened. No light.

Dark.

Moonlight through the window gradually helped him adjust.

He could see enough to know there was nothing here. A dark void, just like the grave he’d come out of.

Nothing at all.

No life.

Where was Claire? Where was his daughter?

“Look at us,” Claire said.

Her voice had come from behind him. He turned and looked at the screen door of the porch, slightly open, and through it he could see two people he recognized but didn’t recognize.

Two people looking at him.

Claire was looking at him sideways because her head was on her shoulder. There was nothing left to support it. Her neck was broken.

Jenny, his beautiful nine-year-old daughter, was on the ground with her legs limp behind her, twisted in a way they shouldn’t have been twisted. Her face looked as if it had begun to melt and then hardened again.

She dragged herself forward, bringing her mangled body to rest beside her mother. Neither took her eyes off Roger.

He raised the bottle of Jim Beam and looked at it as he remembered the reason it was so familiar to him.

The reason it was like raw meat.

He remembered the sound of their car crashing into another car, then the sirens and lights and voices.

He remembered fighting with Claire about his friend Jim Beam.

He remembered turning to slap her, taking his eyes off the road, Jenny screaming, “Daddy, nooooo,” and Claire screaming, “Rogerrrrrrr,” and the sound of metal folding in on itself. . . .

He remembered killing his family.

He remembered forcing them into the car that night, then staggering like a zombie to get behind the wheel where he should never have been, and he remembered turning the key in the ignition and driving off.

He remembered those things.

He remembered them too well.

Now Claire was broken and Jenny was broken and half his face was missing. Half of his face and all of his life.

But wasn’t there something good?

Weren’t they here now?

Hadn’t they been born again?

Tax Cuts

“Welcome,” Peter Wilkes said, extending his hand. His smile was broad and his teeth were immaculately white.

The man, in his early twenties, shook Peter’s hand. “We’re a little early,” he said. “Just eager, I guess.”

“That’s no problem,” Peter said. “Let’s get right down to business.”

Peter led the couple to his desk, motioned for them to take a seat, then sat down himself, shuffling a few papers as he did. He swiveled in his chair to face his computer monitor. “What are your names?”

“Benny Higgins,” the man said. “And this is my wife, Lisa.”

“Benny Higgins,” Peter repeated, as if the name bore some importance beyond the task at hand.