Dead Man Running (37 page)

That morning
Mister Al ate
a stack of blueberry pancakes
and went
to
take a nap before the Mets game.  He never woke and Jan Sugerfoot's career as a man killer had begun.

Her last target for killing stood next to her in front of Savior The Day Baptist Church.  Jan wore a dress created by Vera Wang, dressmaker to the stars.  On this day, Jan Sugerfoot was a star,
the
star
of
New York
. 
The church was packed with her relatives and friends.  Some of the same people who turned their back on her after her abuse came to light. 

Her own mother had disowned Jan. 

In a sense, this elaborate wedding to
Harlem
's most prominent man was a type of revenge.  At the least, they all knew that they could no longer fuck with Jan Sugerfoot.

She glanced at her mother, seated in the first row, pretending to be the Mother of the Bride.  She was no mother, never was, more than willing to 'feed' Jan to her second husband and, later, to a string of boyfriends.  She and the others would get their payback today.

Elias Turnbull sat near the front of the church on the groom's side. 
He
was
among three rows of dignitaries, including prominent politicians from
each political
part
y
, four state governors, several
C
abinet members and a couple
of
Supreme Court
j
ustices.  He wondered if Wiley had converted all of them or if they remained human and attended out of very human self interest. 

He watched as the unholy union was sanctified in this most holy of places.  The bride, behind a forest of veils, said her vows.  Ben Wiley
, resplendent in gray tux and tails, then said his.  The
pastor,
who had been
borrowed from another prominent church, told Wiley that he could kiss the bride.  Ben Wiley gently pulled back the veils and wrapped both hands around his bride's face.  They stood that way for several seconds, staring into each other's eyes.  Finally they kissed and the church erupted in applause.

Elias and the rest of the church stood as the happy couple – now Mr. and Mrs. Ben Wiley
–
strutted down the aisle.  Ben Wiley – Elias noting that his love of dancing survived his new existence as a zombie – broke into a boog-a-loo as they reached the church doors.

Ben and Jan climbed into a gilded horse and carriage.  "It's like a fairy tale," he overheard someone say as the carriage glided down the street.

Elias Turnbull knew better.  He and many of the other VIP's were not invited to the reception at the Alhambra Ballroom.  For good reason, too.  Those invited guests would be both guest and dinner.  Or so was told him by the creature that carried around the body of his friend Mookie Sills.

The church and
its
environs cleared out.  Elias
walked down the street,
headed for his apartment
.  Soon he
heard footsteps from behind.  He turned around and saw
Mira
Hidar
.  She smiled as she approached.

"I thought you were in Philly?" he asked.  He kissed her on the cheek she offered.

"I should be," she said.  Elias knew that Wiley had her working on a top secret project with the Penn scientists.

"Want to come back to my place?" he asked.

She shook her head, motioned to the subway.  "Let's take a ride out to
Brighton
Beach
," she said. 

"
Brighton
Beach
?
  It's cold as shit out there.
"

"I want to talk to you and a long ride underground may make our conversation more discreet."

"Conversation about what?" he asked.

Mira
Hidar
looked around.  "About how we destroy Ben Wiley," she answered.  She held her breath, waited for Elias to turn her in to Wiley's goons. 

That didn't happen – the man stood there stiff, agape,
until
finally he shut his mouth.  She took his hand and led him to the subway.

At the
Alhambra
, the camera crew had captured the usual events – the entrance of the bride and groom, their first dance, best man Mookie Sills' toast, the jumping of the broom.  The all zombie crew now captured footage of
very unusual occurrences. 

Most weddings featured bride and groom carving into a huge wedding cake.  Anton Sanchez was a veteran of hundreds of weddings over his thirty-five year career as a videographer.  He thought that he had seen it all.  What occurred as the bride held a long knife poised over top the elaborate multi-tier cake surprise
d
even him.

The bride, with Wiley watching approvingly, wheeled from near the cake to
the closest table. 

There sat her dear mother
who
, with meth addled teeth
,
did her best to smile at her only child. 

The bride, with no words, plunged the long knife into her mother's chest.  Anton thought that the knife must have been struck with tremendous force, given the dull nature of most cake knives.  The smile remained plastered on the woman's face as the knife was struck again and again.  The pristine Vera Wang creation wor
n
by the bride took on a crimson hue.  Anton – with the deepest respect to the famous designer – thought the red actually improved the frock.

As the obviously vengeful bride continued to murder what – after a dozen blows – certainly was a corpse, the real fun began.  There were screams from
disparate
parts of the ballroom as other human guests were attacked.  There was a mass rush for the ballroom doors, which had been barricaded from the outside by Wiley's people. 
G
uests ran around fruitlessly trying to escape. 

Soon there was blood everywhere and Anton's crew captured it all.  Anton was ordered by Wiley himself to stick with the bride.  He didn't want to miss any of his
new
wife's fury.  Anton hustled after the woman – having killed the mother, she went after someone who appeared to be an older aunt or perhaps the grandmother.  The old woman comically tried to run away from the far younger woman.  The newly minted Mrs. Wiley played with the woman, letting her sprint ahead for a moment,
and then
nearly catching her, then falling behind again.  She let the woman exit into the kitchen, which, of course,
had no exit
to the street
.

Mrs. Wiley backed the exhausted woman near some boiling pots.  The woman looked around, she could go no further.

"Why…why are you doing this?" the woman stammered.  She was out of breath. 
If Mrs. Wiley doesn't kill her the woman likely would have a heart attack
, thought Anton.

"Why am I going to kill you?" asked Jan.

The woman nodded, her eyes on her daughter's blood dripping from the cake knife.

"Because I told you what was happening to me and you know what you told me?"

The woman shook her head, tears and sweat flying.

"You know," said Jan.  "You said to shut my mouth, open my legs, and take it like a woman.  You said that to
a t
welve year old child."

"I…I was wrong.  Please don't kill me."

Jan Wiley smiled.  "Shut your mouth, open your legs and take it like a woman."  She swung the knife
in a murderous arc upward, past the dainty dress and already soiled pant
y
into the woman's sex.  After the second blow, the woman was dead.  She continued butchering the woman until there were only pieces left.

"You want some?" she asked Anton.

He usually didn't eat at the receptions he worked but the feast before him was too attractive. 
He wolfed down an arm and the woman's head.  With a full belly he followed Jan out of the kitchen as she sought her next target.

Mira
and Elias sat apart on the subway as the train made its way to the last stop in
Brighton
Beach
.  As the car gradually emptied during the long trip eastward, they could make eye contact.  They searched one another for some indication that they could trust the other.  None was found – their conversation would be a leap of faith – possibly fatal – for both.

The
mid winter
night was unseasonably
warm
but
there
still
was no
t
much activity on the boardwalk.  A mist rolled in off the ocean and the pair stared out at it as they sat on a bench.  Waves crashing in the approaching surf covered their conversation but each person was suspicious that the other was recording or transmitting their words. 

One was prepared in the event the conversation turned sour.  The inside pocket of
Mira
's
three quarter length coat contained a .38 snub nosed revolver
. 
Could she kill Elias?
  She didn't know if she could.  She wanted to deny that she had feelings for the man.  Most of the time – especially when there
wa
s physical distance – it worked. 

Seated next to him – next to his smell, his warmth, his humanity – she was vulnerable. 

In his space she could not
deny her heart
– she loved him.

Could she kill him? She asked herself the question again as they sat in silence watching the black ocean.

Yes, she could.
  She had to stop Wiley and anyone who was helping him.

"
Hamid
is in a coma," she said.  She raised her voice to be heard above the ocean noise.

Elias looked at her, assessed the truthfulness of her words.  He could feel her emotions, the rawness of her suffering.  She was speaking the truth.

"What happened?" he asked and she told him.
  "They now have him in a secure location.  They won't tell me where."

Elias cursed Lee's hesitancy in killing Hamid.  Now it was too late.

"I thought that you and
Hamid
had been helping Wiley.  You gave him the bombs."

"Yes, we did."

"So, why the betrayal?"

"My grandfather thought having a powerful congressman as an ally would help protect our people.  But Wiley clearly is not content with that ro
le
.  As he turned to world domination my grandfather knew he had made a horrible mistake and wanted to stop Wiley."

"Pardon me,
Mira
, but he had the means to stop Wiley immediately."

Mira
looked Elias in the eyes.  "You
mean
suicide."

Elias nodded.

"Our faith doesn't
abide taking one's
own
life.  If he had no other way, I believe he would."

"What was he doing?"

"I don't know all of his activities but I do know that somehow he has been feeding the federal government with information, including a video of the zombie bomb demo."

"And that came back to Wiley?"

"Yes,"
Mira
said.  "He must have infiltrated the FBI or whatever organization my grandfather was working with."

"That doesn't make any sense, why hasn't the FBI or whomever made a move against Wiley?"

"Like I said, he's probably infiltrated the FBI.  His people inside likely stopped the investigation."

The pair sat and thought for a minute, the
thundering
waves and the cry of birds the only sounds.

"What do you want from me?" Elias asked.

"I want to know where you stand in this.  Do you still support Wiley?"

Elias looked her in the eyes and saw love.  He also noticed her hand reaching into her jacket.  He sat on the precipice, his life in the balance at this moment.  This could be a setup, his response going to a van filled with zombie
s
, ready to riddle him with bullets and dump his body at sea.  Or,
Mira
could kill him and leave his body on the bench, another congressman dying under mysterious circumstances. 

They would make a Dateline special out of his death
, get boffo ratings, and then
no one would remember Elias Turnbull
at all
.

He looked upon the ocean, that ancient presence.  If he must die, he would die with the truth on his lips.

"Wiley lost my support when he began to practice genocide.
  My morals are questionable but I draw the line when someone begins to exterminate the human race."