Pariah (4 page)

Mike leaned out the window and peered down into the alley. Stragglers who’d broken off from the herd shuffled back and forth, having breached the gate that someone in a panic must have left unlocked. Mike cleared his throat and a couple looked up, their dulled eyes twitching in recognition of something delicious. One let out a faint but audible gasp and began to limp in Mike’s direction.

“Be careful,” Ellen said as Mike leaned out further, bent at the midriff.

“It’s like you actually care,” Mike threw back at her, but when he did so, he smiled.

Ellen sidled up to her husband and put her hand on his back, feeling guilty about pushing his buttons, especially so early in the day. She could have at least waited until after their scant breakfast.

“I brought your water,” Ellen said, holding up the small juice glass, an old jelly jar with Huckleberry Hound on it.

Mike lifted his hands off the window ledge and straightened at the waist, eager to drink, unmindful of the window frame. His head slammed into the sash and his feet lost purchase on the smooth floorboards, thrusting his upper portion forward. Ellen dropped the glass and grabbed for Mike, her hands moist with perspiration, muscles neutered by malnutrition. She made contact with his left bicep but it slipped away. He pitched forward, his bony, naked ass slamming against the sash as his legs pinwheeled by her astonished face. An inarticulate screech was the only sound she could manage as her husband fell out the window.

Swallowing hard, she rushed to the other window, the one with the fire escape. It was possible he’d survived, that they could rescue
him. She pushed the curtains aside to reveal the folding security gate and stared at the padlock like she’d never seen it before. The gate had been there from the previous tenant, a model not approved by the fire department. The combination. She couldn’t remember it. Mike had it somewhere.

His laptop.

His dead, useless, worthless laptop.

Now the blood in her veins seemed to slow. She dragged her feet across the floor toward the open window Mike fell through. She didn’t want to look, but desire was not a factor. She poked her head out, her posture exactly aping that of Mike’s mere moments ago. In the alley below, Mike lay splayed on his back, his spindly arms and legs arranged almost comically about him. From her vantage point he looked like a human swastika, legs bent in a cartoonish running position. His face stared straight up and they made eye contact. He wasn’t dead. Ellen’s mouth opened and closed but no sounds came out. She wanted to shout something comforting; some final thought Mike could take with him. “I brought your water,” seemed entirely deficient.

The zombies advanced on Mike, shambling forward. Ellen’s teeth began to chatter and Mike’s eyes implored her to say something. Anything. With effort she managed to mouth, “I love you,” but mute.
Please let him die before they reach him. Please.

A small pool of blood was forming beneath Mike’s head, and Ellen noticed his neck was at an odd angle. A four-story fall. His neck was broken. He was paralyzed.
Please let him be numb all over. Please at least spare him the pain
. Mike’s eyes began to swim and lose focus.
Let him lose consciousness
. The first of his defilers stooped over and dropped to its knees, baring its teeth. At least Ellen couldn’t see its face, but she knew what it looked like. Cadaverous, leathery skin, yellow as a dead plucked chicken, translucent enough to display dull
plum-tinted veins, blackened gums receded all the way, teeth huge, eyes glazed—if it even had any.

A shriek echoed through the alley as they tore into Mike, picking the meager flesh off his bones with those horrible teeth, digging their jagged nails in, peeling him. Ellen was locked in position—sympathy paralysis. She wanted to close her eyes but was unable. She watched at they dismembered Mike. With ingenerate knack, one scored perforations around Mike’s left shoulder with its teeth then jerked the arm clean off and began to devour it, ripping the meat off the bones. Another disemboweled Mike, unintentionally inviting several others to mooch off the uncoiling spoils. Bestial growls accompanied the feeding frenzy, the things poking at each other, scrabbling, circling like hyenas. More stumbled into the alley from the side street, attracted by the noise, the scent of fresh blood. Soon all she could see were their backs hunched over the spot on which Mike lay. Her nails dug into the brick beneath the ledge, grinding them down, a rudimentary no-frills manicure. Tears blurred her vision.

“I brought your water,” she said again, her voice thinner than she was.

“Ellen,” a voice cried out from below. “Don’t look at this! Pull your head inside!”

Was Mike trying to spare her? That was so Mike of him, always trying to protect her feelings, even now. She was sorry she couldn’t oblige, though. She was vapor locked.
Sorry, Mike. Sorry about everything
.

By the time her temporary immobilization eased, all that was left of dear, sweet Mike was a dark crimson stain on the pavement and some picked-clean bones. Ellen wrested her fingers from the mortar, contemplated jumping, reconsidered, and slumped to the floor, hugging herself, taking no solace from her bony limbs and digits.

Former mother.

Now former wife.

Next door she heard Eddie bellow something unintelligible. But his tone, as always, was ugly and portended trouble.

And now she was alone.

“Open the door, Ellen!” Alan implored.

He’d raced up the stairs and now pounded on the door of 4A. This was excitement no one needed or wanted, least of all him, but he couldn’t just sit in his apartment and pretend it hadn’t happened. He’d heard the howl from the alley and had looked down in time to see Mike’s head come off, a sight he hoped Ellen had been spared from her vantage point, but probably not. He’d looked up from the alley’s floor and seen Ellen perched at her windowsill, eyes like saucers swimming in roomy sockets. Ellen didn’t seem to hear him. He’d pled for her to look away. Instead she’d watched her husband transform from significant other to outdoor buffet. And it wasn’t even eight in the morning.

“Ellen, come on!” Alan cried. “Open the door! Please, Ellen!”

Across the narrow hall the door to 4B opened and Eddie appeared, standing in the doorway in his boxers, which hung too low beneath his diminished waist. “What’s the fuckin’ ruckus?” he said, just oozing compassion.

“Mike . . . ,” Alan began, then stopped himself. Eddie’d find
out soon enough, but why tip the hand? If he and Dave were unaware of Mike’s demise, why let them know? They’d just up the harassment ante on Ellen.

“What
about
Mike?” Eddie said, raising an eyebrow.

“Nothing. I just need to talk to Ellen.”

“What for?”

“Jesus, Eddie, whyn’t you mind your business? You’re like a hausfrau looking for gossip. I swear; if we still had power you’d be sitting on the couch watching your
stories
.”

“I’ve got no problem busting your fuckin’ lip open, wiseass,” Eddie growled, wagging a finger. “Just you remember that. Seriously.”

“Uh-huh. That’s great,” yawned Alan, indifferent.

“You just better hope I never bulk up again, faggot.”

Alan smirked. “I count on it.”

And with that, Eddie slammed the door shut. Once upon a time Eddie had spooked Alan, but that was fifty or so pounds ago. Now they were both in the same weight class. Fact was Alan had a little
more
meat on him than Eddie because he’d been better at squirreling away, much better. Not that Eddie needed to be privy to that info. Alan tried the doorknob again, rattling it. Locked, of course. Who’d keep an unlocked door, especially with those goons next door? After several minutes, the clack of multiple dead bolts unlocking came from the other side of the door and it opened a crack, revealing Ellen’s gaunt shell-shocked face.

“I don’t know what to say,” Alan said, feeling stupid for having said it.

“Come in, Al.” Ellen opened the door wider and stepped aside, which seemed a formality considering she was too attenuated to block his entrance. She wore a pale-pink tank top that accentuated her lankness, her neck cords so pronounced Alan fought the insane temptation to strum them.

“I saw what happened. When you didn’t answer the door I was afraid you’d done something to yourself.”

Ellen just stared at Alan, eyes glassy with grief. She plopped herself down on a wooden dining chair and Alan could hear the bones in her ass knock against the hard surface. The sound made him wince, but she didn’t notice. After a few hushed seconds passed, Alan pulled out a chair at the table and joined her, seating himself slowly, carefully, mindful of the hard-on-hard dynamic. No one had padding any more. “The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin’ ” days were over.

Ellen’s arms hung limp at her sides, her wrists grazing the lower rim of the seat of the chair. So many hard angles. Alan had lusted after Ellen when she and Mike moved in six years ago. That was before she’d been a mother—not that women who’d had kids weren’t still sexy, but motherhood was a sacred institution. Wasn’t it? Was anything sacred anymore? Anyway, this wasn’t a booty call. Ellen had no booty. Her ass had been so perfect, a flared, ripe pear. What was Alan thinking?

That was crazy.

Now more than ever each life was precious. Mike had been precious to Ellen, even though they bickered. Alan heard them. Alan’s thoughts were jumbled. He’d liked Mike well enough. Mike was a good neighbor. They’d even hung out together a few times, back in the days before. Hanging out after didn’t count, because choice was no longer a factor. Alan slapped himself across the face, snapping himself out of this unproductive internal loop, the sound stirring Ellen from her torpor.

“What did you do that for?” she asked, somewhat horrified.

“Sorry, my mind was kind of malfunctioning. Nothing to be concerned about. I’m here for you, Ellen. Sorry. Won’t happen again.”

“No, it’s okay. It was just kind of weird is all. But it kind of helped, in a way. Seeing you slap yourself was odd enough to
wake me back up.” She paused for a few long beats, then added, “Mike’s dead, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. I saw. I was calling up to you, trying to get you not to look. I don’t know if you heard me.”

“
Ohhhhh,
” Ellen said, a faint smile playing on her drained lips. “That was
you.
I thought it was Mike. I wasn’t thinking too straight. That was really considerate of you. Thank you.”

Ellen looked and sounded far away, which might be for the best. Though Alan knew they were dead, he’d been spared having to witness any of his loved ones being devoured. Strangers, sure. By the dozens. But family? Mercifully no. As Ellen evinced the thousand-yard stare, Alan’s eyes roved about the kitchen. Pretty bare, like everyone’s. His eyes drifted over each surface, eventually finding their way back to his vacant hostess. He tried to envision her fleshy past self. He’d done her portrait a few times in pastel, pencil, even ink, so her face was pretty well ingrained in his psyche, but it was hard to conjure and superimpose on this bloodless husk. He’d wanted her to pose nude, but Ellen thought that would make Mike jealous, even if it was strictly business, no hanky-panky.
What the hell was the point of being an artist if you couldn’t get chicks to pose in the buff?
Alan had wondered. There are no other career-specific perks. Alan had suggested that he document her pregnancy with some tasteful nudes, but again the answer was no, even though she’d thought it a good idea at first. That was a real pity. Her breasts had gone from admirable to astounding during those months, and then stayed that way for quite a while. He’d never seen her nude back when that would have been a thrilling experience. Now he routinely saw her in various states of undress and it was tragic.

With the merciful exception of the Fogelhuts, most of the residents had adopted a slightly more “progressive” version of permanent casual Friday. Their building, 1620 York Avenue, was a “clothing optional” residence. Maybe it was hypocrisy or maybe
it was modesty—which seemed so passé—but Alan kept his clothes on when dealing with his neighbors. It’s not like he strutted around like Dapper Dan, wearing a suit and tie, but he kept his shorts and T-shirt on.
Let the others sashay around in the raw
.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, attempting to stay grounded in the now.

“Huh? Oh, no, no. Just stay with me.”

“Okay, as long as you need.”

“No, I mean
stay
with me. Stay in the apartment. Move in with me.”

Alan looked at her face, trying to glean how serious she was.
Serious as a heart attack,
as the old axiom went. Once upon a time that would have been the answer to his prayers, but now?

“Move in?”

“Move in. I don’t want to be alone, especially with those two Neanderthals next door. Listen, I loved Mike, Mike loved me, but these, I dunno, these are savage times. I can’t think about what’s prim and proper and what will the neighbors say? ‘
Look, that whore’s shacking up with someone new already
.’ Who would think that, except those creeps across the hall? Can you imagine what my life will be like if they think I’m—Christ, I can’t even
say
it.
Available
? Oh, Jesus.
Fuck that
. Mourning and starving are all most of us do, anyway. It’s not like you have to move your shit up here, but stay with me. Sleep in the same room. We don’t have to even sleep in the same bed if you’re not comfortable with that. There’s a foldout couch in the living room, but . . .”