Wet Work: The Definitive Edition (22 page)

Someone else coughed; then three men started talking at once and the scientist raised a hand to quiet them. “Gentlemen, I’ll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability, but one at a time, please.”

“
Dead people getting up and walking? You can’t be serious!” Stokes said.

“
I’m totally serious,” the young scientist replied. “What we’re about to observe is the reanimation of a man who is technically dead.”

“
Technically dead? What do you mean by that?” Asked Senator Dringenberg. “Is the man dead or not?”

“
You haven’t listened to what I’ve been saying. Yes, this man is dead. But the usual post-mortem process experienced by the deceased is not happening in the way it should. This man”—he pointed through the glass towards the body of the former Arkansas Senator—”is indeed dead, but we’re expecting him to revive within the hour.”

Someone coughed.

Del Valle rubbed a hand across his face. He didn’t care if the Senator did get up. Del Valle was exhausted, and if he didn’t get some rest, he was going to start stumbling around like a dead man, too.

“
Now this other specimen died on Saturday night,” the young scientist continued, guiding his audience to the next observation window. “He took forty-three hours to revive and appears in excellent shape although he was shot to death.”

Del Valle looked at Skolomowski through the two-way mirror. The Pole sat placidly on a hospital bed, staring vacantly at the wall, his large hands resting lightly in the lap of his medical gown. He looked harmless.

“
How intelligent is he?” Stokes asked.

“
Very. And he’s quite dangerous. He tore apart two orderlies with his bare hands when he revived.”

Del Valle grimaced. Typical Skolomowski. What the young scientist neglected to mention was the fact the Pole had ripped out one orderly’s throat and had eaten it.

“
Levels of intelligence vary drastically between subjects. Some of our dead friends are completely retarded and appear to function on blind instinct. Others have suffered some brain damage and don’t realize they’re dead, behaving like extreme Alzheimer’s sufferers. But this one,” he said, pointing at Skolomowski, “has nearly all of his mental faculties intact. He is aware he died and seems delighted. He thinks he’s one of God’s chosen.

Heaven help us
, Del Valle thought,
if the dead think they’re superior to the living
.

Above all else, that thought disturbed him the most.

BROOKLYN.

2:13 P.M.

Sandy sighed as she sipped a tall, cool glass of iced tea. It was 92 degrees with 70 percent humidity. She hated New York when the weather was like this.

And like the street outside, Liz was burning up with a fever of 104, and Sandy was sick with worry. First Mom, then all this weirdness—the state of emergency was terrifying, begging questions she didn’t want to consider—and now Liz was hallucinating fever dreams, shifting restlessly while Roger watched over her.

“
What can I do now?” Jared asked, looking up from the now complete
Power Rangers
jigsaw puzzle he’d been working on since mid-morning.

“
Why don’t you finish building your Space Legos?” She leaned forward to look at the finished puzzle. “That looks great.”

She and Roger had been taking turns, one keeping the boy occupied while the other took care of Liz. Neither of them discussed the President’s speech. The news had been too shocking.

“
Okay,” said Jared quietly.

He got up and crossed the lounge to the corner of the room where his Lego space fleet sat in a neat formation. The boy seemed to be dealing with the situation amazingly calmly. Only once had he asked to go play out in the yard, and he hadn’t complained when his father said no.

Jared sat down with his back to Sandy and began sifting through the pieces of the toy space station. With his attention on the toy, she decided to check on Liz.

Roger’s face was a picture of worry as she entered the bedroom.

“
She’s getting worse.”

Sandy hugged herself in the doorway as Roger placed another cool washcloth on Liz’s forehead. “The fever just won’t break. I don’t know what to do.”

“
Have you tried reaching Dr. Laird again?”

“
Yeah. I finally got through. The receptionist said he’s out making house calls. Seems a lot of people are sick. She said she’s had more calls today than she can ever remember.”

“
Is he going to come?”

“
She said she’d try and get him here as soon as possible, but he’s got eleven other patients to see.”

“
That could be hours!” Sandy sagged against the door.

“
I know. If the fever continues to rise…” Roger let the rest trail off.

“
I don’t like this,” Sandy said gravely. “I think we should get her to a hospital before they enforce the curfew.”

“
You’re right.”

WASHINGTON HARBOR COMPLEX.

3:01 P.M.

He was suffocating.

Lost in darkness, an incredible weight crushed his lungs and constricted his throat.

He was at the bottom of the sea, sinking into a deep crevasse, the water pressure beyond belief. Blood pounded inside his ears as he struggled against the weight, fought the blackness which sought to envelop him. Then a brilliant white light exploded behind his eyes and he was lifted upwards. Steadily at first, as if he were floating instead of sinking, then rapidly as if the light were drawing him towards it. But the pain inside him
mounted, tearing at his insides, swelling his organs.

It was the bends. He was coming up too fast to decompress, veins and arteries swelling.

Then faces appeared in the light.

The mother he hardly remembered.

His Grandmother.

Billy Katz.

Suki.

Mitra.

Ryan.

The faces started to melt together into an amorphous, indistinct mass.

Corvino sat up, his breath rasping between clenched teeth. He shook his head to clear it, then doubled over in pain.

Hunger gnawed at his stomach like a rat trying to eat its way out of a cage. Moist, red visions of meat swirling behind his eyes.

Food.

He had to eat. Nothing else mattered.

He went to the kitchen.

He opened the refrigerator. A carton of yogurt. A bottle of Evian water. Tempeh. Tofu. Brown rice and mixed vegetables.

Meat.
Need meat
.

He hadn’t bought food since returning from…

Where had he been?

He’d been somewhere. A warm climate with a green sky at night. The smell of fresh limes on the breeze.

Where?

He couldn’t remember.

Burning pain lanced his guts.

“
No!”

Food.
He had to eat…meat.

But he was a vegetarian…he didn’t eat…
meat
…

The craving obliterated the thought, and he lurched from the kitchen towards the front door. He had to find something to eat.

Fresh meat. Bloody. Raw.

Rational thought was crushed by blind, obsessive desire.

Corvino stumbled from his apartment, leaving the door open behind him.

Fresh meat.

Where?

Food…

the apartments below. Fourth floor.

He called the elevator, his stomach churning with shards of broken glass as he waited.

The elevator arrived and he staggered inside.

Comeoncomeonecomeon!

The doors pinged open at four. Corvino bolted from the elevator. He stumbled in the hallway, clutching at his head. Without thinking, he heaved his shoulder against the nearest door. He tried again. The door wouldn’t budge. Reaching under his left arm he pulled his .45 automatic from its holster, firing twice at the lock. The boom of the reports echoed down the hall as he brought his foot up to kick the door in. It gave, the damaged wood splintering with the force of the blow, slamming against the wall and bouncing back on its hinges. He brushed it aside as he entered, gun up and ready.

The apartment was empty.

He ran to the refrigerator in the kitchen, almost wrenching the door off its frame. A pickle jar crashed to the floor.

Milk, eggs, a large Tupperware container of cold pasta and tomato sauce. He swept the contents aside, a carton of eggs tumbling to smash on the white tiles. Yanking out the cold meats tray, he found an unopened pack of bacon. Placing the gun on the counter, he bit open the plastic and sunk his teeth into the raw meat. He chewed for a while, then spat lumps of fat on the floor. It tasted disgusting. Hurling the slab of bacon aside, he reached into the compartment for a large, juicy-looking rump steak he spied at the back of the tray. He ripped the slice of flesh from its Handiwrap coating with relief. It smelled good, felt wonderful in his hands. He bit down, tearing at the flesh like a crazed dog, gulping down the pieces…

Then gagged, his stomach rebelling against the raw flesh.

He vomited onto the cracked eggs, his feet. Tears welled in his eyes. Tears of frustration as much as tears of emetic pain.

Can’t keep anything down!

The hunger continued to scrape at his stomach lining like a woman’s long fingernails clawing delicate silk.

Nononononononono!!!…

Flesh.

He needed flesh.

Human flesh.

No, not that. He…couldn’t. He’d witnessed many atrocities in his time, participated in some, albeit as a bystander—

Angola
.

(the mercenaries raped her raped the pregnant woman one after the other as he stood guard as the shanty burned the woman’s screams piercing the clear sky blood flowing from her ruptured womb as rifle barrels bayonets penetrated her torn vagina the blood flowing into the dry cracked earth she screamed she screamed screamed the blood…)

Blood.

Human blood.

Flesh.

He…needed…to…taste…

Corvino dropped the raw steak, pounding his fists against the wall, then fled the apartment.

His mind slipped gears, stripping away the cogs of rationality. Blood pounded in his ears.

Blood.

Blood.

Flesh.

Blood.

Flesh.

Blood.

He ran to the elevator, punched the button.

As soon as the doors opened, he dived inside, pounding the first-floor button as he staggered, trying to regain his footing. He was sweating like a racehorse, but his skin was cold.

The elevator descended.

Get out.

He had to get out.

With a soft
ping!
the doors opened as the elevator glided to a halt. Corvino pushed through, stumbling into the entrance lobby, his head whirling like he’d just ridden an amusement park ride. The lobby was empty except for an overweight woman in a rust-stained floral print dress slumped on the floor in the space between the double set of glass doors. He was going to collapse if he didn’t eat soon.

Slamming open the first set of glass doors he nearly tripped over the woman’s legs.

She looked up at him as he saw the body of Frank O’Barr, the doorman, lying prone next to her fat frame.

“
I’m cold…where am I?”

Her voice was far away. Corvino’s eyes blurred for an instant and he toppled against the far wall, trying to focus.

“
He cheated on me,” the woman mumbled. “He thought I didn’t know. And when I did, he didn’t care. He taunted me. But he’s mine, yes, he’s mine. All mine.”

She held up something small, pink, and bloody in her left hand.

“
See? He’s mine.”

Corvino ignored her. His lungs jerked at the smell of fresh blood—the ripe flow from O’Barr’s torn larynx.

A section of his right cheek was gone, chewed away.

“
I loved him.”

The fat woman peered up towards Corvino, an inquisitive child.

“
See?”

She raised her hand again, unclenching her fingers to reveal a severed penis.

Disgust welled inside him.

He kicked out, the tip of his boot connecting with the point of her jaw. The woman’s head jerked with a loud snap on contact, the force of the blow smashing her teeth together. Enamel crunched. A low whimper crept from between her bloodied lips. Corvino hesitated, half realizing what he’d done, then bent forward to take her head tenderly between his hands.

Her eyes registered confusion, then hardened as if she suddenly knew, the force of the head kick clearing the fog. Imploring him to end the nightmare.

His shoulders heaved as he twisted suddenly to the right. Her neck cracked loudly in the claustrophobic confines of the space, and the woman’s eyes glazed as they rolled up into their sockets.

He shoved her to one side, then fell upon the fresh body of the doorman.

NEW YORK.

3:11 P.M.

Roger slowed the car as he reached the roadblock at the approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Liz moaned deliriously in the back seat. Her temperature had reached 105 degrees in the last hour, and Sandy had insisted he take her to the emergency unit at Beth Israel.

Traffic coming off the bridge onto the Brooklyn Queens Expressway was heavy and slow-moving. There were National Guardsmen and cops everywhere, the police directing the traffic, trying to keep it moving, the guardsmen standing around ominously, guns at the ready.

A soldier approached the car, and Roger wound down the window.

“
Turn the car around,” the soldier said. “Stay home.”

“
My wife’s ill! I’ve got to get her to a hospital.”

The soldier peered in the back of the car. Liz moaned again.

“
If it’s an emergency, go on.”