Zombie, Illinois (41 page)

Then disaster strikes.

I'm preparing to leap out of the window and onto the lawn, when a giant shape looms behind Franco. In my peripheral vision, it only registers as movement. Very large movement. I pivot to take a proper look, and something hits the side of my head and sends me reeling to the floor. Then Franco starts screaming.

I look up and see that the massive corpse of Pastor Rivers has risen. The grenade explosion has filled its front with wooden splinters, but its brain remains intact. The face looks like someone going for the Guinness record for piercings, but this is no body modification. This is a zombie who has been transformed into a spiny porcupine.

Before I can react, the Rivers-thing grips Franco from behind. The pastor's massive muscles flex and lift my screaming cousin skyward. The splinter-covered mouth opens to take a bite.

Franco struggles and bucks, but the Pastor only grips him tighter. Hideously, I realize that Franco's screams are not from terror. The splinters from the pastor's chest—and arms and hands—are entering Franco's body. Rivers has become a walking iron maiden.

I fumble with my gun, losing crucial seconds. I try to aim from my supine position, but Franco is flailing in the way. The Rivers-thing begins biting into the top of his skull. Franco understands what is happening, and a horrible knowing comes over his face. I manage to get to my feet. Franco continues to struggle. I step in close and put my gun against the Rivers-thing's head.

BLAM!

The giant zombie's eyes cross, and it falls to the floor in a heap. Franco screams as the splinters retract from his body. Other splinters—I quickly see—are left behind. Like the zombie, he also falls to the ground. His wounds do not look fatal, but he's bleeding a lot and full of wood. I don't see any way he can continue to fight. His screams ebb to a moan, then to near silence.

“.fuck.” he manages.

“Don't try to move,” I tell him. “I have to get Mack. I'll be right back.”

Franco nods to say he understands. As I bend to pick up his gun, he slowly pulls the first of about fifty splinters from his body.

I stalk to the back of the house where the rest of my family is huddled.

“Papi,”
I say. “I need your help.”

Sooner than I like, I run out of bullets. I have not been able to hit any of my targets. Our attackers remain huddled behind the car, very much alive. They have expended a few bullets shooting the zombies that ambled up behind them, but they haven't returned fire at me. (Which they haven't really needed to.because I suck at shooting.)

I have no idea if Mack has taken out the shooter to the north of the house. Until I hear otherwise, I want to keep Shawn Michael and his goons pinned. But I can't do that with zero bullets.

I run to the top of the staircase, hoping to pick up another discarded firearm from somewhere. Down below, I see a determined-looking Maria huddled with her father near the front door.

“Ben, c'mere,” she urges.

I clomp down the stairs as quickly as I can. The front door is open, and I can see the yellow car beyond. I worry about being shot through the door.

“I ran out of bullets,” I tell her. “I didn't hit any of them”

Wordlessly, Maria hands me a heavy black Glock.

“That has a full magazine,” Maria says. “Fifteen rounds. I need you to use it to lay down fire on Shawn Michael again. Mack got shot, but we got the shooter. Mack's still alive. My dad and I are gonna drag him to safety.”

Next to Maria, the mayor looks like he's hearing this plan for the first time. He looks up at me like I can provide confirmation.

“Whatever you say,” I tell Maria. I take the gun and head back up the stairs to my firing-perch.

“Just start shooting” Maria calls after me. “We'll take it from there.”

The mayor looks over at her as if to say
We will?

I get back upstairs and draw a bead on the yellow car.

More and more, I'm starting to wonder if the best plan might not be trying to wait them out. The men out front have no shelter (outside of busted cars) and no food or water (that I can see). It will get seriously cold when the sun gets low. They will have to find sustenance and shelter. Maybe all we have to do is outlast them for the rest of the day, then they'll go look for food and warmth and we can escape.

Whatever the case, that comes later. Now we've got to get Mack off the lawn. Now it's shooting time.

I see Shawn Michael talking to his boys down below. One of them leans around the side of the car like he might want to charge us. He braces himself against the car like a runner in the starting blocks.

No you fucking don't.

I point the Glock and squeeze off a round. The man flinches and jumps back behind the car. Below me, I hear the sound of Maria and the mayor heading out the front door.

How many of these did Maria say I had? Fifteen? Got to make them last. I point the gun at the car and pull the trigger again. This time, I actually hit something; my bullet makes a round silver hole in the hood. Fuck yeah.

I wait. Nothing happens. Shawn Michael and his cohorts don't shoot back. They don't even move. Even so, I send another bullet in their direction every few seconds. I try to keep track of how many I have left.

When I am down to five, I hear the sound of movement again on the doorstep below me. There is the shuffling of feet, but also a baritone moan that can only be from Mack. He is with them and—for the moment at least—apparently still alive.

I decide to squeeze off another shot before heading downstairs. I take a deep breath like I've seen snipers do in movies.
Hold it Ben, hold it.
I try to get Shawn Michael in my sights. (I'm a terrible shot and I know it, but maybe this time . . . just
rnaybe...)
My body tenses as I prepare to pull the trigger.

Then I hear one of the men behind the car scream “Aww, hell yeah!”
really
loud.

Another adds “That's I'm talkin' ‘bout. Ow! My
motherfuckers!”

It is unnerving. I hesitate. I don't pull the trigger. Something in the vibration of the air has changed, and I can feel it. I lower the Glock. I then look out past the yellow car and see what it is.

Coming up the block is a group of men and women in heavy winter coats. Fifty people at least. They are armed to the teeth— in some cases literally—but they don't behave aggressively toward Shawn Michael's group. Rifles are slung over shoulders. Handguns are displayed openly in waistbands. One gentleman holds a glistening knife in his mouth, despite the cold.

Most unnerving of all, they don't look like gangsters—they look like the local politicians and community leaders I see in meetings across the city every day. Which—terrifyingly—is what they are.

This part of the mob could be a priest and some parishioners from the Polish Catholic League, heading to a city forum to express displeasure with a new pornographic billboard. Next to them might be a collection of youth mentors from the Roberto Clemente outreach gang violence program in Humboldt Park. And next to these could be a smiling, convivial detachment from the Ping Tom Improvement Association in Chinatown.

My heart jumps to my throat. Can these people be with Marja Mogk?
All
of them? Has the corruption spread that far?

Erasing all doubt, Shawn Michael Recinto gives the group a hearty wave from behind the car. He then indicates my position with his index finger. A moment later, someone from the advancing horde takes a potshot at me. A bullet
SPATS
into the side of the wall, only a few feet from my face.

This is the worst part of a zombie outbreak. People you know—people who were your friends and associates just the day before—are now roaming the streets and trying to kill you. But they're not the zombies. They're the horrible people who want to run the city.

I retreat back inside the bedroom and head frantically for the stairs.

“Holy shit!” I shout to whoever is left alive below. “There's fifty more coming down the street! Fifty more!”

I race to the bottom of the staircase and shut the front door of the house. Everyone's at the back. Maria, Mack, the mayor, and even Franco—who is apparently filled with wooden splinters— have retreated to the back bedroom with Maria's mother and sister. They all look up as I race down the hallway toward them. I skitter like a cat on the linoleum and blood, then come flailing into the bedroom like a wild man. I slam the door behind me.

“Fifty more?” says Maria. “What're you—”

“Shawn Michael's group wasn't sent here to kill us,” I cry breathing hard. “They were the scouting party. They were sent ahead to trap the mayor until the
real
killers could get mustered. And I think they just did.”

“My God,” says the mayor. “They must really want me dead.”

“Each one of those people has been promised a reward if they help Marja kill you,” I say dourly. “Each one of them has decided to sell a little bit of his or her soul to get ahead. That's the Chicago way.”

“I think the mayor knows that already,” Mack says from his position on the floor.

For a moment, it's hard to tell who is speaking. All strength and sonorousness has disappeared from his voice. It's like hearing a mighty brasswind reduced to a buzzing mouthpiece.

I look him over and see that the bullet has travelled through Mack's left shoulder. There is a sizable wound. With his right hand, Mack reaches across his chest and tries to hold it closed. There is, however, an exit wound in his back which he cannot reach. Blood is escaping from it and pooling underneath him. It turns the tan carpet red. Without the intercession of a doctor, Mack does not have long to live.

“I have to give myself up,” the mayor says. “There's no point to more fighting.”

“That won't save any of us,” I explain. “They need us dead. There can't be witnesses.”

“Well then,” says the mayor, “what is there left to do but die?”

I lean against the wall, trying to think of an answer.

Sooner than I like, I run out of bullets. I have not been able to hit any of my targets. Our attackers remain huddled behind the car, very much alive. They have expended a few bullets shooting the zombies that ambled up behind them, but they haven't returned fire at me. (Which they haven't really needed to.because I suck at shooting.)

I have no idea if Mack has taken out the shooter to the north of the house. Until I hear otherwise, I want to keep Shawn Michael and his goons pinned. But I can't do that with zero bullets.

I run to the top of the staircase, hoping to pick up another discarded firearm from somewhere. Down below, I see a determined-looking Maria huddled with her father near the front door.

“Ben, c'mere,” she urges.

I clomp down the stairs as quickly as I can. The front door is open, and I can see the yellow car beyond. I worry about being shot through the door.

“I ran out of bullets,” I tell her. “I didn't hit any of them”

Wordlessly, Maria hands me a heavy black Glock.

“That has a full magazine,” Maria says. “Fifteen rounds. I need you to use it to lay down fire on Shawn Michael again. Mack got shot, but we got the shooter. Mack's still alive. My dad and I are gonna drag him to safety.”

Next to Maria, the mayor looks like he's hearing this plan for the first time. He looks up at me like I can provide confirmation.

“Whatever you say,” I tell Maria. I take the gun and head back up the stairs to my firing-perch.

“Just start shooting” Maria calls after me. “We'll take it from there.”

The mayor looks over at her as if to say
We will?

I get back upstairs and draw a bead on the yellow car.

More and more, I'm starting to wonder if the best plan might not be trying to wait them out. The men out front have no shelter (outside of busted cars) and no food or water (that I can see). It will get seriously cold when the sun gets low. They will have to find sustenance and shelter. Maybe all we have to do is outlast them for the rest of the day, then they'll go look for food and warmth and we can escape.

Whatever the case, that comes later. Now we've got to get Mack off the lawn. Now it's shooting time.

I see Shawn Michael talking to his boys down below. One of them leans around the side of the car like he might want to charge us. He braces himself against the car like a runner in the starting blocks.

No you fucking don't.

I point the Glock and squeeze off a round. The man flinches and jumps back behind the car. Below me, I hear the sound of Maria and the mayor heading out the front door.

How many of these did Maria say I had? Fifteen? Got to make them last. I point the gun at the car and pull the trigger again. This time, I actually hit something; my bullet makes a round silver hole in the hood. Fuck yeah.

I wait. Nothing happens. Shawn Michael and his cohorts don't shoot back. They don't even move. Even so, I send another bullet in their direction every few seconds. I try to keep track of how many I have left.

When I am down to five, I hear the sound of movement again on the doorstep below me. There is the shuffling of feet, but also a baritone moan that can only be from Mack. He is with them and—for the moment at least—apparently still alive.

I decide to squeeze off another shot before heading downstairs. I take a deep breath like I've seen snipers do in movies.
Hold it Ben, hold it.
I try to get Shawn Michael in my sights. (I'm a terrible shot and I know it, but maybe this time . . . just
rnaybe...)
My body tenses as I prepare to pull the trigger.

Then I hear one of the men behind the car scream “Aww, hell yeah!”
really
loud.

Another adds “That's I'm talkin' ‘bout. Ow! My
motherfuckers!”

It is unnerving. I hesitate. I don't pull the trigger. Something in the vibration of the air has changed, and I can feel it. I lower the Glock. I then look out past the yellow car and see what it is.