This theory also held up in the case of the officer who had fired the gun at the police officers who had raided
St. Francis'
Church
those weeks ago. Initially, Ludlow had chalked that up to a physical memory that the bacterium had made permanent. It hadn't shown any real skill with the weapon, just the ability to shoot it. As to the officers' claims that it was
leading
the others, Ludlow doubted it. In his opinion, it was safe to say that the heightened tension had affected the perceptions of the men involved.
Still, if this outlying behavior were to become the norm, then what would be the new outlying behavior? How long was it before they started exhibiting true intelligence? This was the new dilemma that Ludlow faced. His mind was so bogged down with the research, the unending attempts to fight the bacterium. His mind was bogged down with the guilt over having created in the first place. People in his field created new life in laboratories all over the world all of the time. But most of those organisms failed and either died out or were destroyed. But not his. His was strong and capable. It had defied nature and defied its creator by surviving, by thriving, by ruining humanity.
Is it too much for you?
Ludlow turned to find the voice. He was back in the
Zoo
. It was his new home away from home. At first, shame had kept him away. Now it was shame that drew him there. He stood close to the first of the human enclosures, close to the exit. There was a lone guard patrolling the corridor. Sometimes it wasn't manned at all. The zombies couldn't escape their cells and, even if they did, the door leading into the
Zoo
was locked and only passable with an ID card. The guard was down at the other end of the hallway, his back to Ludlow. He was alone.
I asked you a question.
Spinning, Ludlow looked directly into the cage at his right. It was Todd Mayfield's cage. The zombie Todd was sitting on the floor, its legs splayed out in front of it. But its head was turned, its eyes alive. It was looking right at him.
Dipping his face, Ludlow rubbed at his eyes with his fists. When he looked up again, Todd was no longer sitting. He was standing right at the glass, his body covered in bits and pieces of his meals. In life, Todd had been a big man with a well defined physique. A lot of that muscle had worn away through inactivity and death. His face was drawn, his color a sallow brown. His eyes, those eyes that had been dead for all of those months, now burned as they looked deep into Ludlow.
"Did you say something?" Ludlow asked Todd, feeling foolish.
I did
, answered the unmoving monstrosity.
Is it, are we, am I too much for you?
Ludlow looked down the corridor and saw the guard turning, starting his patrol back his way. "How can you…"
Answer the question!
Startled, Ludlow jumped. "Yes," he said. "It's too much. I'm so sorry."
The Todd thing laughed at him.
Sorry? You? Is God sorry every time he creates something that shouldn't exist? No. And neither are you.
"I am," Ludlow answered. "All of those people."
I'm one of those people and I see right through you. But you… You people are all the same. You know you shouldn't pretend to be God but you just can't help yourselves. Tinker a bit here, tinker a bit there and, poof, all of the natural laws are thrown out the window.
"I didn't mean for it to happen this way. I didn't
want
this!"
"Rudy?"
Ludlow turned again and saw the guard. It was Paul and they'd struck up something of a friendship in the past few weeks. Ludlow was careful with his friendships. When his research had ended, he had kept people at arms' length. And then he'd met Lucy and he couldn't stand the loneliness any longer. But his affair with Lucy had had disastrous results. His affair with Lucy had wiped out her entire family and thousands of others. His discovery of that connection had been the final blow. Now he spent most of his time in the lab. The small apartment he'd rented stood cold and empty except when he absolutely had to breathe the outside air for a night.
Paul was standing just five feet away, looking at him queerly. He was a good sort, the kind of guy that ignored social barriers. He was good enough to befriend anyone and everyone was good enough to befriend him. When Ludlow turned his head back to Todd, the zombie was sitting back on the floor in its original position.
"I'm sorry," Ludlow muttered, not sure to whom he was talking.
"Don't sweat it, Rudy. Talking to them isn't a problem." He smiled. "There's only a problem if they start answering you back."
***
Heron mostly stopped listening after the doctor told him that he was going to die. After all, that was the bottom line. He was going to die. The cancer had come back, if it had ever really been gone. When first diagnosed, the doctor had been all comfort and confidence. It's just one spot. It's in a place that's easy to reach.
Let's not downplay the seriousness of it, but there's no reason to start making funeral arrangements.
Well all of that had changed. He was serious now, almost deadpan. He illustrated the situation using the results of the tests and educated the lieutenant about his chances of survival, even with treatment. A full round of chemotherapy, which would be difficult and painful, might buy an extra year of life. Probably more like nine months. Without it, the prognosis was four to six months.
It only seemed right. Heron didn't believe that his return to smoking had caused the recurrence. He'd only been smoking a week. It was just a coincidence. God bringing the axe down on the sinner. He stood up while the doctor was in mid-sentence and extended his hand. The doctor was confused for a moment, then took the offered hand. That's what Heron liked about him. He wasn't one to push when pushing wasn't called for.
"I guess I'll see you at the end, then," Heron said.
The doctor nodded. "You know where to find me if you need me."
Heron offered him a Mona Lisa smile and left. Coming down the elevator, he passed through the Emergency Room on his way out. The hospital was
Sisters of Charity
, the infamous
Sisters of Charity
. Several months before, this had been the site of the world's first public zombie encounter. A patient with the infection had died, turned, and attacked a room full of people. Though Anthony Heron's first experience with the undead had come a week before, the attack at the hospital had been a landmark event for him as well. He'd been there by chance, getting ready for his cancer surgery (
fat lot of good that had been
) when the ER had been locked down because of the rising dead. Well, he'd just
had
to get involved. In the end, the situation had been contained and his captain had given him the job of Zombie Task Force Commander. It was a job that he hadn't wanted and one that had been beating him down ever since. By now all of the damage to the ER had been repaired and the blood long since cleaned from the walls. Doctors, nurses and orderlies bustled around the place. Security was a bit tighter and he was sure that there were protocols for handling infected patients, but there was no evidence of the trauma that had shook the institution to its foundation.
Looking around, Heron tried to remember some of the names and faces of those who had been there on that day. Dr. Mancina. Dr. Luco. Frank Culph. And of course Abby Benjamin. It seemed that they were almost destined to know each other. He hadn't spoken with her in a few weeks, not since getting the text which had taken him and Greg Smith up to the Bronx to break up a zombie fighting ring. He still didn't know how Abby had come to be in that place. He should have asked her. He'd been negligent in not doing so. But in the end he'd found that he just didn't want to know. Sometimes it was harder to hear the answers than it was to live with the questions.
Another face that stuck out in his memory was Todd Mayfield's. Todd had been a security guard in the ER. When the zombie had attacked, Todd and another guard, Sven, had moved in. Todd had scraped his knuckle, punching the monster. Then he'd fled before the lockdown. Sven had been killed, partially eaten, and turned. At the end, there'd been nothing left of Sven, but poor Todd had suffered the course of the disease and become a zombie himself. He now resided in the
Zoo
beneath
Arthur Conroy Memorial Hospital
in Manhattan.
Heron didn't realize he was lingering until a nurse asked him if he was Shimon Goldfarb. He looked at her with the expression of the truly confounded, shook his head, and then proceeded out into the cold street. Once outside, he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his coat pocket, fished one out, and lit up. It tasted sweet. For the past week, he had been hiding his smoking from Alicia and from Mellie. He'd hid it from Naughton and from just about everyone else. Now, though, it didn't matter. He could smoke as much as he wanted. What more could it do to him? Maybe the cancer's return was a liberation of sorts. In fact, he
did
feel liberated. He almost felt invincible. He could do whatever he liked and none of it mattered because his finite time among the living had been mapped out.
Push Ups Gym
was about two blocks from the hospital. He'd covered half the distance when he decided against visiting Abby there. Not only hadn't he called her, but she hadn't called him either. What good what it do to ask the questions that he hadn't wanted answered before? In four to six months, he would be dead and the suspicion of Abby's wrongdoing would die with him. In his heart, he decided that was a good thing. Just this once, instead of being a cop, he would be judge and jury. After hearing none of the testimony and considering none of the evidence, he had found her not guilty. And that was the way it would stay.
So he changed direction and headed for the train. There was some big meeting going on at headquarters in which he was supposed take part. That meeting was already underway. He'd informed Naughton of his appointment. Just a couple of weeks before, he would have postponed the appointment and not only attended the meeting, but run it and kept the minutes. Not anymore. Naughton had stepped in and taken on half of the responsibility. Heron would not have another emotional collapse like the one he'd experienced on Christmas. If he was only to have a few months of this year, they would be good months. He was going to go home at night and stay home on the weekends. He was going to be a husband and a father as well as a police lieutenant. He could fight zombies while he was at work and leave it to someone else when he was off duty.
The train ride was short. He went straight to the building and swiped his ID card for entry. In the last week, the city had converted the entire building for Zombie Task Force use. The commissioner had also renamed the Zombie Task Force. They were now the NYPD Undead Unit. Heron didn't think the name was particularly inspired. Everyone called them Zombie Cops regardless. Naughton was given the reigns of command. He didn't protest and smiled with thin lips during the press conference. Heron was his second. That was all right with Heron. At least they'd let him keep his rank.
With the daily messages in hand, he went upstairs to his office. It was the same office he'd occupied before. A number of people had been moved to other floors, but Heron had asked to retain his space. The last thing he needed was the hassle of moving. One of the people manning the phones informed him that the meeting was still going on one floor below. Heron thanked him politely and went into the office. Closing the door behind him, he sank into the couch and pulled out his phone.
Alicia answered on the third ring. "Is everything all right?"
"Fine. I was just wondering what you wanted to do for dinner."
"I'm with a client, Anthony."
He looked at the clock, realized that his timing was bad. "I'm sorry," he said. "Call me back when you're done."
Sighing, he went to his desk, woke up the computer, and began sorting through some of the reports that had come in over the weekend. For a while he did this, not thinking about cancer or dying or even zombies from more than an abstract perspective. Most of these reports were the same. The officers quoted procedure, covered themselves in case there was some question about the outcome. They were boring and Heron grew impatient with them. So he switched over to the reports from the week before. There were seven reports, one each from Horton, Parrish, Baches, Lobel, Lewinski, Henry, and Rollins. Lobel had been with Spinelli at the asylum in New Jersey. He was no one of rank, but then again no one of rank had survived the incident and someone had had to file a report. A similar situation existed with Lewinski. As a man inside when Smith had raided the housing project in Brooklyn, he'd been elected to file the report. Rollins was a different story altogether. He'd been in charge of the team going into the parking structure in Manhattan but Henry had been squad leader. Heron gave Rollins' report a thorough read and found it very interesting. Interesting enough that he planned to read it a second time but was interrupted by the arriving Lance Naughton.
"Good morning," Naughton said, leaning inside the open door.
Heron waved him in and offered him a seat. He played with the mouse a bit, clicked a few spots on screen, and then gave the captain his attention. "How'd it go?"
Naughton shrugged. "It could have been better. I supposed it could have been worse."
"Was there someone from Homeland Security there?"