- - - Tanya's TEXT - - - is written in purple.
- - - Michael's TEXT - - - is written in red.
Chapter 3
Tasha often missed her mother. She had missed having her there by her side growing up. Her grandmother had tried to fill the shoes, especially since her grandmother had never had her own daughter, so this was her chance… Tasha knew her grandmother was grateful to have a girl around. But it wasn’t the same. Tasha missed her mom. She had missed having her mother there to help her get ready for her first date with Danny Delgado. Instead, she had to hurry and get ready before her grandfather showed off his rifle collection and her dad gave him the third degree. She had missed having her mother with her while getting ready for prom. Her grandmother tried to help pick the trendy dress and the fashionable hair style, but what looks good to one generation does not fit the other’s styles.
Tasha knew that her mother’s spirit had been with her through all of those times. Well, maybe not for sure, but that’s what she believed. She would visit the family gravesite on the farm often and have long talks about everything that had happened at school.
When Tasha had ended up in the car, driven by Danny, which was wrapped around the tree, Tasha had called out to her mother. Danny had drank, he was a few years older than her and had tried to show off. He had downed a couple sixers and had taken the one lane bridge on Faraday Road at 60 mph. The hump in the middle of the bridge had launched their car into the old pine. Danny was killed instantly. They had pealed Tasha from the car and rushed her to the hospital. It wasn’t the best hospital, but the closest trauma center was too far away in Huntsville. So she was taken to the hospital at Arab.
They did their best to take care of her. She had lost a lot of blood. The first to the hospital was her grandfather and grandmother, since her father had been out in Boaz. She found out later that when quizzed, her grandparents had listed her blood type as AB. Her father arrived about an hour or so later and corrected the information, but the damage was done. She didn’t remember much about the incident, or that the blood was wrong, or that even her grandparents or father was there at her side. What she did remember was that her mother had walked into the room.
Her mother, Vashti Galloway Harris, had rich auburn hair and hazel eyes. She was as Irish as they come. Her grandfather had been moved to the United States by his parents with a large group of Irish immigrants during one of the many potato famines. She had told stories about her many visits to Ireland as a child and in her teens to Tasha.
Tasha had been scared when she woke up in the hospital bed, even though or maybe because she was so dazed. Her bracelet had been taken off of her, and she never took it off, and so it bothered her, probably more than it should have. It was simple thing, not silver or bronze, but some tarnished metal somewhere in between. It had a small green gem in the shape of a heart with a tiny metal crown above it. It'd been a gift from her mother. When her mother had walked in, Tasha knew everything would be all right. Her mother strolled up to her bedside, wearing a long white dress. She had brushed Tasha’s cheek and told her, “Things will be all right. They may look bad, but they’ll be all right.”
A few days later, the doctors had discovered the cancer. They said it was lucky that Tasha had been in the accident. The leukemia was caught early, but she needed a bone marrow transplant. Her father and grandparents cried whenever they thought she wasn’t looking, but she caught it a couple times. They sat vigil by her bed and told her she’d be alright. She had told them she knew they were right, but she didn’t tell them why she believed it.
When she came out of surgery, her mother was there smiling at her. Her grandparents and father were there too. She told them she was alright. Tasha then told her mom she missed her. The room had erupted in tears. A few months later, when her grandmother was caring for her at home, her grandmother had asked her why she had talked of her mother at the hospital.
Tasha had explained, “I thought I had seen her. She said I’d be alright.”
That’s when her grandmother had told her about the fact that she had bottom-lined a few times during the procedure.
Tasha had asked if her grandmother thought that her mother’s spirit had been there. Her grandmother had answered that it was an angel and not her mother. That her mother’s spirit was in heaven with God. Tasha didn’t think that was true. It had been her mother, but her grandmother was convinced that God did not let the spirits walk… only the angels are used for messengers.
This was the final straw. It was time to leave home. She was going to have finish school and keep her plans hidden, because they were not going to let her go easily. Her first step, pick a nearby college. Her second step, get a degree. Her third step was to get a job in a big city, like Nashville or Atlanta or Chattanooga. She didn’t think she’d be able to live on campus while going to college, so she’d have to behave as expected until she moved out.
Inwardly, she began to rebel, though. She researched angels and ghosts. She read up on Heaven and death. When she finally made it to U of A, and found that her family was so excited at her scholarship that she of course could stay on campus. That was the ticket she needed. Within a month, her corruption was complete. She had converted to Buddhism. She had interviewed fortune tellers and spiritualists in hopes of contacting her mother. She had left Arab, Alabama behind. She would visit her family occasionally and put on the role of her old self to keep them sane, but she had metamorphosed.
It had been quite the shock to them, when she had dropped out of college. Her family had figured that she just didn’t have a head for college studies. She knew it was because she couldn’t concentrate. She hadn’t made any headway on her personal studies. Her mother’s ghost had not returned.
_____
Ghosts haunted every step of Javier Cortez’ life. He had changed his name and occupation so many times; he sometimes woke up and had to recite his current persona until he felt like himself again. He had married many times and left many widows. He was certain there was a kid out there as well. He had arranged for moneys to be set aside so his son would never want for anything. He also often arranged for someone to report on his son’s status, but never the same person twice and no one was read in on the situation. No one could know that he had that weakness. He didn’t leave any of them without regret and he often reminded himself that he had left them for THEIR safety as well as his.
He had an incredible resume, if one could believe a word of it. Some of it was true. He did have a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. He also had been trained in his youth in weapons, combat tactics, and explosives. He spoke a plethora of languages. He had been hired many times, sometimes by governments and sometimes by agencies. He had eliminated problems, handled situations, and covered up incidents.
On several occasions, Javier Cortez retired from ‘the business.’ He would find an advisory job or teach at a college, in order to blend back in to obscurity. He went to great efforts each and every time to cover his tracks and integrate into society. Each time he swore he’d stay this time… he was going to be legitimate. He would marry, join book clubs, organize charity events… His one failing was that he allowed one old contact to know his location, in case there was something he missed and needed to wrap up. That is how they found him each time. They would come with threats or pleas for assistance, appealing to his dignity, his humanity, his ego, or his fears.
The incident of Chaco Woods was only a handful of the ghosts that followed him. Sometimes they were on the faces of people who passed him on the street. Lonely and pained faces of past victims or enemies. Sometimes they were faces in the dark corners as he stopped to take a breath. Sometimes the ghosts waited for him to wake up in the middle of the night. The worst ones were the ghosts that waited for him to fall back asleep. They had control. They were able to exact revenge.
Javier gazed at the most recent picture of his son, Mateo. The picture was about two years old. He hadn’t hired someone recently to get a new one, only to deliver the next set of bonds and report back that the boy was as healthy as a twelve year old should be.
The passenger door opened, and Javier slid the picture back into his pocket. Coulter plopped back into the car. “So they’re together, now what are we waiting for?”
“Do you really want me to cause a ruckus by ripping them off the street in front of the public library or inside an open bar?”
“You’re beginning to be full of excuses.”
“They aren’t going anywhere. They have no reason to suspect they’re being followed.”
“I’m tired of waiting.”
Javier shook his head. “If you want it done smoothly, you have to take your time. If you rush, there’s too much chance that something will go wrong or someone will get sloppy.”
Javier glanced over at Coulter. He was certainly not the worst man he’d ever worked with, but he was definitely near it. He couldn’t wait until he could retire again. Maybe this time it’d take. Maybe this time, he’d not leave any connections and completely go off the grid. Maybe then, after a few years, he could make his way back to his kid, introduce himself, catch up, and have the life he really wanted. He’d have to wait until the ghosts are gone. He’d have to leave them behind. He’d have to make sure men like Coulter couldn’t find him. He’d have to be certain it was safe. This, of course, would never happen, but he could dream. It gave him one more reason to keep trying.
____
Corner had accepted that he would have to change clothes. He had seen enough spy movies to know that it would be easy to tag his clothes. Tasha needed to change too. Worse yet, they couldn’t go home. They had both given their names, so their places were probably under surveillance. Zen drove them down to the truck stop.
Corner handed Guido over to Zen gently. “Check him over… wait… better yet, go buy a fedex box and ship him to the house.”
“Seriously, Corner?”
“You know what Guido means to me. Please, Zen.”
She signed heavily and crawled out of the car, leaving Guido in the seat. “I’ll take care of it. Get yourself in there.”
Tasha had already gone in and started on the plan. She had selected a pair of sweat pants and was thumbing through the range of t-shirts with dull-witted phrases printed on them. Corner found a pair of sweats and some canvas sneakers. It’s too bad the truck stop didn’t have much of a selection.
The audio speaker broke in, “Terry Henry, report the service desk. Your shower is ready.”
Corner looked up to see Tasha head off. She shrugged as she went by. “I thought I should avoid using my real name.”
“They have showers here?”
“It’s a truck stop. Most do… truckers have long hauls.” She darted back to the rack quickly and smiled as she grabbed a random shirt.
Corner made his way to the counter. It was better than his idea of just changing in the restroom. He would just have to not remember how many people in the history of film met their end in the shower. He picked a random name, Mort Yairly. Chuckling at his creativity, he went back to trying to select the least offensive and unintelligent t-shirt out of the choices. He finally settled with ‘My mother went to Ohio and I all I got was this lousy t-shirt.’
When they called his name, his new name, he heard Zen laughing at the other side of the store. He strained to see where she was, but couldn’t find her. Giving up, he went back to claim his shower. After he came out, he saw that Tasha had found Zenobia. He joined them.
“Ladies?”
“Zen’s getting directions to the fed-ex box.” Tasha turned toward him, wearing a shirt that said, ‘I voted for the other guy.’
“You both dumped your clothes, right? I mean it, keep only your credit cards, cash, and keys. The rest probably isn’t safe. If we’re going to do it, do it right.”
“Take care of Guido. I’ve got this.” Corner had put all of his stuff in a bag. He accepted a bag from Tasha and walked over to the cashier. He put down a wallet and pulled out his cards.
“What’s all of this?” The cashier was eying the bag.
“We encountered a skunk on the road. We have more miles to cover and the car’s too small to deal with this kind of stench.”
“Ah… happens all of the time.” The cashier rang up the wallet and Corner started filing his stuff into it, leaving out $10.00 to pay for it.
He thanked the girl, asked where the dumpster was, and made his way back to Zen and Tasha. “I’m going to go dump this stuff.”
“Then we load up and dump the bird and we can talk about our next plans?”
Corner nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Moments later they were back on the road, bird securely deposited in the fedex box.
“What now?” Zen yawned. “We’re unable to go home, it’s nearing 11pm.”
“We find a hotel, get a few rooms, and see about sleep.” Corner had to admit he was tired. He wasn’t sure if it was the safest of choices, but he was making this up as he was going.
“Why haven’t we left town?” Tasha mumbled from somewhere in the back.
“Because that’s what they would expect.” Corner rested his head on the back of the seat.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Zen turned into the parking lot of the hotel. “I have to work.”
“You go to work.” Corner had already thought about this too. “They may not know that you’re involved. We need the information connection. You work in a very public place so they won’t make a move, right? As long as you are careful to not be caught alone.”
“And the two of you?”
“I’ll skip class.” Corner looked back at Tasha. “You going to call in sick? I mean you were bitten.”
He was answered with snores. “She’ll call in sick. I’ll skip. And the three of us will work out what to do next. I’ll give you a list of questions to research… things like who is Dr. Cortez and why hasn’t the zombie incident caused town-wide panic.”
“And I’ll give you this,” Zenobia said, slipping a heavy object into Corner’s hand.
“A gun?” he half – shouted. “Where’d you get a gun!?” Corner was so shocked, he thought that it stung for a second, stung just to hold it.
“Quiet!” Zenobia half – whispered. “There are a LOT of things you don’t know about me, Mr. Johnson,” and she smiled.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Tasha often missed her mother. She had missed having her there by her side growing up. Her grandmother had tried to fill the shoes, especially since her grandmother had never had her own daughter, so this was her chance… Tasha knew her grandmother was grateful to have a girl around. But it wasn’t the same. Tasha missed her mom. She had missed having her mother there to help her get ready for her first date with Danny Delgado. Instead, she had to hurry and get ready before her grandfather showed off his rifle collection and her dad gave him the third degree. She had missed having her mother with her while getting ready for prom. Her grandmother tried to help pick the trendy dress and the fashionable hair style, but what looks good to one generation does not fit the other’s styles.
Tasha knew that her mother’s spirit had been with her through all of those times. Well, maybe not for sure, but that’s what she believed. She would visit the family gravesite on the farm often and have long talks about everything that had happened at school.
When Tasha had ended up in the car, driven by Danny, which was wrapped around the tree, Tasha had called out to her mother. Danny had drank, he was a few years older than her and had tried to show off. He had downed a couple sixers and had taken the one lane bridge on Faraday Road at 60 mph. The hump in the middle of the bridge had launched their car into the old pine. Danny was killed instantly. They had pealed Tasha from the car and rushed her to the hospital. It wasn’t the best hospital, but the closest trauma center was too far away in Huntsville. So she was taken to the hospital at Arab.
They did their best to take care of her. She had lost a lot of blood. The first to the hospital was her grandfather and grandmother, since her father had been out in Boaz. She found out later that when quizzed, her grandparents had listed her blood type as AB. Her father arrived about an hour or so later and corrected the information, but the damage was done. She didn’t remember much about the incident, or that the blood was wrong, or that even her grandparents or father was there at her side. What she did remember was that her mother had walked into the room.
Her mother, Vashti Galloway Harris, had rich auburn hair and hazel eyes. She was as Irish as they come. Her grandfather had been moved to the United States by his parents with a large group of Irish immigrants during one of the many potato famines. She had told stories about her many visits to Ireland as a child and in her teens to Tasha.
Tasha had been scared when she woke up in the hospital bed, even though or maybe because she was so dazed. Her bracelet had been taken off of her, and she never took it off, and so it bothered her, probably more than it should have. It was simple thing, not silver or bronze, but some tarnished metal somewhere in between. It had a small green gem in the shape of a heart with a tiny metal crown above it. It'd been a gift from her mother. When her mother had walked in, Tasha knew everything would be all right. Her mother strolled up to her bedside, wearing a long white dress. She had brushed Tasha’s cheek and told her, “Things will be all right. They may look bad, but they’ll be all right.”
A few days later, the doctors had discovered the cancer. They said it was lucky that Tasha had been in the accident. The leukemia was caught early, but she needed a bone marrow transplant. Her father and grandparents cried whenever they thought she wasn’t looking, but she caught it a couple times. They sat vigil by her bed and told her she’d be alright. She had told them she knew they were right, but she didn’t tell them why she believed it.
When she came out of surgery, her mother was there smiling at her. Her grandparents and father were there too. She told them she was alright. Tasha then told her mom she missed her. The room had erupted in tears. A few months later, when her grandmother was caring for her at home, her grandmother had asked her why she had talked of her mother at the hospital.
Tasha had explained, “I thought I had seen her. She said I’d be alright.”
That’s when her grandmother had told her about the fact that she had bottom-lined a few times during the procedure.
Tasha had asked if her grandmother thought that her mother’s spirit had been there. Her grandmother had answered that it was an angel and not her mother. That her mother’s spirit was in heaven with God. Tasha didn’t think that was true. It had been her mother, but her grandmother was convinced that God did not let the spirits walk… only the angels are used for messengers.
This was the final straw. It was time to leave home. She was going to have finish school and keep her plans hidden, because they were not going to let her go easily. Her first step, pick a nearby college. Her second step, get a degree. Her third step was to get a job in a big city, like Nashville or Atlanta or Chattanooga. She didn’t think she’d be able to live on campus while going to college, so she’d have to behave as expected until she moved out.
Inwardly, she began to rebel, though. She researched angels and ghosts. She read up on Heaven and death. When she finally made it to U of A, and found that her family was so excited at her scholarship that she of course could stay on campus. That was the ticket she needed. Within a month, her corruption was complete. She had converted to Buddhism. She had interviewed fortune tellers and spiritualists in hopes of contacting her mother. She had left Arab, Alabama behind. She would visit her family occasionally and put on the role of her old self to keep them sane, but she had metamorphosed.
It had been quite the shock to them, when she had dropped out of college. Her family had figured that she just didn’t have a head for college studies. She knew it was because she couldn’t concentrate. She hadn’t made any headway on her personal studies. Her mother’s ghost had not returned.
_____
Ghosts haunted every step of Javier Cortez’ life. He had changed his name and occupation so many times; he sometimes woke up and had to recite his current persona until he felt like himself again. He had married many times and left many widows. He was certain there was a kid out there as well. He had arranged for moneys to be set aside so his son would never want for anything. He also often arranged for someone to report on his son’s status, but never the same person twice and no one was read in on the situation. No one could know that he had that weakness. He didn’t leave any of them without regret and he often reminded himself that he had left them for THEIR safety as well as his.
He had an incredible resume, if one could believe a word of it. Some of it was true. He did have a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology. He also had been trained in his youth in weapons, combat tactics, and explosives. He spoke a plethora of languages. He had been hired many times, sometimes by governments and sometimes by agencies. He had eliminated problems, handled situations, and covered up incidents.
On several occasions, Javier Cortez retired from ‘the business.’ He would find an advisory job or teach at a college, in order to blend back in to obscurity. He went to great efforts each and every time to cover his tracks and integrate into society. Each time he swore he’d stay this time… he was going to be legitimate. He would marry, join book clubs, organize charity events… His one failing was that he allowed one old contact to know his location, in case there was something he missed and needed to wrap up. That is how they found him each time. They would come with threats or pleas for assistance, appealing to his dignity, his humanity, his ego, or his fears.
The incident of Chaco Woods was only a handful of the ghosts that followed him. Sometimes they were on the faces of people who passed him on the street. Lonely and pained faces of past victims or enemies. Sometimes they were faces in the dark corners as he stopped to take a breath. Sometimes the ghosts waited for him to wake up in the middle of the night. The worst ones were the ghosts that waited for him to fall back asleep. They had control. They were able to exact revenge.
Javier gazed at the most recent picture of his son, Mateo. The picture was about two years old. He hadn’t hired someone recently to get a new one, only to deliver the next set of bonds and report back that the boy was as healthy as a twelve year old should be.
The passenger door opened, and Javier slid the picture back into his pocket. Coulter plopped back into the car. “So they’re together, now what are we waiting for?”
“Do you really want me to cause a ruckus by ripping them off the street in front of the public library or inside an open bar?”
“You’re beginning to be full of excuses.”
“They aren’t going anywhere. They have no reason to suspect they’re being followed.”
“I’m tired of waiting.”
Javier shook his head. “If you want it done smoothly, you have to take your time. If you rush, there’s too much chance that something will go wrong or someone will get sloppy.”
Javier glanced over at Coulter. He was certainly not the worst man he’d ever worked with, but he was definitely near it. He couldn’t wait until he could retire again. Maybe this time it’d take. Maybe this time, he’d not leave any connections and completely go off the grid. Maybe then, after a few years, he could make his way back to his kid, introduce himself, catch up, and have the life he really wanted. He’d have to wait until the ghosts are gone. He’d have to leave them behind. He’d have to make sure men like Coulter couldn’t find him. He’d have to be certain it was safe. This, of course, would never happen, but he could dream. It gave him one more reason to keep trying.
____
Corner had accepted that he would have to change clothes. He had seen enough spy movies to know that it would be easy to tag his clothes. Tasha needed to change too. Worse yet, they couldn’t go home. They had both given their names, so their places were probably under surveillance. Zen drove them down to the truck stop.
Corner handed Guido over to Zen gently. “Check him over… wait… better yet, go buy a fedex box and ship him to the house.”
“Seriously, Corner?”
“You know what Guido means to me. Please, Zen.”
She signed heavily and crawled out of the car, leaving Guido in the seat. “I’ll take care of it. Get yourself in there.”
Tasha had already gone in and started on the plan. She had selected a pair of sweat pants and was thumbing through the range of t-shirts with dull-witted phrases printed on them. Corner found a pair of sweats and some canvas sneakers. It’s too bad the truck stop didn’t have much of a selection.
The audio speaker broke in, “Terry Henry, report the service desk. Your shower is ready.”
Corner looked up to see Tasha head off. She shrugged as she went by. “I thought I should avoid using my real name.”
“They have showers here?”
“It’s a truck stop. Most do… truckers have long hauls.” She darted back to the rack quickly and smiled as she grabbed a random shirt.
Corner made his way to the counter. It was better than his idea of just changing in the restroom. He would just have to not remember how many people in the history of film met their end in the shower. He picked a random name, Mort Yairly. Chuckling at his creativity, he went back to trying to select the least offensive and unintelligent t-shirt out of the choices. He finally settled with ‘My mother went to Ohio and I all I got was this lousy t-shirt.’
When they called his name, his new name, he heard Zen laughing at the other side of the store. He strained to see where she was, but couldn’t find her. Giving up, he went back to claim his shower. After he came out, he saw that Tasha had found Zenobia. He joined them.
“Ladies?”
“Zen’s getting directions to the fed-ex box.” Tasha turned toward him, wearing a shirt that said, ‘I voted for the other guy.’
“You both dumped your clothes, right? I mean it, keep only your credit cards, cash, and keys. The rest probably isn’t safe. If we’re going to do it, do it right.”
“Take care of Guido. I’ve got this.” Corner had put all of his stuff in a bag. He accepted a bag from Tasha and walked over to the cashier. He put down a wallet and pulled out his cards.
“What’s all of this?” The cashier was eying the bag.
“We encountered a skunk on the road. We have more miles to cover and the car’s too small to deal with this kind of stench.”
“Ah… happens all of the time.” The cashier rang up the wallet and Corner started filing his stuff into it, leaving out $10.00 to pay for it.
He thanked the girl, asked where the dumpster was, and made his way back to Zen and Tasha. “I’m going to go dump this stuff.”
“Then we load up and dump the bird and we can talk about our next plans?”
Corner nodded. “That’s the plan.”
Moments later they were back on the road, bird securely deposited in the fedex box.
“What now?” Zen yawned. “We’re unable to go home, it’s nearing 11pm.”
“We find a hotel, get a few rooms, and see about sleep.” Corner had to admit he was tired. He wasn’t sure if it was the safest of choices, but he was making this up as he was going.
“Why haven’t we left town?” Tasha mumbled from somewhere in the back.
“Because that’s what they would expect.” Corner rested his head on the back of the seat.
“What do we do tomorrow?” Zen turned into the parking lot of the hotel. “I have to work.”
“You go to work.” Corner had already thought about this too. “They may not know that you’re involved. We need the information connection. You work in a very public place so they won’t make a move, right? As long as you are careful to not be caught alone.”
“And the two of you?”
“I’ll skip class.” Corner looked back at Tasha. “You going to call in sick? I mean you were bitten.”
He was answered with snores. “She’ll call in sick. I’ll skip. And the three of us will work out what to do next. I’ll give you a list of questions to research… things like who is Dr. Cortez and why hasn’t the zombie incident caused town-wide panic.”
“And I’ll give you this,” Zenobia said, slipping a heavy object into Corner’s hand.
“A gun?” he half – shouted. “Where’d you get a gun!?” Corner was so shocked, he thought that it stung for a second, stung just to hold it.
“Quiet!” Zenobia half – whispered. “There are a LOT of things you don’t know about me, Mr. Johnson,” and she smiled.
--------------------------------------------------------------
8-16-2011
The car pulled up, and flashed its lights twice. The driver killed the engine, then got out. “Mr. Cortez,” he said.
“Mr. Durden,” Cortez replied. He turned to his partner. “Coulter, you can go back to the lab. Mr. Durden and I have this.” Coulter knew he was right, but wanted to be doubly sure, especially this close to the pay off.
“You have the package, Mr. Durden?” Coulter enquired.
“Yes, sir.”
“Show me.”
Durden walked back to his car, the two other men following.
“What kind of car is this?” Cortez asked.
“It’s a Ford Fiesta,” Durden replied.
“Really?” Cortez said, incredulously. “I thought they stopped making those.”
“They did, but they’re back.”
“Kind of small, isn’t it?” Coulter insinuated.
“The back seat doesn’t have much leg room, I’ll give you that, but the trunk is surprisingly roomy!” And with that, Durden opened the trunk. Inside was a bound and gagged Zenobia Sinclair.
“That IS roomy!” marveled Coulter.
“And it gets forty miles per gallon without being a hybrid!” Durden beamed, before slamming the trunk lid closed.
“Really!?” Coulter said. “That IS impressive! Is that duck tape on her mouth?”
“You mean duct tape,” Cortez corrected.
“What do you mean, Mr. Cortez?”
“You said duck tape, like the water fowl. It’s duct tape,” Cortez explained. “It was originally made to fix heating and air ducts. Duct tape.” Coulter wrinkled his nose.
“I don’t believe so. I saw it on an FAQ board in the public library. Duck or duct, either is appropriate.”
“No it’s not!” Durden broke in. “Cortez is right. It’s duct tape! ‘Duck Tape’ is a brand name. It’s a kind of duct tape made up in Cleveland.”
“I don’t think so!” Coulter argued. “Ask the librarian!” And so, Mr. Durden re-opened the trunk, reached in, and pulled the tape halfway off of Zenobia’s mouth.
“Miss,” he said, “is it duck tape or duct tape?”
“It’s duct tape,” she said. “Duck Tape is a brand name.”
“Dammit!” Coulter half yelled.
“Told ya,” Cortez said.
--------------------------------------------------------------
“I’m really sorry about this,” Tasha said to the hotel clerk. She had a pile of crumpled bills and stacks of coins spread out all over the counter of the check – in desk of the Sagamore Motor Hotel. “Tips,” she told the bored but lecherous looking old man behind the desk. “I’m a waitress.”
“I’ll bet you ARE,” he said. Neither Tasha nor Corner knew what that meant. She’d put on a button up sweater when the night had come and it had gotten colder. She found herself buttoning the top button to hide any glimpse of skin from the old man. He frowned and then began his spiel that he’d said a thousand times before.
“Price is twenty – nine dollars a night, the adult channel is channel five. Check – out is Noon, not twelve AM, not twelve PM, Noon. The adult channel is channel five. You wanna stay a week, it’s one ninety nine, due by day two, the adult channel is channel five. Monthly and you’re a renter, seven hundred by day two we need a photo ID not necessarily a drivers license but a photo ID you can get one made at the city center I don’t nothin’ about it, seven hundred fifty and the adult channel is channel five.”
Tasha was a little flummoxed, but just nodded and said, “Oooooh – kay, just the one night, then.” The lecherous little man counted out twenty – nine dollars and pushed the remaining towards her.
“You all right, honey?” hotel clerk asked. “You don’t look so good. Look a little gray around the gills, you do.”
“I’m fine,” Tasha said.
“That guy causing you troubles?” he asked in a whisper that was actually louder than his regular pattern of speech. Tasha looked over her shoulder at Corner. He was shuffling his feet, and rubbing the back of his right hand with the left, nervously.
“Him? No, no, he’s my… boyfriend.” Corner looked at her, surprised, then smiled. She smiled back.
“Allllll right,” the clerk said, not believing either of them. Tasha collected her remaining money, Corner collected the room key, and then they both headed out the door to their sure to be lovely $29 a night room.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Outside on the back wall of the building, facing the parking lot, was the semi – functional ice machine. On top of it they’d found an open twelve pack with seven beers inside it, and an open bag of pretzels. It was after midnight, and once inside their room, they decided that would suffice as their dinner, and then they could just hole up for the night.
In the room, there was just one bed. They hadn’t asked for two beds, and so they’d been given a room with just one. They both looked at each other briefly, but neither said anything.
Corner had managed to put away four beers in the time Tasha had drunk two, which wasn’t a feat because he had done so in half her time, but because he had never drunk four beers in a row in his life. He was more than a little drunk when he noticed Tasha stagger away to the bathroom. Then he heard her vomiting. He leapt up and ran to the room.
“No, no, I’m all right,” she was saying. But Corner was already down on one knee beside her, pulling her long, red hair away from her face and holding it as she vomited some more. She managed to turn his way and smile for a brief second at his chivalrous gesture, before she had to turn back and throw up yet again.
And again.
And then one more time after that.
Back on the bed, Tasha was lying on her back, watching the room spin, as Corner sat on the edge looking down on her. “Vomiting four times is good luck in Ireland, right?” he tried to joke. She smiled thinly back at him.
“That was nice,” she said, absent-mindedly spinning the bracelet on her left wrist.
“Oh yeah, puking in a seedy hotel is on my bucket list, too,” he said.
“No, you getting down on the floor with me. Holding my hair. That was… nice.” Now it was his turn to smile back at her.
“Well,” he said, “after all, I AM your boyfriend.”
Without warning, she sat bolt up, grabbed her purse, and was in the bathroom. In what seemed like a heartbeat, he could hear the zip of the purse, a quick gargle, and she was back standing in front of him. She dropped her purse to the floor, then the travel size mouth wash into it.
“You are my boyfriend, aren’t you, Mr. Johnson,” she said, unbuttoning the top button of her sweater. “Helping a complete stranger,” she said low and slow, and pop went the second button. With that one, Corner could see that she was no longer wearing a shirt under her sweater, or a bra either for that matter. He wasn’t sure when that could have happened – no one was that fast after all – but by the time the third button had come undone, he no longer cared. He only cared about the soft curves of the wondrously white flesh of her breasts slowly coming into view. As she climbed on top of him, her red hair fell over his face, and he was lost for a second. Her piercing green eyes cut through the flaming font of red as her face closed the gap to his, and their lips, ever so gently, touched.
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Mary Angela Piccalino moved into her grandmother’s house. Her old house was never sold. It just sat there, empty and hollow and unloved – like Mary herself. It wasn’t that her grandmother wasn’t a loving person, she was just busy. Her father had been busy, and her mother had been busy. Too busy for a child. Mary often wondered if they had left to go somewhere where they could be busy all the time, or if it was someplace that wasn’t busy at all.
Grandma Carafino had never had a job. She’d raised seven children, Mary’s mother had been the youngest and came eleven years after the sixth, what she’d thought was her last child. So, by the time Mary’s mother had gone away and left her only child, Grandma Carafino was in her seventies. Grandpa Carafino had left a small pension from working at the plant, and it was enough to keep grandma in her little house. But a child, and clothes and books, that’d cost extry, as she said. And at seventy-two, Angelica Carafino had to take her first job.
She worked at the grocer for a little while, but that didn’t work out. She’d baby sit for the ladies in the neighborhood for a time, but getting paid wasn’t always consistent, if at all. And so she’d finally settled into the Chinese laundry down the block. Raising seven children and a husband, laundry she knew how to do in spades. It wasn’t hard work, but the hours were long. Often, she’d see Mary off to school, then go to work. She’d get home in time to whup up supper, but often had to go back to the laundry afterwards. When she got home, Mary was either doing her homework or already put herself to bed. They passed like ships in the night, sometimes saying less than ten words to each other.
But Grandma Carafino didn’t complain, and so neither did Mary. It was what it was.
And so it was never a boy’s name or one of those new rock and roll groups that were scribbled across Mary’s school folders. No, year in and year out, it was one single word:
Lonely.
---------------------------------------------------
Coulter had been back in his lab for an hour or more, ate half a bag of cookies, and had watched three episodes of the Colbert Report without realizing (still) that the host was not, in fact, a right wing republican, but quite the opposite, when Cortez and Durden kicked in the door to room 121 of the Sagamore Motor Hotel. Tasha Harris’ teeth were just touching the top of Corner’s head, about to sink slightly into the sweet, sweet brain, when the two men burst into the room, guns drawn.
“Back away from the man, Tasha! Now!” Cortez yelled.
“Tasha, run!” Corner screamed, almost a verbal reflex, since he really hadn’t had enough time to assess the situation.
“Son, we just saved your life!” Cortez continued, “Now lie down and keep down!” Two laser – guided points of light moved on the girl’s shirt front. “Tasha, that’s just so you know we have you! You move an inch that we don’t tell you to, and those little red dots go right to your head! Do You Understand, Tasha!?” Tasha shook her head affirmatively. “Then you sit down, on the floor! Now, Tasha!” And Tasha did.
Cortez lowered his weapon slightly and looked at Mr. Durden, who promptly raised his so the laser pointed at Tasha’s forehead. Cortez slipped the small, black box in his left hand into his left pants pocket, then grabbed a chair away from the desk with his now free hand and sat down slowly.
“Now, let’s all be rational about this,” Cortez started, “and everyone here gets out alive. Well, everyone but you, Tasha.” He watched Corner, who was watching his every move. He purposely glanced down to his left then back up to see if Corner would follow. He did.
“What!?” Tasha yelled. Cortez blinked, but his facial expression did not change.
“Tasha,” he said slowly, “you’re already dead.”
A silence hung in the room as Tasha looked down, then confused, then at Corner. Then, in a quiet tone, almost a whisper, she repeated, “What?”
Cortez did not avert his eyes from hers. “You’re already dead, Tasha.”
“How…?” Tasha asked, not debating the fact, just asking. “How do you know?”
“For the last two months, you’ve been dating a man named Raleigh Coulter.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Corner blurted out.
“So?” Tasha said right back. “YOU have a girlfriend!” Cortez rubbed his eyes wearily for a second before continuing. He looked squarely at Corner, rubbing his left temple, and blinked. Corner blinked back, and watched and listened.
“For the past two months, Coulter has been testing you. He has drugged you at least four nights a week, taken blood, run tests, and injected you with tiny, nanobyte – sized chips to monitor you and everything about you – your breathing, your heart rate, your blood pressure, everything.” Tasha blinked slowly, trying to take it all in.
“You were exposed to a very special virus,” Cortez continued.
“I was bitten by a cheerleader!” Tasha said.
“Why are you telling her?” Durden asked.
“Durden, keep that gun pointed at her head!” Cortez yelled. “I know what I’m doing, and the best way to get this job done. Have you been in a zombie situation like this before?”
“No,” Durden answered. “No one has!”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Cortez answered, turning his eyes back to the frightened couple.
“Did you say z…” Tasha began, but Cortez talked over her.
“Your biting was planned, down to the day, hour, and minute. As was your time after that, to the lab, your unconsciousness there, the new implants, and then your escape.”
“New implants?”
“The escape was to get your adrenaline going. It both triggers and mixes with the neuro – toxins in the implants. It also sets a timer so more toxins would be released at designated intervals.”
“Tox…?”
“In the side car, you blacked out two or three times. You did not black out. You died. From the virus and toxins made to specifically attack your heart. But you came back. And so the toxins were released again. You died again, and came back. The third set did the trick. You were clinically dead for seven minutes. An implant at the base of your neck fed a steady stream of electrically – charged protons down your spine and into your head, so you wouldn’t be brain dead or paralyzed when you came back.”
“But…”
“You’re dead, Tasha Harris. If you eat or drink food or water, you will vomit it back up. You no longer eat like a person. Your heart no longer pumps blood, but your brain is active.”
“The human brain is made of materials not found anywhere else in nature. The ‘knit’ of the brain material is nearly one thousand times tighter and more complex than an entire side of beef. If you’ve ever eaten brains before this, you’ll have an inkling of what I’m talking about. It takes nine times as long to digest brain matter than it does the same amount of red meat.
“But, what happens…?”
“My guess is you’ll only have to eat a brain once a month at most. The brain matter will be converted almost entirely into the energy that runs your brain. When your brain gets ‘low on fuel’ you’re brain functions will slow. Your reflexes and muscles will slow also, as well as speech. You’ll begin to stumble like a zombie in a Romero movie until you recharge your brain with another brain. And then you’ll be fine again.”
“Fine?” Tasha asked incredulously. “I’ll be fine!?”
“On a diet of essentially pure brain food, you’ll be better than fine. You’ll think faster, you’ll move faster, you’ll absorb information like no human ever could. And you’ll live forever.”
“Except I’m not human anymore, am I? And I’m not technically alive anymore, either.”
Cortez looked at Tasha. He understood what she was saying, and he was honestly trying to help her come to terms with it.
“What’s the definition of life, Tasha? Enjoying each day? Relishing the miracle of another day on earth? If that’s the criteria, there are about eighty million office workers that haven’t lived a day in their lives. There are fifty million government employees that are the same. MOST people are sleep walking their way from one paycheck to another paycheck to the grave. Your lack of a heartbeat will mean nothing when you’re living each and every day to its fullest, and doing so two hundred years from now.”
“Except you’ll be nowhere near Tasha, then or now,” Corner said. He was pointing his gun at Agent Cortez’ chest; the gun Zenobia had given him.
“Oh, seriously?” Durden said, turning his gun and laser point onto Corner.
“I’ll shoot, Cortez, I swear it!” Corner was shaking as he spoke. Cortez just smiled, wanly.
“Corner is it?” he said. “Listen to me. You’re going to want to put that gun down.”
“No!” Corner shouted. “Tasha and I are going to walk out of this room! We’re going to leave and you are not going to follow us!”
“Corner, listen to me.” Cortez’ voice was calm and reassuring, as it had been a hundred times before in situations very much like this. “You’re going to want to put that gun down. First of all, I’m not an idiot. I’m wearing body armor. You shoot me, and the sting I’ll feel will be just bad enough to make me beat you half to death. And then Mr. Durden here will finish the job with his gun.” Mr. Durden smiled. “Secondly, in all this commotion, you can’t remember if you turned off the safety on that firearm or not. And the second and a half it takes for you to try it both ways and pull the trigger? Well, I’ll be on top of you, and that’s the same beating and shooting scenario for you.”
Cortez watched Corner closely. Cortez stood slowly, backing his way to the still open hotel room door. For a second, he pulled the small, black box just a half centimeter out of his left pants pocket, then pushed it back in. “But thirdly, is this.” Cortez pressed a button on his key fob (when did he pull his keys out of his pocket, Corner thought; Shit, I never even saw him reach into his pocket). The trunk opened on the car backed up to the door. A writhing, bound, female body was now visible. “That’s your girlfriend in the trunk, Corner. Your other girlfriend. You fire that weapon, and I put a bullet in her head. And SHE won’t come back.”
“Zenobia?” Corner said, realizing it was true. He looked at Tasha, then back at Zenobia, then back at Tasha, before slowly bending at the waist, and laying the gun on the floor. When he stood up again, Tasha was looking at him, her mouth hanging open.
“What?” Corner asked.
“That’s it?” Tasha asked. “All Jesse James there, then one look at the naughty librarian and that’s it!? Out with the new, in with the old girlfriend?”
“But Tasha!”
“Whatever!” she said, raising her hand in disgust. Durden, unable to help himself, chuckled. Cortez gave him a disapproving look, then turned his attention back to Corner, firing two shots, one into his neck, and the second into his chest. Tasha let out a scream as her New Ex-Boyfriend fell backwards onto the bed.
When he landed, she could see that both shots had been darts.
“Two?” Durden asked.
“It’s fine,” Cortez answered. “I can’t watch both of them. He’ll be asleep thirty-six hours, maybe forty-eight. Stick him in a crate and mail him somewhere when he gets to the lab.” Durden nodded. “Now close the trunk, so we don’t lose the librarian. You drive and I’ll watch zombie girl, here.”
Cortez flipped open his cell phone. “We’ve got a clean-up in aisle five, room 121.”
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Mary got a picture postcard from her mother once, when she was in the seventh grade. She’d only seen it only for a second before her grandmother snatched it away. Grandma Carafino sat down at the kitchen table and read it over and over again. As long as she sat there, she must’ve read it a hundred times.
It was a long time before Mary noticed the shaking. The postcard was shaking a little, then a little more. Mary had curled herself into a little ball in the corner, making herself as small as she could. She’d seen her mom shake like that; so mad she would shake. And then scream.
But as the shaking grew worse, Mary noticed a little sound, too. As it grew louder, she realized that her grandmother was crying. Mary slowly uncurled herself, and stood up, slowly approaching the table and her grandmother. She’d only wanted to comfort her. But her grandma was startled, shocked to see her right there in front of her. She tore the postcard in half, then in half again. Then she tore the pieces into even tinier pieces. Her grandmother was crying horribly now, wailing. Mary didn’t know what to do, and so she just backed away, slowly, out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to her room. Her grandmother cried for what seemed like hours.
Mary wasn’t asleep when her grandmother stood in the doorway to look in on her, but she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to make it better, and so she just laid there on her bed, pretending to be asleep. Her grandmother knew she wasn’t asleep, but also didn’t know what to say. And so, after a while, she just walked away slowly, down the hall to her own room.
In the morning, she’d find that Mary had gotten up early, made her own breakfast, and left before she’d gotten up. She saw that Mary had fished some of the postcard out of the trash, but it wasn’t enough to read anything, or make out the post mark of where it’d come from. What bothered her more was that she’d left her cereal bowl and spoon on the kitchen table. She hadn’t washed it and put it away, or put it in the sink at the very least. And she’d never done that before. Grandma Carafino knew an act of defiance when she saw one, and it made her cry all over again.
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“And where have you been all day?” Coulter asked.
“Making things ‘tidy’ so none of this gets back to you or me,” Cortez said. “And you?”
“I’ve had nearly twenty hours of straight testing since you brought in Patient Zero last night!”
“Tasha,” Cortez said. “Her name is Tasha.” Coulter frowned.
“Don’t humanize them, Dr. Cortez. If you do, you’ll never get anything done.” Cortez nodded in agreement. Scanning the lab, he couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t there. “Speaking of done, I’ve done everything I can here. I’m going home to retire for the evening. I’ve sent Patient Zero to Facility Two. I hope you’ll join me there tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” Cortez replied.
“Excellent, Agent Cortez. I look forward to working with Doctor Cortez shortly. This facility is done. You’ll take of ‘closing’ it for good?” Cortez nodded. “Good, good. And any loose ends?”
“The man in the hotel room will be out for another twenty four hours. We gave him Propofol when we brought him in, and they’re going to give him an injection of the new version of Scopolamine before shipping him somewhere. He’ll be out of here within the hour, and he won’t have any memory of the last two days.”
“Excellent, Mr. Cortez. Mr. Durden is in the waiting cell with the librarian. Needless to say, he hasn’t gotten anything out of her.” Cortez let out an exasperated sigh.
“Typical,” he said. “If she knows anything, I’ll have it out of her in the next thirty minutes.”
“Excellent, Agent Cortez. And if not?”
“Either way, by minute thirty one, she’ll be dead.”
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Cortez watched Coulter rub his hands together that creepy mad scientist way, then leave. He waited twenty minutes to make sure he was not returning, then headed down to the waiting cell.
When he got there, Durden was sitting at a small table, droning on in a monotone: “How do you know Tasha Harris? How do you know Tasha Harris?”
Across the table from him sat the prisoner, Zenobia Sinclair, the Syrian Librarian, looking bored.
Cortez cleared his throat, and Durden turned around. “Oh, hey…” he said. Cortez pulled up the seat next to Durden. He looked at the prisoner.
“Zenobia, is it?” he asked.
“Yes, yes it is,” she said, and smiled. Agent Cortez smiled back.
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It had taken Javier Cortez two days to walk out of the Chaco Woodlands. Actually, that wasn’t true. His name was Pinon Raini then.
Two hours after putting down the zombie rebels, the three eight – man squads of the platoon made three separate camps for security reasons. Raini told Squad A that Squad B had been infected, and told Squad B that Squad A had been infected. He told each to do what needed to be done, and quietly.
In the morning, he counted sixteen bodies, headed back to his camp, and killed the eight members of Squad C, himself. No one would knew about the rebels, much less that they had risen from the dead to fight on and on.
He’d walked for the better part of the next day, made camp, and after four solid hours of sleep, he made his way to the drop point where he was picked up and driven to a small village inn. There, he changed clothes, stole a car, and drove to Asunción, where he bought hair color, scissors, hair spray, and his other supplies, abandoned the car, and walked to the Hotel Caminata no Viva.
He’d seen the black coat at the little village inn, and then again at the grocery in Asunción. But it wasn’t quite black, was it? More of a dark, dark purple. And people didn’t wear purple, not in Paraguay, so he knew his time was short.
Once in his room, he did his homework quickly and laid down n the room that remained on his bed, in the dark, as if sleeping. One hour… two hours… three. ‘Dark, Dark Purple’ was good. It was three hours and forty six minutes before he smelled the smoke.
His ‘homework’ had been to lift the ceiling panel in the bathroom and move through the crawl space three rooms over. There, he dropped down into the room, crept up on the single male occupant, roughly Raini’s height, and slipped him the injection. This is where it got tricky. He had to be dopey enough to follow directions, but not unconscious. And while he did manage to get him into the crawl space, he passed out soon after. Raini had to drag him through the crawl space, into his room, and put him in his bed, causing as little noise as possible.
It had taken nearly seventeen minutes.
That included covering every inch of the man’s body in hair spray, emptying the can completely on him, before hoisting him into the bed. And then he waited. If he left early, they’d spot him. And so he waited. Three hours and forty six minutes.
If he waited for the fire to reach his room, the smoke could get him before the fire. So, when he smelled the smoke, he thought he’d lend a hand, and started a small fire on the floor at the base of the bed. The bed would catch as he was halfway across the building in the crawl space. The burning bed would ignite the body as he was exiting out the back window of the second furthest room from the fire. If he was lucky, the man’s screams would avert attention from everything and everyone else, including him.
He was that lucky.
He had left all identification with the name Pinon Raini in the room, with the man. He left his bag, most of his money, and his passport. Pinon Raini was dead, burned in a hotel fire. So, when the Dark, Dark Purple stepped out of the diner two blocks away (after what had been a surprisingly bad cup of coffee), for all intents and purposes he had already become Javier Cortez.
She stepped out onto the street without seeing that Cortez had been leaning just outside the door, waiting for her. “That’s a lovely coat,” he’d said in Guaraní. “It’s a lovely black, black as the night.”
He could see she wasn’t from Paraguay, so when she answered back in Guaraní, “It is purple, actually,” he knew she was an agent, like him. Whether she was called a mechanic, an operative, a liquidator, a company man, an assassin, or a back door man, she was the person that set the fire. She was the person that’d been sent to kill him.
And this is how Javier Cortez met Zenobia Sinclair.
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Actually, that wasn’t true. Her name was Amalia Shamma then. And she was probably as Syrian as he was Paraguayan.
He wouldn’t spoil her fun, he’d told her. She’d get credit for the job, and she’d get the paycheck. No one would be the wiser. If she opened her mouth, she’d be both unpaid and a failure. If she kept her mouth shut, she got paid, and a slip of paper with a bank number on it. That’s two paychecks. Besides, he could use a vacation. And she could use the money.
And so, Pinon Raini was killed in a terrible fire three days after a mission in the Chaco woodlands. Shortly later, one Señor Javier Cortez checked in at the Hotel Villa Morra in Concepción, Chile for a much needed vacation.
Amalia Shamma would try to retrieve a safe deposit box under the name of Raini in Zurich eighteen months later, only to have to flee both the bank and Switzerland in a hail of gunfire. Who knew Switzerland had that many guns? They were neutral, weren’t they?
At this point in the game, there had been no real danger to Amalia; it had been nothing more than a sweaty, exciting workout – foreplay for spies and contract killers.
And she would tell Señor Cortez exactly that when she found him a month later in Mauritania, then again in St. Paul de Vence, and yet again in Volgograd. And who could forget Volgograd in the spring time?
She called him to help her liberate a work of art in Guiyang, once, not for the client, and not for money, but just to do it, really. And it had been fun. For a while.
She’d been Amalia Shamma and Juana Barraza and Angela Caterina Moretti. And he’d been Pinon Raini and Javier Cortez and Francesco Salvatore Guerrino, amongst so many others. They’d been all over the world together, embraced in darkly lit corners, and walked by each other in the street without so much as a glance.
And like many people, they eventually moved in different directions. She wanted to live each moment on the edge, but he’d done that for fifteen years before they’d met on that cool, romantic night when she’d set fire to his hotel room and tried to kill him. He wanted to slow down, relax more, teach maybe. And so, they saw each other less and less, and then finally, not at all.
Not until he was sitting across a table from her in Halifax, Ohio, while her idiot of an interrogator repeated endlessly, “How do you know Tasha Harris? How do you know Tasha Harris?”
“Zenobia, is it?” he asked her.
“Yes, yes it is,” she said, and smiled. And Agent Cortez smiled back.
Cortez stood, pulled a wallet out of his pocket, and tossed it about five feet to the right of Interrogator Durden. “You missed that, Durden,” he said. “Read what it says under her name.”
Durden sighed heavily as he got out of his chair and bent to pick up the wallet. Reading the ID card, he said,
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Thirteen unlucky seconds. In that time, Cortez had turned on the recorder, taken out his gun, screwed on the silencer, placed it to the back of Durden’s head, and pulled the trigger twice.
Actually, that’s not true. He’d done it in eleven seconds, but thought it only fair he let him finish saying ‘the destroyer of worlds’ part before ending Durden’s mediocre - at - best life.
“Zenobia?” he asked her.
“What,” she said, still smiling. “You don’t think I look like a Syrian queen?”
“No,” he said. “You look better. But you know, you’re really messing up my down time again. I was teaching at a university.”
“Really?” she said with mock surprise. “Kidnapping librarians and zombie girls, and killing henchmen? Is that on this years’ syllabus?” They both smiled.
“Mr. Durden here was supposed to kill you, you know, as soon as you gave up any information.”
“That’s why I gave him nothing, darling,” Zenobia said.
“I couldn’t just break you out, either. He couldn’t see me get you out of here without him telling ‘the boss.’ I’ll have to tell him YOU killed him and escaped before I got here.”
“So you can go back working for the bad guy?” she asked. “Are there more librarians you need to kidnap?” Cortez ignored that.
“Speaking of librarians, you’re a librarian now? In Ohio?”
“What can I say, I had a job during a library conference up in Berea, near Cleveland: the Ohio Library Support Staff Institute. Great time! I had so much fun, I thought, hey, why not become a librarian!”
“I’m just saying, if you were going straight, why didn’t you let me know?”
“Oh, you know as well as I how hard it is to make the straight life stick, ‘Javier’.” He couldn’t argue; he just nodded solemnly.
“And you’re dating a guy named Corner? Seriously? Corner?”
“Hey,” she said, snuggling up to Cortez, “you be quiet. He’s sweet! I mean, he hardly ever kills henchmen for me, but he’s still sweet.” And then she gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Well, he might be sweet on Irish zombie girls. Her shirt was half undone when we snagged them.” And with that, Zenobia pulled away, the fire burning again in her eyes.
“Wait, what? What did you just say!?”
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Mary Angela Piccalino’s grades began to dip when she was fourteen. She was developing faster than some of the other girls, none of whom she liked, and had begun hanging out after school with some of the boys from the public school across the street.
By fifteen, her grades how gotten worse, and she began sneaking into the house past curfew.
By sixteen, she was lucky to get C’s, she no longer cared, and curfew was nothing more than a distant memory. It wasn’t that she disliked her grandmother, they just never spoke. If she couldn’t tell her what that postcard from so long ago had said, or where it had come from, the most important thing in the world for her to know, then she didn’t care whatever else her grandmother had to say. For a while, her grandmother would call after her as she exited the house: “There’s fried chicken and dumplings for dinner!” or “Do you want me to pack you something to eat for later?” or simply “Mary….”
And then nothing at all.
By sixteen years of age, they passed each other soundlessly, ghosts in a house of silence.
Halfway through the school year, Mary had met Matthew. He was two years older, went to the public high school, and even though they had both boys and girls in his school, he had decided to talk to her. He was nice, and he was smart, and he was rich. Firmly middle class to everyone else, but this was rich compared to Mary and her grandmother, who STILL did not have a telephone in their house.
They took long walks, and in the summer he often bought her ice creams. They held hands, and he never pushed to go any further, and so Mary knew he was a gentleman on top of all the rest. When that yellow haired girl came screaming at him at the two-screen movie theater, he’d taken her aside, talked to her quietly, kissed her on the cheek, and she’d gone away. A cousin, he’d said. A confused cousin, and nothing more.
By the end of summer, Mary was just two months away from being seventeen, and she didn’t want Matthew to be a gentleman anymore. He put her off a couple of times, as he was busy several nights a week now, but finally, three days before school started again, they were ‘ungentlemanly’ together, in the back seat of his father’s car. He’d parked behind the dead gas station on the corner of Overly and Oak streets, and while it wasn’t exactly as she thought it’d be, he was hers, and she was his, and she realized that for the past two months she was something she’d never been before: Not Lonely.
The next day there was some kind of commotion with a different yellow-haired girl, an angry friend of the other girl, but he cleared it up quickly and they were off again. Sitting on a park bench that had been so lonely before, he told her how he had a chance to take a job with his uncle in Ohio. They had a back porch that they’d put some screens around, and even a door! It was the whole length of the house, and was like its own little apartment. They could live there for free as long as they wanted! The job started in April, would she come? She kissed him hard on the mouth as her answer.
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(20,262 words)
The car pulled up, and flashed its lights twice. The driver killed the engine, then got out. “Mr. Cortez,” he said.
“Mr. Durden,” Cortez replied. He turned to his partner. “Coulter, you can go back to the lab. Mr. Durden and I have this.” Coulter knew he was right, but wanted to be doubly sure, especially this close to the pay off.
“You have the package, Mr. Durden?” Coulter enquired.
“Yes, sir.”
“Show me.”
Durden walked back to his car, the two other men following.
“What kind of car is this?” Cortez asked.
“It’s a Ford Fiesta,” Durden replied.
“Really?” Cortez said, incredulously. “I thought they stopped making those.”
“They did, but they’re back.”
“Kind of small, isn’t it?” Coulter insinuated.
“The back seat doesn’t have much leg room, I’ll give you that, but the trunk is surprisingly roomy!” And with that, Durden opened the trunk. Inside was a bound and gagged Zenobia Sinclair.
“That IS roomy!” marveled Coulter.
“And it gets forty miles per gallon without being a hybrid!” Durden beamed, before slamming the trunk lid closed.
“Really!?” Coulter said. “That IS impressive! Is that duck tape on her mouth?”
“You mean duct tape,” Cortez corrected.
“What do you mean, Mr. Cortez?”
“You said duck tape, like the water fowl. It’s duct tape,” Cortez explained. “It was originally made to fix heating and air ducts. Duct tape.” Coulter wrinkled his nose.
“I don’t believe so. I saw it on an FAQ board in the public library. Duck or duct, either is appropriate.”
“No it’s not!” Durden broke in. “Cortez is right. It’s duct tape! ‘Duck Tape’ is a brand name. It’s a kind of duct tape made up in Cleveland.”
“I don’t think so!” Coulter argued. “Ask the librarian!” And so, Mr. Durden re-opened the trunk, reached in, and pulled the tape halfway off of Zenobia’s mouth.
“Miss,” he said, “is it duck tape or duct tape?”
“It’s duct tape,” she said. “Duck Tape is a brand name.”
“Dammit!” Coulter half yelled.
“Told ya,” Cortez said.
--------------------------------------------------------------
“I’m really sorry about this,” Tasha said to the hotel clerk. She had a pile of crumpled bills and stacks of coins spread out all over the counter of the check – in desk of the Sagamore Motor Hotel. “Tips,” she told the bored but lecherous looking old man behind the desk. “I’m a waitress.”
“I’ll bet you ARE,” he said. Neither Tasha nor Corner knew what that meant. She’d put on a button up sweater when the night had come and it had gotten colder. She found herself buttoning the top button to hide any glimpse of skin from the old man. He frowned and then began his spiel that he’d said a thousand times before.
“Price is twenty – nine dollars a night, the adult channel is channel five. Check – out is Noon, not twelve AM, not twelve PM, Noon. The adult channel is channel five. You wanna stay a week, it’s one ninety nine, due by day two, the adult channel is channel five. Monthly and you’re a renter, seven hundred by day two we need a photo ID not necessarily a drivers license but a photo ID you can get one made at the city center I don’t nothin’ about it, seven hundred fifty and the adult channel is channel five.”
Tasha was a little flummoxed, but just nodded and said, “Oooooh – kay, just the one night, then.” The lecherous little man counted out twenty – nine dollars and pushed the remaining towards her.
“You all right, honey?” hotel clerk asked. “You don’t look so good. Look a little gray around the gills, you do.”
“I’m fine,” Tasha said.
“That guy causing you troubles?” he asked in a whisper that was actually louder than his regular pattern of speech. Tasha looked over her shoulder at Corner. He was shuffling his feet, and rubbing the back of his right hand with the left, nervously.
“Him? No, no, he’s my… boyfriend.” Corner looked at her, surprised, then smiled. She smiled back.
“Allllll right,” the clerk said, not believing either of them. Tasha collected her remaining money, Corner collected the room key, and then they both headed out the door to their sure to be lovely $29 a night room.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Outside on the back wall of the building, facing the parking lot, was the semi – functional ice machine. On top of it they’d found an open twelve pack with seven beers inside it, and an open bag of pretzels. It was after midnight, and once inside their room, they decided that would suffice as their dinner, and then they could just hole up for the night.
In the room, there was just one bed. They hadn’t asked for two beds, and so they’d been given a room with just one. They both looked at each other briefly, but neither said anything.
Corner had managed to put away four beers in the time Tasha had drunk two, which wasn’t a feat because he had done so in half her time, but because he had never drunk four beers in a row in his life. He was more than a little drunk when he noticed Tasha stagger away to the bathroom. Then he heard her vomiting. He leapt up and ran to the room.
“No, no, I’m all right,” she was saying. But Corner was already down on one knee beside her, pulling her long, red hair away from her face and holding it as she vomited some more. She managed to turn his way and smile for a brief second at his chivalrous gesture, before she had to turn back and throw up yet again.
And again.
And then one more time after that.
Back on the bed, Tasha was lying on her back, watching the room spin, as Corner sat on the edge looking down on her. “Vomiting four times is good luck in Ireland, right?” he tried to joke. She smiled thinly back at him.
“That was nice,” she said, absent-mindedly spinning the bracelet on her left wrist.
“Oh yeah, puking in a seedy hotel is on my bucket list, too,” he said.
“No, you getting down on the floor with me. Holding my hair. That was… nice.” Now it was his turn to smile back at her.
“Well,” he said, “after all, I AM your boyfriend.”
Without warning, she sat bolt up, grabbed her purse, and was in the bathroom. In what seemed like a heartbeat, he could hear the zip of the purse, a quick gargle, and she was back standing in front of him. She dropped her purse to the floor, then the travel size mouth wash into it.
“You are my boyfriend, aren’t you, Mr. Johnson,” she said, unbuttoning the top button of her sweater. “Helping a complete stranger,” she said low and slow, and pop went the second button. With that one, Corner could see that she was no longer wearing a shirt under her sweater, or a bra either for that matter. He wasn’t sure when that could have happened – no one was that fast after all – but by the time the third button had come undone, he no longer cared. He only cared about the soft curves of the wondrously white flesh of her breasts slowly coming into view. As she climbed on top of him, her red hair fell over his face, and he was lost for a second. Her piercing green eyes cut through the flaming font of red as her face closed the gap to his, and their lips, ever so gently, touched.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Angela Piccalino moved into her grandmother’s house. Her old house was never sold. It just sat there, empty and hollow and unloved – like Mary herself. It wasn’t that her grandmother wasn’t a loving person, she was just busy. Her father had been busy, and her mother had been busy. Too busy for a child. Mary often wondered if they had left to go somewhere where they could be busy all the time, or if it was someplace that wasn’t busy at all.
Grandma Carafino had never had a job. She’d raised seven children, Mary’s mother had been the youngest and came eleven years after the sixth, what she’d thought was her last child. So, by the time Mary’s mother had gone away and left her only child, Grandma Carafino was in her seventies. Grandpa Carafino had left a small pension from working at the plant, and it was enough to keep grandma in her little house. But a child, and clothes and books, that’d cost extry, as she said. And at seventy-two, Angelica Carafino had to take her first job.
She worked at the grocer for a little while, but that didn’t work out. She’d baby sit for the ladies in the neighborhood for a time, but getting paid wasn’t always consistent, if at all. And so she’d finally settled into the Chinese laundry down the block. Raising seven children and a husband, laundry she knew how to do in spades. It wasn’t hard work, but the hours were long. Often, she’d see Mary off to school, then go to work. She’d get home in time to whup up supper, but often had to go back to the laundry afterwards. When she got home, Mary was either doing her homework or already put herself to bed. They passed like ships in the night, sometimes saying less than ten words to each other.
But Grandma Carafino didn’t complain, and so neither did Mary. It was what it was.
And so it was never a boy’s name or one of those new rock and roll groups that were scribbled across Mary’s school folders. No, year in and year out, it was one single word:
Lonely.
---------------------------------------------------
Coulter had been back in his lab for an hour or more, ate half a bag of cookies, and had watched three episodes of the Colbert Report without realizing (still) that the host was not, in fact, a right wing republican, but quite the opposite, when Cortez and Durden kicked in the door to room 121 of the Sagamore Motor Hotel. Tasha Harris’ teeth were just touching the top of Corner’s head, about to sink slightly into the sweet, sweet brain, when the two men burst into the room, guns drawn.
“Back away from the man, Tasha! Now!” Cortez yelled.
“Tasha, run!” Corner screamed, almost a verbal reflex, since he really hadn’t had enough time to assess the situation.
“Son, we just saved your life!” Cortez continued, “Now lie down and keep down!” Two laser – guided points of light moved on the girl’s shirt front. “Tasha, that’s just so you know we have you! You move an inch that we don’t tell you to, and those little red dots go right to your head! Do You Understand, Tasha!?” Tasha shook her head affirmatively. “Then you sit down, on the floor! Now, Tasha!” And Tasha did.
Cortez lowered his weapon slightly and looked at Mr. Durden, who promptly raised his so the laser pointed at Tasha’s forehead. Cortez slipped the small, black box in his left hand into his left pants pocket, then grabbed a chair away from the desk with his now free hand and sat down slowly.
“Now, let’s all be rational about this,” Cortez started, “and everyone here gets out alive. Well, everyone but you, Tasha.” He watched Corner, who was watching his every move. He purposely glanced down to his left then back up to see if Corner would follow. He did.
“What!?” Tasha yelled. Cortez blinked, but his facial expression did not change.
“Tasha,” he said slowly, “you’re already dead.”
A silence hung in the room as Tasha looked down, then confused, then at Corner. Then, in a quiet tone, almost a whisper, she repeated, “What?”
Cortez did not avert his eyes from hers. “You’re already dead, Tasha.”
“How…?” Tasha asked, not debating the fact, just asking. “How do you know?”
“For the last two months, you’ve been dating a man named Raleigh Coulter.”
“You have a boyfriend?” Corner blurted out.
“So?” Tasha said right back. “YOU have a girlfriend!” Cortez rubbed his eyes wearily for a second before continuing. He looked squarely at Corner, rubbing his left temple, and blinked. Corner blinked back, and watched and listened.
“For the past two months, Coulter has been testing you. He has drugged you at least four nights a week, taken blood, run tests, and injected you with tiny, nanobyte – sized chips to monitor you and everything about you – your breathing, your heart rate, your blood pressure, everything.” Tasha blinked slowly, trying to take it all in.
“You were exposed to a very special virus,” Cortez continued.
“I was bitten by a cheerleader!” Tasha said.
“Why are you telling her?” Durden asked.
“Durden, keep that gun pointed at her head!” Cortez yelled. “I know what I’m doing, and the best way to get this job done. Have you been in a zombie situation like this before?”
“No,” Durden answered. “No one has!”
“You keep telling yourself that,” Cortez answered, turning his eyes back to the frightened couple.
“Did you say z…” Tasha began, but Cortez talked over her.
“Your biting was planned, down to the day, hour, and minute. As was your time after that, to the lab, your unconsciousness there, the new implants, and then your escape.”
“New implants?”
“The escape was to get your adrenaline going. It both triggers and mixes with the neuro – toxins in the implants. It also sets a timer so more toxins would be released at designated intervals.”
“Tox…?”
“In the side car, you blacked out two or three times. You did not black out. You died. From the virus and toxins made to specifically attack your heart. But you came back. And so the toxins were released again. You died again, and came back. The third set did the trick. You were clinically dead for seven minutes. An implant at the base of your neck fed a steady stream of electrically – charged protons down your spine and into your head, so you wouldn’t be brain dead or paralyzed when you came back.”
“But…”
“You’re dead, Tasha Harris. If you eat or drink food or water, you will vomit it back up. You no longer eat like a person. Your heart no longer pumps blood, but your brain is active.”
“The human brain is made of materials not found anywhere else in nature. The ‘knit’ of the brain material is nearly one thousand times tighter and more complex than an entire side of beef. If you’ve ever eaten brains before this, you’ll have an inkling of what I’m talking about. It takes nine times as long to digest brain matter than it does the same amount of red meat.
“But, what happens…?”
“My guess is you’ll only have to eat a brain once a month at most. The brain matter will be converted almost entirely into the energy that runs your brain. When your brain gets ‘low on fuel’ you’re brain functions will slow. Your reflexes and muscles will slow also, as well as speech. You’ll begin to stumble like a zombie in a Romero movie until you recharge your brain with another brain. And then you’ll be fine again.”
“Fine?” Tasha asked incredulously. “I’ll be fine!?”
“On a diet of essentially pure brain food, you’ll be better than fine. You’ll think faster, you’ll move faster, you’ll absorb information like no human ever could. And you’ll live forever.”
“Except I’m not human anymore, am I? And I’m not technically alive anymore, either.”
Cortez looked at Tasha. He understood what she was saying, and he was honestly trying to help her come to terms with it.
“What’s the definition of life, Tasha? Enjoying each day? Relishing the miracle of another day on earth? If that’s the criteria, there are about eighty million office workers that haven’t lived a day in their lives. There are fifty million government employees that are the same. MOST people are sleep walking their way from one paycheck to another paycheck to the grave. Your lack of a heartbeat will mean nothing when you’re living each and every day to its fullest, and doing so two hundred years from now.”
“Except you’ll be nowhere near Tasha, then or now,” Corner said. He was pointing his gun at Agent Cortez’ chest; the gun Zenobia had given him.
“Oh, seriously?” Durden said, turning his gun and laser point onto Corner.
“I’ll shoot, Cortez, I swear it!” Corner was shaking as he spoke. Cortez just smiled, wanly.
“Corner is it?” he said. “Listen to me. You’re going to want to put that gun down.”
“No!” Corner shouted. “Tasha and I are going to walk out of this room! We’re going to leave and you are not going to follow us!”
“Corner, listen to me.” Cortez’ voice was calm and reassuring, as it had been a hundred times before in situations very much like this. “You’re going to want to put that gun down. First of all, I’m not an idiot. I’m wearing body armor. You shoot me, and the sting I’ll feel will be just bad enough to make me beat you half to death. And then Mr. Durden here will finish the job with his gun.” Mr. Durden smiled. “Secondly, in all this commotion, you can’t remember if you turned off the safety on that firearm or not. And the second and a half it takes for you to try it both ways and pull the trigger? Well, I’ll be on top of you, and that’s the same beating and shooting scenario for you.”
Cortez watched Corner closely. Cortez stood slowly, backing his way to the still open hotel room door. For a second, he pulled the small, black box just a half centimeter out of his left pants pocket, then pushed it back in. “But thirdly, is this.” Cortez pressed a button on his key fob (when did he pull his keys out of his pocket, Corner thought; Shit, I never even saw him reach into his pocket). The trunk opened on the car backed up to the door. A writhing, bound, female body was now visible. “That’s your girlfriend in the trunk, Corner. Your other girlfriend. You fire that weapon, and I put a bullet in her head. And SHE won’t come back.”
“Zenobia?” Corner said, realizing it was true. He looked at Tasha, then back at Zenobia, then back at Tasha, before slowly bending at the waist, and laying the gun on the floor. When he stood up again, Tasha was looking at him, her mouth hanging open.
“What?” Corner asked.
“That’s it?” Tasha asked. “All Jesse James there, then one look at the naughty librarian and that’s it!? Out with the new, in with the old girlfriend?”
“But Tasha!”
“Whatever!” she said, raising her hand in disgust. Durden, unable to help himself, chuckled. Cortez gave him a disapproving look, then turned his attention back to Corner, firing two shots, one into his neck, and the second into his chest. Tasha let out a scream as her New Ex-Boyfriend fell backwards onto the bed.
When he landed, she could see that both shots had been darts.
“Two?” Durden asked.
“It’s fine,” Cortez answered. “I can’t watch both of them. He’ll be asleep thirty-six hours, maybe forty-eight. Stick him in a crate and mail him somewhere when he gets to the lab.” Durden nodded. “Now close the trunk, so we don’t lose the librarian. You drive and I’ll watch zombie girl, here.”
Cortez flipped open his cell phone. “We’ve got a clean-up in aisle five, room 121.”
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mary got a picture postcard from her mother once, when she was in the seventh grade. She’d only seen it only for a second before her grandmother snatched it away. Grandma Carafino sat down at the kitchen table and read it over and over again. As long as she sat there, she must’ve read it a hundred times.
It was a long time before Mary noticed the shaking. The postcard was shaking a little, then a little more. Mary had curled herself into a little ball in the corner, making herself as small as she could. She’d seen her mom shake like that; so mad she would shake. And then scream.
But as the shaking grew worse, Mary noticed a little sound, too. As it grew louder, she realized that her grandmother was crying. Mary slowly uncurled herself, and stood up, slowly approaching the table and her grandmother. She’d only wanted to comfort her. But her grandma was startled, shocked to see her right there in front of her. She tore the postcard in half, then in half again. Then she tore the pieces into even tinier pieces. Her grandmother was crying horribly now, wailing. Mary didn’t know what to do, and so she just backed away, slowly, out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to her room. Her grandmother cried for what seemed like hours.
Mary wasn’t asleep when her grandmother stood in the doorway to look in on her, but she didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to make it better, and so she just laid there on her bed, pretending to be asleep. Her grandmother knew she wasn’t asleep, but also didn’t know what to say. And so, after a while, she just walked away slowly, down the hall to her own room.
In the morning, she’d find that Mary had gotten up early, made her own breakfast, and left before she’d gotten up. She saw that Mary had fished some of the postcard out of the trash, but it wasn’t enough to read anything, or make out the post mark of where it’d come from. What bothered her more was that she’d left her cereal bowl and spoon on the kitchen table. She hadn’t washed it and put it away, or put it in the sink at the very least. And she’d never done that before. Grandma Carafino knew an act of defiance when she saw one, and it made her cry all over again.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
“And where have you been all day?” Coulter asked.
“Making things ‘tidy’ so none of this gets back to you or me,” Cortez said. “And you?”
“I’ve had nearly twenty hours of straight testing since you brought in Patient Zero last night!”
“Tasha,” Cortez said. “Her name is Tasha.” Coulter frowned.
“Don’t humanize them, Dr. Cortez. If you do, you’ll never get anything done.” Cortez nodded in agreement. Scanning the lab, he couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t there. “Speaking of done, I’ve done everything I can here. I’m going home to retire for the evening. I’ve sent Patient Zero to Facility Two. I hope you’ll join me there tomorrow?”
“Absolutely,” Cortez replied.
“Excellent, Agent Cortez. I look forward to working with Doctor Cortez shortly. This facility is done. You’ll take of ‘closing’ it for good?” Cortez nodded. “Good, good. And any loose ends?”
“The man in the hotel room will be out for another twenty four hours. We gave him Propofol when we brought him in, and they’re going to give him an injection of the new version of Scopolamine before shipping him somewhere. He’ll be out of here within the hour, and he won’t have any memory of the last two days.”
“Excellent, Mr. Cortez. Mr. Durden is in the waiting cell with the librarian. Needless to say, he hasn’t gotten anything out of her.” Cortez let out an exasperated sigh.
“Typical,” he said. “If she knows anything, I’ll have it out of her in the next thirty minutes.”
“Excellent, Agent Cortez. And if not?”
“Either way, by minute thirty one, she’ll be dead.”
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Cortez watched Coulter rub his hands together that creepy mad scientist way, then leave. He waited twenty minutes to make sure he was not returning, then headed down to the waiting cell.
When he got there, Durden was sitting at a small table, droning on in a monotone: “How do you know Tasha Harris? How do you know Tasha Harris?”
Across the table from him sat the prisoner, Zenobia Sinclair, the Syrian Librarian, looking bored.
Cortez cleared his throat, and Durden turned around. “Oh, hey…” he said. Cortez pulled up the seat next to Durden. He looked at the prisoner.
“Zenobia, is it?” he asked.
“Yes, yes it is,” she said, and smiled. Agent Cortez smiled back.
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It had taken Javier Cortez two days to walk out of the Chaco Woodlands. Actually, that wasn’t true. His name was Pinon Raini then.
Two hours after putting down the zombie rebels, the three eight – man squads of the platoon made three separate camps for security reasons. Raini told Squad A that Squad B had been infected, and told Squad B that Squad A had been infected. He told each to do what needed to be done, and quietly.
In the morning, he counted sixteen bodies, headed back to his camp, and killed the eight members of Squad C, himself. No one would knew about the rebels, much less that they had risen from the dead to fight on and on.
He’d walked for the better part of the next day, made camp, and after four solid hours of sleep, he made his way to the drop point where he was picked up and driven to a small village inn. There, he changed clothes, stole a car, and drove to Asunción, where he bought hair color, scissors, hair spray, and his other supplies, abandoned the car, and walked to the Hotel Caminata no Viva.
He’d seen the black coat at the little village inn, and then again at the grocery in Asunción. But it wasn’t quite black, was it? More of a dark, dark purple. And people didn’t wear purple, not in Paraguay, so he knew his time was short.
Once in his room, he did his homework quickly and laid down n the room that remained on his bed, in the dark, as if sleeping. One hour… two hours… three. ‘Dark, Dark Purple’ was good. It was three hours and forty six minutes before he smelled the smoke.
His ‘homework’ had been to lift the ceiling panel in the bathroom and move through the crawl space three rooms over. There, he dropped down into the room, crept up on the single male occupant, roughly Raini’s height, and slipped him the injection. This is where it got tricky. He had to be dopey enough to follow directions, but not unconscious. And while he did manage to get him into the crawl space, he passed out soon after. Raini had to drag him through the crawl space, into his room, and put him in his bed, causing as little noise as possible.
It had taken nearly seventeen minutes.
That included covering every inch of the man’s body in hair spray, emptying the can completely on him, before hoisting him into the bed. And then he waited. If he left early, they’d spot him. And so he waited. Three hours and forty six minutes.
If he waited for the fire to reach his room, the smoke could get him before the fire. So, when he smelled the smoke, he thought he’d lend a hand, and started a small fire on the floor at the base of the bed. The bed would catch as he was halfway across the building in the crawl space. The burning bed would ignite the body as he was exiting out the back window of the second furthest room from the fire. If he was lucky, the man’s screams would avert attention from everything and everyone else, including him.
He was that lucky.
He had left all identification with the name Pinon Raini in the room, with the man. He left his bag, most of his money, and his passport. Pinon Raini was dead, burned in a hotel fire. So, when the Dark, Dark Purple stepped out of the diner two blocks away (after what had been a surprisingly bad cup of coffee), for all intents and purposes he had already become Javier Cortez.
She stepped out onto the street without seeing that Cortez had been leaning just outside the door, waiting for her. “That’s a lovely coat,” he’d said in Guaraní. “It’s a lovely black, black as the night.”
He could see she wasn’t from Paraguay, so when she answered back in Guaraní, “It is purple, actually,” he knew she was an agent, like him. Whether she was called a mechanic, an operative, a liquidator, a company man, an assassin, or a back door man, she was the person that set the fire. She was the person that’d been sent to kill him.
And this is how Javier Cortez met Zenobia Sinclair.
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Actually, that wasn’t true. Her name was Amalia Shamma then. And she was probably as Syrian as he was Paraguayan.
He wouldn’t spoil her fun, he’d told her. She’d get credit for the job, and she’d get the paycheck. No one would be the wiser. If she opened her mouth, she’d be both unpaid and a failure. If she kept her mouth shut, she got paid, and a slip of paper with a bank number on it. That’s two paychecks. Besides, he could use a vacation. And she could use the money.
And so, Pinon Raini was killed in a terrible fire three days after a mission in the Chaco woodlands. Shortly later, one Señor Javier Cortez checked in at the Hotel Villa Morra in Concepción, Chile for a much needed vacation.
Amalia Shamma would try to retrieve a safe deposit box under the name of Raini in Zurich eighteen months later, only to have to flee both the bank and Switzerland in a hail of gunfire. Who knew Switzerland had that many guns? They were neutral, weren’t they?
At this point in the game, there had been no real danger to Amalia; it had been nothing more than a sweaty, exciting workout – foreplay for spies and contract killers.
And she would tell Señor Cortez exactly that when she found him a month later in Mauritania, then again in St. Paul de Vence, and yet again in Volgograd. And who could forget Volgograd in the spring time?
She called him to help her liberate a work of art in Guiyang, once, not for the client, and not for money, but just to do it, really. And it had been fun. For a while.
She’d been Amalia Shamma and Juana Barraza and Angela Caterina Moretti. And he’d been Pinon Raini and Javier Cortez and Francesco Salvatore Guerrino, amongst so many others. They’d been all over the world together, embraced in darkly lit corners, and walked by each other in the street without so much as a glance.
And like many people, they eventually moved in different directions. She wanted to live each moment on the edge, but he’d done that for fifteen years before they’d met on that cool, romantic night when she’d set fire to his hotel room and tried to kill him. He wanted to slow down, relax more, teach maybe. And so, they saw each other less and less, and then finally, not at all.
Not until he was sitting across a table from her in Halifax, Ohio, while her idiot of an interrogator repeated endlessly, “How do you know Tasha Harris? How do you know Tasha Harris?”
“Zenobia, is it?” he asked her.
“Yes, yes it is,” she said, and smiled. And Agent Cortez smiled back.
Cortez stood, pulled a wallet out of his pocket, and tossed it about five feet to the right of Interrogator Durden. “You missed that, Durden,” he said. “Read what it says under her name.”
Durden sighed heavily as he got out of his chair and bent to pick up the wallet. Reading the ID card, he said,
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Thirteen unlucky seconds. In that time, Cortez had turned on the recorder, taken out his gun, screwed on the silencer, placed it to the back of Durden’s head, and pulled the trigger twice.
Actually, that’s not true. He’d done it in eleven seconds, but thought it only fair he let him finish saying ‘the destroyer of worlds’ part before ending Durden’s mediocre - at - best life.
“Zenobia?” he asked her.
“What,” she said, still smiling. “You don’t think I look like a Syrian queen?”
“No,” he said. “You look better. But you know, you’re really messing up my down time again. I was teaching at a university.”
“Really?” she said with mock surprise. “Kidnapping librarians and zombie girls, and killing henchmen? Is that on this years’ syllabus?” They both smiled.
“Mr. Durden here was supposed to kill you, you know, as soon as you gave up any information.”
“That’s why I gave him nothing, darling,” Zenobia said.
“I couldn’t just break you out, either. He couldn’t see me get you out of here without him telling ‘the boss.’ I’ll have to tell him YOU killed him and escaped before I got here.”
“So you can go back working for the bad guy?” she asked. “Are there more librarians you need to kidnap?” Cortez ignored that.
“Speaking of librarians, you’re a librarian now? In Ohio?”
“What can I say, I had a job during a library conference up in Berea, near Cleveland: the Ohio Library Support Staff Institute. Great time! I had so much fun, I thought, hey, why not become a librarian!”
“I’m just saying, if you were going straight, why didn’t you let me know?”
“Oh, you know as well as I how hard it is to make the straight life stick, ‘Javier’.” He couldn’t argue; he just nodded solemnly.
“And you’re dating a guy named Corner? Seriously? Corner?”
“Hey,” she said, snuggling up to Cortez, “you be quiet. He’s sweet! I mean, he hardly ever kills henchmen for me, but he’s still sweet.” And then she gave him a peck on the cheek.
“Well, he might be sweet on Irish zombie girls. Her shirt was half undone when we snagged them.” And with that, Zenobia pulled away, the fire burning again in her eyes.
“Wait, what? What did you just say!?”
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Mary Angela Piccalino’s grades began to dip when she was fourteen. She was developing faster than some of the other girls, none of whom she liked, and had begun hanging out after school with some of the boys from the public school across the street.
By fifteen, her grades how gotten worse, and she began sneaking into the house past curfew.
By sixteen, she was lucky to get C’s, she no longer cared, and curfew was nothing more than a distant memory. It wasn’t that she disliked her grandmother, they just never spoke. If she couldn’t tell her what that postcard from so long ago had said, or where it had come from, the most important thing in the world for her to know, then she didn’t care whatever else her grandmother had to say. For a while, her grandmother would call after her as she exited the house: “There’s fried chicken and dumplings for dinner!” or “Do you want me to pack you something to eat for later?” or simply “Mary….”
And then nothing at all.
By sixteen years of age, they passed each other soundlessly, ghosts in a house of silence.
Halfway through the school year, Mary had met Matthew. He was two years older, went to the public high school, and even though they had both boys and girls in his school, he had decided to talk to her. He was nice, and he was smart, and he was rich. Firmly middle class to everyone else, but this was rich compared to Mary and her grandmother, who STILL did not have a telephone in their house.
They took long walks, and in the summer he often bought her ice creams. They held hands, and he never pushed to go any further, and so Mary knew he was a gentleman on top of all the rest. When that yellow haired girl came screaming at him at the two-screen movie theater, he’d taken her aside, talked to her quietly, kissed her on the cheek, and she’d gone away. A cousin, he’d said. A confused cousin, and nothing more.
By the end of summer, Mary was just two months away from being seventeen, and she didn’t want Matthew to be a gentleman anymore. He put her off a couple of times, as he was busy several nights a week now, but finally, three days before school started again, they were ‘ungentlemanly’ together, in the back seat of his father’s car. He’d parked behind the dead gas station on the corner of Overly and Oak streets, and while it wasn’t exactly as she thought it’d be, he was hers, and she was his, and she realized that for the past two months she was something she’d never been before: Not Lonely.
The next day there was some kind of commotion with a different yellow-haired girl, an angry friend of the other girl, but he cleared it up quickly and they were off again. Sitting on a park bench that had been so lonely before, he told her how he had a chance to take a job with his uncle in Ohio. They had a back porch that they’d put some screens around, and even a door! It was the whole length of the house, and was like its own little apartment. They could live there for free as long as they wanted! The job started in April, would she come? She kissed him hard on the mouth as her answer.
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(20,262 words)
Possible Character Pics
In class, Michael brought up something that may help you better form the characters in your mind: get pictures of them. Go through a magazine, or go to Google, and click on "Image Search." Try typing in your character's name, then his/her physical characteristics, then occupation. Right click and save any that are interesting. Choose the one or two best pics for each character. Put them all on a page, print it out, and have it by your computer. You can look at it whenever you're thinking of what to write next.
Here are Michael's choices for the first four characters:
Here are Michael's choices for the first four characters:
Copyright © 2011 by P.M. Bradshaw & Tanya Ellenburg-Kimmet