Monster Island(71)

“Hmm?” Gary looked up. He rubbed his temples and tried to snap out of it. These frozen times when he became locked in contemplation of his own navel were too much like death, like real death for comfort. “I beg your pardon. I was miles away,” he told her. He needed to do something, something physically real or he was likely to sink into reverie again. “Let’s take a stroll, shall we?”

The mummy pushed her wheelchair along as Gary ambled alongside the fifteen-foot wall that surrounded his new village. “Did you enjoy your breakfast?” Gary asked. He’d made sure the prisoners were given plenty to eat. Tinned foods were commonplace in the emptied city but they were useless to the undead, who lacked the manual dexterity to use a can opener.

“Oh yeah,” the woman said, stroking her belly as if it pained her. “I just love cold clam chowder first thing in the morning. We need access to cooking equipment if you want us to eat. You ever heard of botulism?”

Gary smiled. “Not only that, I’ve seen it. I used to be a doctor. You can’t have a fire because I can’t risk you hurting yourselves.”

“You can’t watch us all the time. If we want to kill ourselves badly enough we’ll do it. We’ll just stop eating or… or we’ll climb on top of this wall and jump off.” The woman wouldn’t meet his gaze.

“You’re right. I can’t stop you.” Gary lead her out into a furrowed patch of earth. The mud of Central Park would grow just about anything-after decades of fertilization and aeration and intense loving care by professional gardeners the soil was rich and dark. A Rows of dusty weeds had already sprouted in the denuded earth now that Gary was present to keep the dead from consuming every living thing they saw. “This area will be your garden. Eventually we hope you’ll be able to produce all your own food.Fresh vegetables, Marisol.You can have fresh vegetables again. Imagine that.”

“Are you deaf? I said we would kill ourselves rather than help you!” The woman thrashed against the cords holding her into the chair. The mummy reached forward to restrain her but Gary shook his head. By rocking back and forth and throwing herself against her straps eventually Marisol managed to overturn her chair, spilling her sidewise across the moist dirt that smudged her face and flattened her hair.

Gary helped her up himself with his hands under her armpits. “I heard you. And I believe that maybeyou would take your own life. Others will make their own choices.”

He lead her down a narrow lane between two rows of makeshift brick houses that were still under construction. He showed her the double thickness of the walls and the fiberglass installation stuffed between the two layers. They would be cozy in the winter and cool in the summer, he explained to her. Mostly they would be safe-the perimeter wall would keep the dead out. “How could you not be happy here?” he asked.

“For one thing there’s the smell,” she spat back.

Gary smiled and squatted down on his haunches so he could look her in the face. She still wouldn’t meet his gaze but it didn’t matter. “When I was working at the hospital I watched a lot of people die. Old people whose time was up, young people who barely knew where they were, struck down in accidents. Kids, I saw kids die because they didn’t know any better than to eat Drano or jump out of windows. Just before they went they would always call me over to ask one last favor.”

“Yeah?” she sneered.

“Yes. It was always the same thing. ‘Please, doctor, give me one more hour before I go. Give me one more minute.’ People are easily frightened by death, Marisol, because it is so very long and our lives are so very short. I’m offering your people a chance to have long, full lives. I can’t bring back the world we’ve lost. I can’t give them gourmet dinners or luxury vacations or American Idol. But I can give them a chance to not be afraid all the time. A chance to start over fresh. A chance to have families-big families. That’s a lot more than you offered them in your spider hole.”

“And in exchange for all this? What do you get? My baby? You already ate my f*cking husband!” Her hair had fallen across her face and she blew it away, puffing out red cheeks hot with anger.

“Everything has a price. I only need about one meal a month, maybe even less if I’m careful. That’s not a lot to ask.” He thought of Mael and his tribe in Orkney. They had taken turns being human sacrifices. It was something people could accept if you made it a necessity.

“Marisol, I’m going to give you an option right now. It was your pregnancy that inspired all of this generosity I’m feeling so I’ll grant you one wish. You don’t get to pick, though. I can make you the mayor of the last secure human village on earth.”