The Living Dead 2 (The Living Dead, #2)(222)

Laughing, Ernie scanned him with a light pen. “They don’t pay you enough to come out here, man.”

“No, that’s your job.” He looked at the screens, the fly’s compound eye view of the Civic Center, the sinkhole, his bicycle. “Working hard?”

Ada munched a slice while she monitored their crews. “17, you’re cold,” she purred. “Warm up and work. Shovel faster.” She jogged Ernie’s elbow and pointed at a blinking indicator, but Ernie ignored her.

“This is bullshit busy work, man,” Ernie said. “The Navy says the shit got washed out and neutralized eighteen months ago. That’s why the f*ckin’ Bay is dead, right? There’s never gonna be enough live people in this city for them to open the Green Zone this far.”

“I beg to differ, dude,” Eagle said, wiping the steam out of his goggles. “There’re still people out there. It’s our town. You’re cleaning it up, so the people will come back.”

“We’re just polishing rocks for a life-sized museum, but thanks. They’ll have meat puppets good enough to do our jobs by then. Hey, if anybody shows up at the gates who can turn my partner’s hot dog into a taco, let me know, okay? Then I’ll be at peace with the world.”

Ada punched his shoulder. “17’s acting up. Seagull ate his eyes.”

“So shut him down,” Ernie growled. “I’m not suiting up now. I’m eating lunch. You going back to the Bubble?”

“Not right away.” Eagle picked the old boxes out of the mess on the floor. “Got another delivery.”

“Out here? Where?”

“Haight and Stanyan.” Eagle strapped on his mask in the airlock.

Ernie’s eyeballs bounced off his HUD goggles as he dropped the first seal. “Say what?”

“It’s a long story. I gotta go, guys. Take care.”

Eagle popped the outer airlock and jumped down.

The zombie was waiting for him.

#17 stenciled on its helmet. Seagull shit and a sparking wire in its empty eyesockets. It dropped its shovel and lurched at Eagle, who threw the empty pizza boxes in its face and instinctively backed into the gate of the truck, groping in vain for a weapon worth having.

He hated guns, but he always carried one. A cop-issue Glock 9mm with soft hollowpoint rounds hung in its holster on his bike, next to his canteen, about ten unreachable feet away.

“Ernie! Call off your f*cking dog!”

Ernie’s voice popped his headset. “What? Oh, holy shit… Ada!”


“MAKE IT STOP!” Eagle shrieked as #17 pawed his gas mask with one work-gloved hand.

Up close, the employed dead—the slave dead—glistened. Hi-tech Glad Wrap vacuum-sealed their skin, locked the sickness in and the freshness out. It was the only way to slow their inevitable decay, and make them humanly tolerable.

Under the industrial worklights, #17 glowed like a leftover angel. But underneath the shrink-wrap was the same old hunger. Its humanity was just a mask.

Up close, Eagle recognized that mask.

#17 had a Kirk Douglas chin. A Bruce Campbell chin. A chin among chins, with a nose to match.

That red-headed guy who used to barback at the Albion… Short-tempered, the regulars called him Fireplug…

I used to deliver pizzas to this guy, he thought.

Ernie and Ada were both hollering in his headset, but Eagle couldn’t hear it. He was lost in the moment. Pushing at #17, both hands on its chest, boxed in tight with no exit room. Watching it stagger back, lurch in, moaning.

“Ada, pop 17! Just do it! We got you, Eagle! Duck and cover, brother!”

Eagle dropped to his knees. The charges in the rogue worker’s head went off like firecrackers in a watermelon, wetware jumping out the top of its skull and spraying all over the f*cking place.

“Eagle, you okay? Jesus, man, I’m so sorry!”

#17 wobbled and dropped. Eagle checked himself, wiped a few black specks off his parka. Willed his heart to slow down.

“Yeah, I’m good. Fucking freaked, but good.”

“Okay. We’re okay?”

“We’re okay.”

“Just…”

“Yeah. Just… yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“You sure…?”

“Not gonna say a f*cking thing, all right? We’re good.”

“Thank you, man.” Ernie exhaled, and chugged antacid. “Stay safe, buddy. We got your back.”

Eagle scooped up and stowed the pizza boxes, pocketed his gun and hopped on his bike as two more remote-controlled workers swept in to scrape up the mess.

Working together, making the world a better place.





VII.

The Dungeon Master had just burnt his tongue on the microwaved ricotta in his calzone––at least a three-hit-point wound––when the Love Line rang.

He washed the glutinous lava down with a splash of root beer, checked his hair, and let the phone ring.

For allegedly living humans, the science division sure seemed to enjoy chewing on human asses. When they couldn’t bitch about his kill ratio, they whined that his tactics were overkill; when his meat puppets weren’t lagging and bugging out like an NT server, they were dangerous rabid dogs.

The Love Line blinked faster. His pager trembled and jittered off the edge of the desk into an empty pizza box.