Dead World | Novel | Dead Zero Read online

  “Abnormal how?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Didn’t, or wouldn’t? Did you ask?”

  That riled her a bit. Her words sharpened and she looked more directly at Thom, no longer casual and to the side. “Yes, I asked, Thom. I always ask. All he’d say was that it’s an Alzheimer’s marker. Something to do with the plaques his medication is supposed to help his brain build new paths around.”

  “So ‘abnormal’ means …”

  “He said it’s no big deal. Just routine.”

  Thom shrugged. “Well, then.”

  “But I took a glance at the paperwork on his clipboard. The order was marked urgent. How can something be routine and urgent at the same time?”

  Thom had no answer.

  Three

  Like a Sledgehammer

  Thom didn’t know that Rick’s girlfriend’s name was Rosie. Largely because he hadn’t known his father had a girlfriend.

  The very idea was hard to mentally slot. Rick had held three categories for women Thom’s entire life, and Rosie’s presence seemed to fit none of them.

  The first and broadest of Rick’s categories was for women with whom there was no attraction — and for an older guy (and a testosterone-fueled one, at that) Rick’s attitude towards that rather large group was pleasantly enlightened. Rick, unlike most of his jarhead buddies, might even be called a feminist — but don’t ever call him one to his face; Thom had seen that lesson learned the hard way.

  The second category was for unentangled recreational sex, of which Rick had in abundance after Thom’s mother died — and, per Rick’s stories, which he’d had a copious amount of (and in many ports around the world) before they’d met.

  The third category was for that rare woman with whom Rick could actually be kind, tender, and downright romantic … but in a sensible world there was only one woman in that group, and her name had been Marie Shelton, nee Watts. With her death, that phase of Rick’s life should have ended. Mom had been his one category-three shot, and that was all there was to it.

  Seeing Rick exhibit third-category behavior with this new woman was bizarre more than bothersome. Thom wasn’t truly upset. He just didn’t understand. It was even stranger given that the woman in question was sixty-six years old — an age Thom’s middle-aged brain had yet to equate with … you know … still wanting to be alive and social.

  Thom wasn’t yet forty; he’d decided in what he suspected was probably an ageist way that white-haired ladies knitted; they didn’t date. He’d discussed this theory with Carly. Once. She’d scowled, then asked Thom how he was planning to feel in twenty-five years when they were near retirement age, and Thom had thought she was changing the subject.

  Only after he was sleeping on the couch that night did he realize what her question really meant. He shouldn’t have answered, “achy when it rains,” and “excited about the early bird buffet,” both of which had earned him scathing looks.

  He probably should have lied. Said he was mature enough to see more than skin deep.

  “Rosie can’t go with us,” Carly explained.

  Rick gave a well-reasoned argument he’d clearly been formulating for a while: “Bullshit.”

  “She’s not our relative. We can’t sign her out.”

  Thom, uncomfortable with this new tension between his wife and his father, found himself out of the fray and hence just a foot from the non-relative in question. She asked him what he did for a living. Distracted, he gave Rosie his wife’s profession.

  “You’re good to your father,” Rosie said.

  Oh, sweet Rosie. She hadn’t met Thom, apparently.

  “Thanks.”

  “Where are we going, did you say?”

  Carly, hearing this, reached out to put her hand on the woman’s wrist. “I’m sorry, Rosie. We aren’t going anywhere. Another time, okay?” Then she immediately turned back to Rick. “No. And I mean it; do you hear me?”

  Her firm voice, which she almost never used with Rick. An excellent sign; Carly’s firm voice was like a caveman’s club, and she didn’t wield it against those who were too weak for its blows. The fact that she was speaking to Rick more like an opponent than a dependent meant she must see the mental changes as much Thom did.

  Rick wasn’t fully back to his old, decade-past self; he dipped in and out of temporary dementia with shocking ease and had, just since they’d left the room, made two references to being stalked by monsters that neither Thom nor Carly thought were for Brendan’s amusement. Even the boy had looked at his mother when Rick said the second thing, about being followed and the need to watch the shadows. But now — and a lot more often, lately — Rick was rock solid.

  Rosie turned to Thom again. “Are we going to the movies?”

  Thom shook his head. “The mall.”

  He’d already told her twice. He’d also told her his name two times and confirmed, just once, that he was not Rosie’s own son. Her forgetfulness was undermining Thom’s confidence that if Rick won this custody debate (he would), Rosie would be a casual ride-along. Her mental decay seemed mild enough to be more amusing than alarming, but still she had an illness, and that made Thom plenty nervous.

  The war at the checkout desk continued until Carly made two fatal mistakes. First, she let Rick sneak in that it was Rosie’s birthday tomorrow and that he’d promised her a night (or at least a day) on the town to celebrate — something a girl named Floris (seriously) at the desk confirmed.

  Floris, Thom gathered from context, was actually Rosie’s daughter … and that was Carly’s second mistake. Carly said, in front of Floris and Rick, that rules were rules, that nobody could sign out a resident they weren’t authorized to sign out. She delivered this missive with a palm-brushing finality, as conclusive as writing QED at the end of a logic problem.

  But Thom knew what would happen next, and sure enough it went one-two-three.

  Rick turned on the charm for Floris, who he’d clearly been bewitching since moving into the place, and Floris said she’d be happy to sign her mother into the Sheltons’ custody if it was okay with Carly.

  All eyes turned to Carly, then suddenly there she was, hoisted by her own petard. She’d have to be irresponsible and let Rosie come or be the bad guy. Given Thom’s avoidant personality, that was her usual role so often already.

  Five minutes later they were all in Thom’s minivan, with him behind the wheel like a beleaguered dad on a vacation he hadn’t asked to take and actively didn’t want to go on. He kept his eyes forward, forcing all conversational balls through Carly because this was all her fault; she’d allowed this to happen. Now, in addition to an afternoon spent with his father mocking his life choices and suggesting he was a wimp for not serving in the military or having any real adventures, he had to spend it with another senior on his conscience.

  Although, maybe it’d be okay. Maybe Rosie’s presence would occupy Rick so much that he wouldn’t have time to suggest that real men used guns and shovels instead of calculators and pens. More time with Rosie meant less time telling Thom to “live a little, for Christ’s sake” and suggesting he allow his son to do the same.

  Brendan, though he hated Shady Acres, was otherwise the second pea in his grandfather’s pod. Thom had nightmares in which Brendan became Rick. He didn’t just model all of his grandfather’s destructive behaviors (which he already did in more ways than Thom wanted to count); he actually turned sixty-eight and got liver spots on his arms. It’d been terrible, a nightmare that followed him into the day.

  “You hear about that thing in Rosedale?” came Rick’s voice from the rear.

  There was really no way not to have, unless you avoided the news entirely. “Not now, Dad.”

  “Oh. I get it. You’re afraid your kid can’t take it.”

  “I can take it!” Brendan said. “What is it, Grandpa?”

  “I said no, Brendan.”

  “Some guy was eaten alive,” Rick said.

  Rosie gasped. “Oh my.”

>   “Ate him like a steak.”

  “Gross!” said Brendan with elation.

  “Dammit, Dad.”

  “Please. You raise him like a marshmallow, he’ll think he’s living in chocolate. What happens when he gets drafted?”

  “There’s no draft anymore,” said Carly.

  “What about Vietnam?”

  Thom and Carly traded a glance.

  “Vietnam is over, Rick.”

  “You didn’t even fight in Vietnam, Dad,” Thom added.

  “I know what I fought in! I didn’t even mean the Vietnam War!”

  Rick probably expected them to ask, What about Vietnam, then?, but Thom wasn’t about to bite.

  When Rick got frazzled or excited, he tended to use representative avatars for the things he meant rather than the correct things themselves. Apparently “Vietnam,” in Rick’s mind, was the conflict everyone understood for a grizzled vet, even though it’d been well before his time.

  But Rick also remembered working on a farm (he hadn’t, but strong boys did inside his mind) and, most troublingly, had started to misremember his time with Thom’s mother. Sometimes he alluded to a 1950s-style marriage in which Marie had been waiting for him in high heels and a flowered apron when he came home, dinner already on the table with the brandy and cigars set out for after. But Marie had been a dental hygienist and had, at the time, worked longer hours than Rick. Thom had eaten most of his childhood meals in front of the TV while his father drank beer from a tall pilsner glass, perfectly centered on the coaster beneath it.

  “There’s something living in my closet,” Rick said out of the blue.

  “Really?” Brendan asked. “What?”

  “I can’t see what it looks like. The thing always hides when I open the door.”

  “Cool!”

  “There’s nothing in your closet,” Thom said without turning.

  And to think, he’d recently been wondering if Rick might be well enough to move back out on his own. He hated entertaining his father’s fantasies. They made him feel unseated. Good dads were supposed to deny the presence of closet monsters, not propose them.

  “Of course you’d say that,” Rick answered.

  “I believe you,” said Rosie.

  Rick nodded emphatically. “I’m not talking about the boogeyman. This is a real thing.”

  “Sure it is.”

  Rick spoke so rationally about his delusions and became so angry when they were questioned, sometimes Thom wondered if somehow, some way, there really was a monster in there.

  “Goddammit, I’m not senile! You think I’m senile, don’t you?”

  The answer was … yes, clearly, by medical diagnosis, undeniably and without question.

  Thom was spared having to deliver an answer when Brendan changed the topic. He’d pulled his phone from his pocket, and already Carly was reaching to confiscate it.

  “Oh, wow! Grandpa Rick was right — it says someone stripped this guy’s arm all the way to the bone!”

  Brendan made the announcement with the sort of glee usually reserved for rollercoaster rides. Thom, who’d seen gonzo footage on the news, felt differently. Bakersfield had been getting weirder and weirder over the past few weeks. Thom wasn’t so sure it was his imagination. He’d heard of a few more murders than usual and kept seeing people — mostly older folks — behaving in ways that seemed off, like an under-the-skin surrealist painting.

  Now this — murder by cannibal? What Brendan hadn’t said yet (and, hopefully, he hadn’t yet learned from whatever news site he was reading) was that the poor man’s head had also been smashed by something very large. Like a sledgehammer.

  “That’s enough of that,” Carly said, grasping while her son held his phone out of reach. “Give it to me, Brendan.”

  He relented.

  “One of my friends got caught up in that,” Rosie said.

  “What?” Carly turned to look back.

  “Well, I guess not a friend so much as an acquaintance. One of the ladies in that story used to come into the drug shop when I worked there.”

  “What ladies?”

  “And when?” Thom added.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Rosie in an airy way that made Thom wonder if he should take what came next seriously or dismiss it out of hand. “You know. The Walgreens.”

  “Walgreens?” Rick said.

  “What?” Carly asked him.

  “That was last year. She only worked at a Walgreens for a while before …” He trailed off, but they all knew what he meant. Rosie had once been a pharmacist, but they’d let her work the counter, with no drug privileges, once she’d started getting forgetful. Eventually there’d been no way to keep her on, but by then Rosie didn’t seem to mind at all.

  “Okay,” said Thom, withdrawing his attention from the big bag of nothing.

  “I think her name was Inga.”

  Thom’s mouth fell from an amused smile to something more sour. There’d been an Inga in the news story. He was sure of it; he’d had a horrible aunt by that name.

  “Inga Smith,” Rosie said.

  “Schneider,” Brendan corrected. He’d gotten his phone back when Rosie had provided her distraction and was now reading all the things Thom had hoped he wouldn’t.

  “That’s right,” said Rosie. “Inga Schneider. She and her sisters went to First Methodist on Eighth. No, Seventh.”

  Thom tried to ignore her and keep his eyes on the road.

  Before her death, Rick’s mother had been a lot like Rosie was now. She couldn’t remember Thom’s children between visits because they’d been born after her mind started to change, but she’d never lost track of obscure facts from long ago, like the exact shoes she’d worn to her cousin’s wedding. Rosie had that confidence in her voice now, and Inga Schneider was indeed the name he’d heard. The dead (eaten) man was named Jason something … No, no; it was Jaron … but three neighborhood women had gone missing at the same time. Sisters. Triplets, all identical, reclusive and strange.

  “They’re spreading.” Rick sounded emphatic. “I just know it. I can hear the monsters multiplying in my head.”

  “Okay,” said Carly.

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “I’m not patronizing you.”

  “Me either, Dad.” Thom was somewhere between frightened and annoyed. “In fact, I’m not even listening.”

  “Thomas!” Carly hissed.

  Thom shot her a stare. “What, am I supposed to just go along with this? He’s scaring Brendan.”

  “Grandpa’s not scaring me, Dad.”

  “It’s always like this,” Thom went on, realizing he was about to speak about Rick as if he weren’t present and far beyond caring. “He’s got a built-in excuse no matter what he says. If he’s making sense, then he’s my father and I should respect him. If he’s calling women ‘broads’ and pinching their asses—”

  “I don’t do that anymore!”

  “—then he’s just a harmless old man who grew up in a different day and age. If he’s racist—”

  “I’m not racist!”

  “Really? So you’re okay with Mexicans ‘taking our jobs’?”

  “That’s not racist; it’s—”

  “And when he’s acting batshit crazy, sorry Brendan, he can’t help himself! When does he have to accept responsibility for his own actions? When?”

  “How about when I was storming beaches with an M4 in my hands while you were still shitting in your diaper?” Rick said.

  Brendan laughed, then squelched it immediately.

  “Okay. Fine, Dad. Keep pulling out that old chestnut. It definitely forgives everything else. It’s like you did confession in advance, right?”

  “I did a lot of things in advance. That’s what men do, Thomas. They do things.”

  “So now you’re insulting Carly?”

  “Don’t bring me into this.” She already had sufficient frost in her voice to promise a week’s worth of cold shoulder.

  “I’m using ‘
men’ as a general term. Carly’s more man than you are.”

  She turned on him. “I don’t need your help either, Rick!”

  “Insulting,” Thom said. “The only perspective that matters is yours, same as it’s always been.”

  “I’m sorry I’m hurting your feelings while taking care of you and providing for you all of your life. I was taught by my old man that a father’s job isn’t to be his kids’ friend, but their father.”

  “You can be both. Brendan and I are friends. Maybe we won’t hate each other like …” Too far. “Maybe things will be different for us. Right, Brendan?”

  Brendan was playing a game on the phone. From what Thom saw when he turned his head, the kid had stopped listening.

  “Enough,” Carly tried.

  “We come out here,” Thom said, “we spend our time and our money to pick you up for a fun day …”

  “Hey. No sweat off my balls. You’re bored with this, take us back.” Rick grunted.

  “It’s nice to be out with family,” Rosie said, sounding oblivious.

  The van’s tires hummed on the road. The only other sound was the quiet tapping of Brendan’s finger on his phone’s screen.

  “Turn right here,” Rick said after the quiet had continued too long. “Quickly. We’re being followed.”

  Four

  Good For You, Son

  The Parliament Mall had found a temporary solution to its enormous empty anchor space — a JCPenney that went out of business and left a gaping hole in the mall’s bottom line. Thom, who saw the mall as a default neutral space to take his father on these excursions — one that was lively and distracting enough that nobody felt obligated to carry on a conversation — had been worrying about that gaping hole since the JCPenney had its fire sale and moved the hell out of Bakersfield.

  Anchor stores provided most of a mall’s rent. Without something in the entire east corner, Thom felt sure the place would go bankrupt and close. There were no other nearby malls. They’d have to go out to lunch or something, and then how would he manage to avoid conversation?