Dead World | Novel | Dead Zero Read online

  But the mall’s empty gullet was now filled with a holiday store. Crammed with Halloween decorations now, but Thom could see a few animatronic Santas and over-the-top nativities edging forward from the rear, suggesting that the Christmas store would be coming soon. Good. The place would survive a little longer.

  Unfortunately, Thom found himself unable to enjoy the relief at seeing its vacancy filled. He was too annoyed from the drive, and still pumped with adrenaline from the last five minutes. Rick’s certainty that they were being followed (and that there were creatures lurking in doorways) had grown from ridiculous to, with Brendan’s help, almost credible.

  After several minutes of Rick insisting he kept seeing the same cars behind him, Thom said that’s how it worked; cars tended to follow each other long distances when traveling on main routes. But Brendan was sure he’d seen the same blue Kia well before they got onto 58. It also had a dent on its fender.

  Thom said it was coincidence.

  Rosie said she thought two other cars looked familiar.

  Thom tried to say Rosie didn’t really know what she’d seen but by then Carly was in the fray, playing caretaker but doing more harm than good. In a semantic fight (or perhaps an attempt to help Rosie improve her memory), Carly asked Rosie which cars she remembered for sure, just to test her mind and see if there was anything to it, but then Rick heard her and became even more agitated.

  Brendan started spotting cars that sort of matched Rosie’s descriptions, arguing with his father that Grandpa might be right. Rick’s commands increased in volume, and it all must have sounded reasonable to Brendan because he grew more animated and louder too. Thom was pretty sure the only thing his dad was doing with those shouts was quoting lines from movie chase scenes his father had always enjoyed.

  The French Connection, Dirty Harry, The Dark Knight.

  At one point Rick said they had a hundred miles to the mall, that they had a full tank of gas and half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark out, and they were wearing sunglasses.

  This confused Brendan, but Thom just said, “It’s 106 miles. To Chicago.” Nobody appreciated his trivia skills, hearing Rick’s words as real observations instead of lines from The Blues Brothers.

  The situation kept rotting, and somehow Thom found himself zigzagging between lanes and turning on a moment’s notice to elude their imaginary pursuers. When they reached the mall, he was both angry and humiliated. Angry because Rick had riled everyone up again and humiliated because somehow he’d let himself get caught up in it.

  Couldn’t he just have kept saying no, no matter how much Brendan told him to just listen, Grandpa’s right?

  Couldn’t he have kept his own compass, instead of falling right into his father’s weird vortex all over again?

  “Let’s just sit a while,” Thom said.

  “We sat the whole way here. I thought I was supposed to be the old man.”

  Thom sat in an outer ring of the food court anyway, not caring if they all just walked away. “Are those people still after us, Dad?”

  “Of course not. Now they’re planning.”

  A sigh. “Planning what?”

  “Do you remember Miles?”

  “Miles?” Thom repeated.

  “Miles Pope, from the trials?”

  “I don’t know everyone in your drug trial, Dad. Not something that’s really on my radar.”

  “Miles understands.”

  “Oh? Does ‘Miles’ live at the Acres?”

  But Thom knew perfectly well that he didn’t. Rick’s capacity at the trial’s start had been rocky at best — far worse than now, Thom had just realized — so Thom and Carly had received all the disclosures and signed all the consent forms on his father’s behalf. Thom specifically remembered the Hemisphere rep explaining that there were only two test subjects per county. Some weird precaution the company was taking that Thom hadn’t cared enough to understand.

  Thom was clear on the one thing that mattered: if Rick was the only subject in his retirement home (the other was ten miles away, in Wharton Gardens), at least they wouldn’t end up in a Cocoon scenario wherein the old men ran around rejuvenated and irresponsible together, talking about their vigorous erections. Rick did enough damage on his own, with just the one dick.

  So whoever this Pope was, he couldn’t be a friend. Just another delusion, probably. Thom didn’t chase the topic. Yet another subject it was hard to start caring about.

  Surprising Thom, Rick sat opposite him. He crossed his well-muscled arms (they’d never quite deflated), replete with fading blue-black tattoos. His crystal blue eyes fixed his son’s for long enough to show Thom just how lucid he was.

  “You think I’m having an episode. Think I’m losing my marbles, is that right?”

  “No,” Thom muttered, instantly cowed.

  Rick looked up at Carly, wordlessly giving instructions. Hearing it, she suddenly became interested in an information kiosk, to which she dragged Rosie and Brendan, out of earshot.

  “Tell the truth,” Rick said.

  “You have Alzheimer’s. It would be irresponsible for me not to take what you say with a grain of salt, especially when it’s …”

  (Batshit crazy.)

  “… outside of my experience.”

  “I’m better now.”

  “You’re better sometimes. Not all the time.”

  “You didn’t see my CAT scan. They did that and an MRI. They said they could see new pathways forming.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  Not really.

  Rick said he had a monster in his closet, that they were being followed, that he could hear the minds of people he’d met once in a random drug trial, and he’d spent the drive shouting movie lines he thought he was inventing himself. It didn’t matter how clear and cogent he sometimes seemed (most times, really, including now); there was no question that Rick’s facts were melting into his fantasies.

  Thom had heard of no brain scans, and he was supposed to be Rick’s medical contact.

  “That drug they’re giving me? It’s working, Thomas. You don’t like what I’m saying so you’re dismissing it, but I’m not making this up.”

  “It’s not a matter of ‘making it up,’ Dad. You have a biological condition. Nobody’s blaming you for—”

  “It’s doing more for me than helping me to stop forgetting and imagining things. And by the way, it’s not just me saying that. The Hemisphere folks told me this might happen — that I might develop ‘beneficial cerebral side effects.’”

  “When? When did they tell you this?”

  “Many times. Over and over.”

  “I see.”

  “They did!”

  “Okay. Okay, Dad. You win. People are following you. You’re special. Monsters, telepathy — I’m all in.” For some reason, Thom’s mind flashed on the “urgent but routine” test the nurse had wanted before they’d left.

  One of your dad’s tests came back abnormal.

  But that didn’t matter right now, did it?

  This was about peace, not being right.

  “Now we’re here. We lost the cars that were chasing us. So what do you want to do, huh?”

  Rick knew he was being patronized, but the best this particular father and son had ever done in life was to reach an impasse. If they weren’t actively fighting — if Rick wasn’t calling Thom weak and Thom wasn’t calling Rick a bully — that meant they were doing well.

  Both men glanced at the two women and the boy standing by the kiosk, then gave each other something on the spectrum of a nod. Let’s just let it go, that look said, and fight about it tomorrow.

  “I want to take Rosie on the date I promised her,” Rick said.

  “That’s what we’re doing right now.”

  “I told her I’d take her to get frozen yogurt. Days ago. She’s all excited.”

  Thom throttled his irritation. He’d invited Rosie along on this trip even though he knew Thom wouldn’t want her
to go? Really?

  “Fine. I guess we can get yogurt.”

  “I don’t mean all of us. I mean just me and Rosie.”

  Thom wondered if he was misunderstanding. “Just you? Are you serious?”

  “Did you invite me and your mother when you went on dates? I mean, if you ever had any?”

  Thom avoided the insult. It was too easy. “You think we’ll cramp your style?”

  “I’m almost seventy, kid. You don’t need to chaperone me.”

  “See,” Thom said, “that’s what I can’t get you to understand no matter how many times I try. We have to sign you out, Dad. I’m sorry that makes you feel like a library book, but that’s how it is. Signing you out makes you my responsibility whether you like it or not.”

  “Dammit, I’m—”

  Thom had anticipated the interruption. He steamrolled on, raising his voice over Rick’s.

  “But if you thought I’d just neglect all of that for you, okay.” His volume dropped as Rick let him win. Pressing his oh-so-rare authority, Thom then thrust a two-finger gun at Rosie — a gesture that was far cooler and more confident than Thom had ever truly felt in his life.

  “Rosie, on the other hand? No way. No way, Dad. Think I haven’t seen Silver Alerts thrown up on the highway message system? This is how they happen. Frankly, I don’t give a shit what you say about me; under no circumstances are you taking her anywhere alone, out of my sight, when I promised her daughter I’d keep her safe. If you want to take your girlfriend for yogurt so bad, then you can do it with the rest of us. Family treat; we all go or none of us go. I’m hungry for yogurt too. So just try and stop me.”

  He lowered the fingers, which he’d dared to move toward Rick as his rant rolled on. For a quiet ten seconds, he felt pride like nothing in recent memory. He wasn’t a mild engineer right now. He was Rambo. He was The Terminator. He was Cool Hand Luke and James Dean and Henry Hill. Even Rick kept his mouth shut during those seconds. Probably not because he felt Thom was right or even because he respected Thom’s principles, but because his son finally got the balls to stand up for himself for a change. Good for you, son.

  Then Thom’s balls were snipped and fell to the floor.

  “I think we can swing it.”

  He looked up to see Carly laying one hand on his shoulder and another on Rick’s. She thought she was helping, but really this was more emasculation. Before she’d spoken, Thom had been preparing to administer a conversational Fatality on his father. He could practically hear the crowd yelling, FINISH HIM!

  Rick’s lips betrayed a tiny smile: just for Thom, not for Carly.

  “What?” Thom said, though he’d heard just fine.

  “Your father wants some privacy. That’s fair. I think we can find a way to create the feeling of alone.”

  “But—”

  “Brendan’s being jerky anyway.” She pointed, and Thom saw his son already halfway through the crowd to the atrium. “He said he wants to look at some video games, and I don’t think any of us have any interest in doing that.” She turned to Rick. “Thom’s right. We can’t just let you go off alone. Not if Rosie’s here. We made a promise.”

  “I actually just told him that,” Thom said.

  “But what I can do is give you some space. Thom, you can do whatever; just text me when you’re ready to go or I’ll text you. Rick, go ahead and get yogurt with Rosie.” She pointed through a wide-open space. “I’ll sit by the fountain and make sure nobody runs anywhere they shouldn’t.”

  “Thank you, Carly.” The solution should still feel humiliating for Rick, but right now thumbing his nose at Thom mattered more. He glanced at his son, then moved to stand beside his girlfriend.

  Thom looked up at Carly. “Seriously?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, smiling and failing to get … well … everything. “Happy to help.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  Thom sighed and looked to Brendan’s departing back. “Couldn’t you at least have had Brendan wait so I could go with him?”

  “I figured you’d want time to cool off. Alone. Usually that’s what you want when you’re like this.”

  “‘When I’m like …’” He dropped it. “Not this time.”

  “Why?”

  Ugh. No way to win. “You’re okay with Brendan just being off on his own?”

  “He has his phone and I told him to be back at the fountain at one. He knows what’ll happen if he misses texts or is late. And he’s fourteen. Remember fourteen?”

  “Carly …”

  “You know that girl he likes? I think her mom teaches a goat yoga class at Yoga Bear, and I think Brendan thinks she tags along. That’s the real reason I thought you two should separate.”

  “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do?”

  “Jesus, Thom,” she said, giving her his what crawled up your butt? look. “You’re welcome.”

  Five

  Rip Daddy

  Thom wondered whether he was following his son for something to do or because he didn’t trust him. The latter, if true, would be stupid. Kids might be maturing faster these days, but while many fourteen-year-olds were already burying the hatchet, Thom doubted his own son knew what to do with his.

  Brendan was painfully bad with girls — and like the dog who chases cars, Thom was confident his son wouldn’t have a clue of what to do with a female if he ever actually caught one. Someone must’ve also told him women liked a good sense of humor, because Brendan’s flirting was entirely jokes. Unbearable jokes. He was the kind of joke-teller who forgot to mention the hook, then went back after the punchline to explain.

  A man walks into a building. He says ouch. Oh, wait, the building is a bar. I forgot to tell you that part. So he walked into a bar, like, instead of entering a drinking place, I’m saying it’s like he rams his head into a bar by mistake. HAHAHA.

  Yeah. That kid wasn’t getting laid any time soon.

  But with that out of the way, why was he after Brendan if not to intrude on his privacy for the hell of it? It was a dick move. He should let the kid have time with his crush. Maybe they’d hold hands; maybe they’d kiss if Brendan got extraordinarily lucky. It wouldn’t go farther than that, especially not in the mall. What was he going to do, bend her over in the yoga window? The goats could climb all over them if they were able to stand the gyration.

  “Fuck.” Thom sat in a chair outside a free-standing Orange Julius, suddenly ashamed.

  A peek through the crowd showed him Brendan getting away, but that was just fine. Rick had gotten his way and Brendan had gotten his way and even Carly, who (let’s face it) respected Rick’s dignity more than Thom’s, had more or less gotten her way.

  He was the only one still in a bad mood, but maybe that wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Maybe this was like penance. In biblical times he would have had to use a whip to flagellate himself, so he should count himself lucky. He’d honored thy mother and, by force and coercion, was honoring his father as well. He’d get his chance when Rick was dead and Brendan—

  Something was happening across a gap in the upper level.

  Thom was standing outside Men’s Wearhouse, looking over at a group of middle-aged suburbanites milling right outside the LEGO Store. They looked like the mildest of mild-mannered folks, and the group was diverse enough to look staged. Despite the khakis and middle-class haircuts, Thom thought at first that the fight might be racial. Some of the shouts had the timbre of insults, and others a tone of indignation.

  As the scene unfolded, Thom heard nuance he’d missed before, and …

  No. That wasn’t an argument. It was closer to a fight.

  And one that was spiraling out of control, by the sound.

  Thom stood. He wasn’t alone. Others were also standing and staring.

  But just before things got good, some change of dynamics boxed in the group’s troublemakers and dragged the entire group, discretely, toward the bathroom hallway.


  Seconds later, they were gone.

  Thom surveyed the mall-goers around him.

  Everyone had stopped paying attention. Once the problem was out of sight, the crowd seemed content to forget they’d seen it. They were just people with errands to run and fun to have, and fighting would sour that. They didn’t care to investigate anything that was about to soil their day.

  But for Thom, who had no errands to run and wasn’t having any fun, the incident promised a perfect diversion. He rose and went to quell his curiosity.

  As he got closer, his angle to the wide bathroom hallway changed and he was able to see down it.

  Peace hadn’t returned to the group of diverse suburbanites; they’d just gotten their struggling selves out of the thoroughfare.

  Thom, moving faster now, felt his interest increase.

  What kept people so incredibly blah fighting for so long? They weren’t the kind of folks Fight Club was made for.

  So why were they so hands-on now?

  It looked like they were holding one of their number back, not keeping two different folks from sparring. It was as if someone wanted to go out and play in the crowd, but the buzzkills around him didn’t agree.

  He reached the hallway, slipped to one side like a professional eavesdropper, then peeked in when he thought it least likely they’d see him.

  The group was holding a small black woman, barely five feet tall and surely unstable in a stiff wind. Two Asian men had her by the arms, a white woman was gripping her waist, and two mixed-race men who looked almost like twins were standing slightly back while seeming uncertain.

  “What do we do?” one of the arm-holders asked.

  “Call someone!”

  “She’s … OW, dammit, Theresa!”

  One of the freestanding men had tried to calm or otherwise touch her, and she’d bitten his finger.

  Chomped right down, judging by all the gushing blood.

  “Dad?”

  Thom looked to his left, so startled that he almost fell over.

  Apparently he was nervous. Apparently this scene, so unusual for a mall, had him on-edge.

  “Brendan? I thought you were off meeting …” He remembered the official story and changed course. “I thought you were looking at video games.”