Zombie Factor Read online

  ***

  By the time he left the bar it was quarter to four and a gray sheet of storm clouds swept in from the west. Archibald drove along and shoveled a dozen Altoids into his mouth. He kept a tin handy in his glove compartment for those times when he’d leave a bar with a woman too drunk to resist the offer of money for sex. He would eat five or six of the mints before going down on her, a trick he learned from his friend and co-worker, Byron Bachman.

  “Drives the women nuts, in the truest sense of the word,” Byron promised.

  After the first time Archibald tried it, he could verify as much. It became an every-other-week routine. The heat on the woman’s clit would put her in a frenzied state, an effect he knew his flaccid member no longer produced.

  As he neared the rail yard, Archibald couldn’t remember the route he’d taken. He forced one foot in front of the other, stepped through the turnstile and punched the time clock with five minutes to spare. The building was air-conditioned, so he didn’t have to worry about sweating and the smell of alcohol seeping from his pores. He blew his breath onto his hand and then walked briskly to his seat at the computer monitor, careful to keep his head turned as he exchanged salutations with his co-workers.

  He took his seat next to Byron, who whispered sharply under his breath, “You better quit coming in here like that. You know old lady Henderson’s watching you.”

  “I’m fine,” Archibald replied. He believed it, even though in the dark alleys of his mind, the truth was slowly coming to, like a mugging victim. Never did it occur to Archibald he couldn’t function as ably inebriated as he did sober.

  He put on his headset and stared at the various colored lines on the monitor. Each represented tracks in the rail system. He watched as moving lines, which were active train routes, slid back and forth. After fifteen minutes of staring at his computer screen and operating more by reflex than anything, he realized that this time wasn’t like all the others. He’d twice caught himself nodding. He looked over his shoulder and saw Byron looking his way and shaking his head.

  I knew I shoulda got that energy drink…I’ll just throw some water on my face during first break and I’ll be fine.

  F I V E

  4:13 p.m.

  Valerie Poseidon, 28, was known for “giving it up outta both drawer legs.” How she’d avoided becoming one of those ladies with “six kids by nine different daddies” surprised everyone but her. The two things she did practice were safe sex and birth control. She was too wild to settle down and refused to waste her time or anyone else’s trying.

  Despite her reputation, she had a number of suitors in The Low that were eager to play house. Ned Lathan was one of them. The 56-year-old widower often paid Valerie to not only partake in her usual activities, but cook and clean for him. Oblivious to the adage, You can’t turn a ho into a housewife, Ned hoped to kill two birds with one stone: get her to move in and do all of those things free of charge, to which he would thank her with an occasional shopping spree.

  The two rolled around in Valerie’s bed until Ned spilled his seed, which came barely three minutes after insertion. Valerie found it amusing that he took several minutes to catch his breath, as if he’d put in a serious night’s work. She lie impassively, thinking of how she would split the money between food, her electric bill, a pack of Newport 100s and a 40-ounce bottle of Colt 45.

  Her silence was like a cloak of shame draped about him, but rather than resort to his oft-used “I ain’t the man I useta be” speech, he looked at the three crumpled twenty dollar bills on the nightstand and tried to calculate what it would translate to by the hour. It dawned on him, Damn, that was part of the money I was saving to go fishing…This is going to be a long month.

  “Guess you want me to go, huh?” Ned asked.

  It was hard to tell if he would be happy to go home, so that he might save face, or if he was disappointed. Valerie suspected it was the former, since he’d gotten what he wanted.

  “I need a ride downtown,” she said.

  Ned sat on the side of the bed and began slipping his shorts and pants on. “I can’t do it. I don’t have that much gas.”

  Valerie rose to a sitting position. “Ned, I knew you when you weren’t shit, and you still ain’t. I guess you want me to give you some of your money back for gas, don’tcha?” She watched him stumble over his shoes as he tried to dress hurriedly. “This ain’t the days of your youth, when a woman would hook up with any man who had a job, and eat ten yards of his shit for bill money.”

  Ned dressed with such haste that he buttoned his shirt wrong. Valerie lay back with her slender brown arms folded and she wore a look of smug satisfaction. “I think I’ll catch the bus. You can’t be trusted to button your shirt right, much less drive a car.”

  Ned left with an expression that was somewhere between anger and sadness. He slammed the front door and moved slowly across the brown and green patch of grass separating his apartment and Valerie’s. His footfalls were hard and loud and he needed to vent on someone.

  He heard music coming from the apartment of his neighbor, Bob Goodman, so he veered to his left across the front lawn and pounded on the door. He knew Bob was home, but for the past week the older man ducked him. He’d been warned about loaning things to “Borrowing Bob,” but didn’t think the man was as much a cad as the other neighbors claimed. Ned had made the mistake of lending Bob camping equipment so that he could take his grandkids out for a weekend at nearby Lake Red Hawk. A week and a half had gone by and Ned had yet to be given his gear back.

  “Open the damn door, Bob! I know you’re in there.”

  Bob Goodman, red-eyed and off-balance opened the door. The fire in his eyes was the equivalent of cussing his neighbor without even speaking.

  “I came to get my camping gear,” Ned said.

  “I just woke up, and I got that stuff in my hall closet, but right now I’m in the middle of something and—”

  “Look, you just said you were asleep, and the only thing you’re in the middle of is a bottle of Kessler. I want my shit, Bob.”

  “I’ll bring it over this evening, for sure.”

  “Don’t make me come back over here, ‘cause if I do, I’ma act a fool.” Ned walked off, mumbling under his breath, “I know that bastard did something to my tent and lanterns.”

  ***

  4:23 p.m.

  When Grace Owens came home from work, she found her younger brother Roy sitting on the sofa, with one of his Nike-clad feet on her coffee table. She noticed his gaze was fixed on the contents of the blouse worn by 17-year-old babysitter, Tanisha Winslow.

  Cash was on the floor reading to Grace’s three kids, ages 8, 6 and 3.

  Once Grace entered she hardly had time to put her purse on the end table before the children scrambled to throw their arms around her waist. She gave each of them a squeeze, first oldest daughter Sherry, then sons Tayshun and finally Devin. The kids were no longer interested in whether or not one dog in the story liked the other dog’s hat, nor about the cars they drove around in.

  Cash set the book on the coffee table and settled into a corner of the loveseat, but not before serving up an exuberant “Hello.”

  Despite being several years older than him and Roy, Cash and Grace were on good terms. The parameters of the friendship were firmly established: Cash successfully hit on several women in the neighborhood, but Grace made it clear that he had no chance and better not try it with her.

  “Hello Cash, or should I say Mister never-got-any-Cash.” She rolled her eyes toward Roy. “What brings you two unemployed buzzards to my house in the middle of the day? You’re usually like vampires, and show up late at night.”

  “Which are we, buzzards or vampires?” Roy asked.

  “Both, and another thing, leave my underage babysitter alone. You graduated high school six years ago. Let her have that same opportunity.”

  Grace looked at Tanisha, a Hershey’s chocolate bar poured into a tight V-cut blouse and black jeans. She was a child t
rapped in the body of a woman and had it not been for Grace, the girl might have fallen into the trap so many of her peers had: pregnant high school dropout. Tanisha’s mother smoked crack and often left the child at home alone for days at a time. Her mother’s money was used to pay rent and just enough of the bills to leave the utilities on, while the rest went to feed her addiction. Grace took note of the child’s smarts and became her de facto guardian.

  Because of Tanisha’s love for books, other girls poked fun of her “nerdish” demeanor. Grace would take her to the library, museums and on other outings with her children. In return, Tanisha had to earn good grades. Grace’s words were stern, but there was no mistaking the love behind them.

  “Tanisha, I’ve told you about grinning up in the face of anyone who gives you a smile and the time of day.”

  “I know, Miss Owens. I’m just sitting here talking.”

  “That’s how trouble gets started, ‘just talking.’ Now go change into a T-shirt.”

  “You be trippin,” Roy said, taking his foot off the table. “I take it you had a hard day at work.”

  “Get a job and find out for yourself.” She looked Cash’s way and added, “I keep telling you two that we’re hiring at the mall.”

  “For what?” Roy asked.

  “Entry-level maintenance crew, straight graveyard.”

  “That’s a euphemism for ‘junior custodian,’” Cash replied.

  “At least its honest work, which is a far cry from what you usually do.”

  “How do you always know who’s hiring at this place and that place, when you work as a paralegal?”

  “I just know,” Grace said with a grin.

  “Forget about the mall thing,” Roy said. “I wanna know if you can spot me a twenty ‘til tomorrow.”

  Grace stared at her brother with her eyebrows arched. “And what’s supposed to be happening tomorrow?”

  “I got some loot coming.”

  Grace shifted her eyes from her brother to Cash. “You two ain’t up to your old tricks, are you?”

  “We ain’t sticking up anybody, if that’s what you mean,” Roy answered.

  Grace picked up her purse. “You know I gotta have some money to pay Tanisha tomorrow.”

  Roy sighed, like a frustrated teacher having to explain a problem to one of her students for the umpteenth time. “Grace, I said I’d pay you back tomorrow morning.”

  “You must plan on bringing it down to my job.”

  “If that’s whatcha want.” Roy managed to keep a straight face.

  Grace reached into her purse and took out a Jackson. Before handing it to Roy she emphasized, “I need this back tomorrow.”

  “I heard you twice the first time.”

  Once the bill was in his hand Roy signaled Cash to follow him to the hall closet, where he retrieved their coats. They handled the heavy jackets carefully, not wanting their pistols to fall out. They both knew that Grace didn’t like having guns in her home. There were serious repercussions for parents who failed to keep their weapons out of the reach of kids.

  One such tragedy had led to one of Grace’s neighbors being charged with child endangerment, as a child toyed with a gun belonging to her mother’s boyfriend. Despite the fact no one was hurt after it accidentally discharged, the repercussions were just as devastating as the mother was carted off to jail and the child placed in foster care.

  Cash whispered, “Why did you ask Grace for twenty dollars?”

  “We can get a drink before we do this job.”

  “Drink before we rob a bank? Man, that’s mainy.”

  Roy stepped outside with Cash on his heels. When they reached the sidewalk he turned and said, “Look, I know we’ve never done anything like this before, which is all the more reason we get a half pint to calm our nerves.”

  “All right, we’ll get two of those tiny shot bottles. Just a little something to take the edge off.”

  “Cool.” They hardly walked ten feet when Roy stopped. “Oh, there’s something else I gotta tell you. We gotta make another stop before we get to the bank.”

  Cash couldn’t hide his irritation. “For what?”

  “Keep it down,” Roy said gruffly.

  Cash shook his head. “Successful or not, this is the last time I do something like this.”

  “Stop crying, man, and let’s go do this.”

  ***

  4:54 p.m.

  “…And now to the weather, with Martin Welch.”

  It wasn’t hard to see why the Channel Eight Eyewitness Newscast was last in the local ratings. The newscaster, Brent Van Pelt, delivered the news in an annoying drone that could have turned a hyperactive child into a helpless narcoleptic. His tenor was so flat that it made the weather report sound glamorous by comparison. The weatherman was a beanpole with a bald pate and glasses so thick, it wouldn’t have surprised a single viewer if he whispered the words, “I see dead people.”

  Grace shook her head, wondering how she could recognize the weaknesses of the station’s evening broadcast and the producers couldn’t. She stayed tuned as Brent threw out one of his shopworn clichés, “Looks like umbrellas and galoshes weather, eh Martin?”

  “Certainly does,” Martin said, in a voice that always caused Grace to chuckle, for the man sounded like the character Mr. Kimble on the old TV show, Green Acres. “Temperatures are falling across the nine-county Bay Area. Its fifty-seven degrees in Marin, fifty-six in Livermore, and similar temperatures hold steady throughout the region. If we take a look at the Doppler radar…”

  Martin pointed to the screen behind him, which revealed a wide swath of white cloud cover heading toward the west coast. “This high pressure system is going to bring the season’s first major storm. We’re talking maybe three-four inches of precipitation. This storm is expected to dump at least a couple of feet of snow in the Sierras, which should make for good skiing…”

  Grace skipped the rest of the report, which focused on the national outlook. She took a peek out of her back door and saw the storm clouds in formation, like soldiers in a military parade. She hated the first rain of the year, as it made the roads uncommonly slick. She hoped that Roy and Cash wouldn’t be out drinking and come back later talking loud and tracking mud into her house.

  S I X

  5:11 p.m.

  Archibald eyed the clock for the fifth time and became despondent when he realized he’d been at work but two hours. It was hard to stay alert and he’d have to ride out another thirty minutes before his first scheduled break. He needed to go to the restroom, splash cold water on his face, and go to the cafeteria for a large cup of black coffee.

  Every few minutes he saw Byron looking his way with worry lines etched deeply in the man’s olive complexion. Supervisor Henderson walked past earlier in the shift and stood over his shoulder for a few minutes before she retired to her office. No sooner did she depart when Archibald slipped a couple more Altoids into his mouth.

  Archibald rubbed his eyes. This is gonna be a long thirty minutes ‘til break time…

  Making things tougher was the slowness of the night. He noticed the trains which usually traversed the northeast corridor were either cancelled or delayed for reasons unknown. On most days there would have been a dozen trains rolling through that sector. Tonight there had been three…no two….

  “Arch! Arch!”

  Archibald looked up to see Byron rushing toward him and motioning frantically.

  “You just switched a train to the northeast tracks!”

  Archibald shook his head. Bullshit, I was just looking at the….Oh, God no!

  By the time he realized what was happening, Byron was on the radio and Henderson rushed from her office, eyes wide with terror. Several other workers shouted frantically into their radios as Archibald froze and watched in horror as the green lights on the screen indicated that two trains raced toward one another.

  A voice broke in on the radio. “This is five-eight-one-seven; we are seeing visual contact of another train. Ap
proximate speed, sixty-five miles per hour. Urgent. Please advise.”

  Byron could be heard yelling, “…Five-eight-one-seven, your route must be adjusted southwest! Unidentified cargo headed eastbound! Train number five-eight-one-seven, slow and we will redirect…”

  The words froze in Byron’s throat. He realized that at the rate of speed the second train was moving, there would be a direct hit before 5817 could be switched to a different set of tracks. His eyes grew larger with each passing second, and that became the warning sign to Archibald that it was officially too late and that he was about to be held responsible for a horrific rail accident.

  He stood and took a step back, as it was all he could do to keep from losing control of his bodily functions. Visions of the end result swam through his head: The two lights coming together and the blue fluorescent lines denoting a derailment or collision. It dawned on Archibald that Byron would have to testify to the fact that he had been nodding off throughout his shift, and a sinking feeling filled his guts.

  Next, blood alcohol content tests would reveal that he was legally drunk at the time of the accident. Henderson would nail-gun the final tack in his coffin and cite his long record of tardiness. (She could not cite her suspicion of his drinking on the job, unless she too, wanted to be fired).

  Archibald figured that he was as good as locked up in prison, so he did the usual when times got tough: the same thing he’d done twenty-five years earlier when his high school girlfriend told him she was pregnant; the same as he’d done ten years earlier when he struck a child with his car. The next vision that passed through his psyche was a reenactment of his actions as a child playing with matches, when he set a fire that took three engines two hours to put out and resulted in the loss of a neighbor’s house…

  He ran.