Текст книги "Best new zombie tales, vol. 3"

Автор книги: James Daley

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Текущая страница: 11 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

He went home less and less. One night he went back and didn't have his key. Hadn't had it for a long time. How long, he didn't know. He pounded on the front door. No answer. He went around and pounded on the back. Still nothing. He broke the pane of the basement door, reached it and unlocked it.

Things were changed. None of his stuff was there. He didn't know the man standing in the basement. He did know the man had a gun. And he knew that the sirens in the distance were coming for him.

Nobody believed that he thought it was still his house. His mother hadn't lived there for months. What had happened to her he never found out. Without money for bail he sat in the Baltimore Detention Center for six months, awaiting trial. In that time his prints came back on six other burglaries. He got three on top of the half he'd served. Overcrowding forced him back on the street inside the year.

When Eddie came out he went back to the B&E, back to yoking tourists who went down the wrong street, back to jacking cars from the fools who came down from PA looking to buy drugs. He had to. Inside he had picked up the habit, and now it needed to be fed every day.

He went inside the second time because he got stung. The guy in the Honda looking to buy turned out to be a cop. When Eddie pulled his piece the cop pulled a bigger one. Without turning around, Eddie knew that there were two more big guns pointing at the back of his head.

Two years this time. Eddie's cellmate was a no-parole lifer who had found Jesus. Or was it Allah? Whoever It was, the lifer always talked to Eddie about a better way. With nothing else to do, Eddie listened.

It didn't make sense until three months after Eddie was out. Out in the cold and rain, huddling in a doorway, the better way that the con had talked about seemed very good to Eddie. He'd change, Eddie told himself. He'd find a program and get clean, give up this half a life and start living again.

Getting clean was harder than scoring without cash. All the programs were full. The drug treatment centers had waiting lists. Despite his wanting it, no one was offering any help. Desperate, and willing to do anything to escape the Limbo he was in, Eddie did the one thing he never expected to do. He called a cop.

~

"Yeah, I'm interested... Thought there might be, how much?... Oh! That might take some doing... No, didn't say it couldn't be done, have to pull in a few that's all... Give me your cell... Thought everybody did... Pager then... Well then, call be back in two days... Yeah, this number. I'll work something out, get you clean." Detective Dante Amberson hung up the phone.

"Who was that?" Andy Russell asked his partner.

"Some stoner called Fast Eddie," Amberson replied, turning to his computer. He logged on to the Citynet and searched "drug treatment centers–open beds." There weren't that many.

"I remember Eddie, we almost shot him, what, two years back?"

"That's why he called us, because we didn't shoot him when we could have. Thinks he can trust us." Amberson started copying names, numbers and email addresses into a document, highlighting the ones he'd try first.

"What's he want?"

"To give us Santos."

Russell's eyes widened. Antoine Santos wasn't a major drug dealer, but he was big enough that once arrested, he could be squeezed until he gave up a few people who were. "How's Eddie know Santos?"

"Used to work for him, still does some running." Amberson hit print. Two lists came out of the printer.

"And for Santos he gets–?

"Placement in a drug treatment center. He wants out of the life."

"That's it, no money?" Russell was amazed; everybody wanted money.

"He wouldn't turn it down, but without treatment, no Santos."

"We better make some calls."

Amberson handed Russell one of the lists. "Tell me about it. Start calling, partner."

Two days later Eddie called back.

"All arranged, my man," Amberson told him. "Got a room at the McCulloh Treatment Facility with your name on it... That's right, where Church Home Hospital used to be... You're getting the works–detoxification, blood cleaning, counseling, job placement, everything. You be there tomorrow morning, eleven sharp. We'll get you settled, then you give us what we need on Santos... What's that?"

But Eddie hadn't been talking to Amberson. The detective heard him say something to somebody, his voice low as if turned away from the phone. There was a muffled reply, then three loud pops.

"Oh shit! Eddie! Eddie!" Amberson yelled into the receiver. To his partner, "Andy, call 2284. Get this line traced. Get an ambo started. Eddie!" he yelled again. No answer.

"Got it," Russell said calmly. "Units and medics are rolling. Anything on your end?" Amberson shook his head. "Damn. Well, let's get out there." Amberson looked at the admissions folder they'd gotten from McCulloh. "Damn," he said again, "and after all our hard work."

When the two detectives rolled up on the scene they saw the ambulance pulling away.

"Follow that," Amberson told his partner. "Let the district guys and the Lab worry about witnesses and spent casings. If Eddie's still alive we'll get his statement."

Russell followed the ambulance down Wolfe Street. He groaned when it turned right, bypassing Johns Hopkins.

"Taking him right to Shock Trauma," he said. "Must be bad."

Madison to Central. Central to Fayette. From Fayette straight to Shock Trauma and the best emergency care available. Russell knew the way–every detective did–and he stayed close to the wagon. He wanted to be there when Eddie was pulled out, to hear him say who shot him, hoping the name was "Santos."

Lights flashing and siren screaming, the ambulance raced down Central. But when it turned on Fayette, it went silent and dark as its emergency system shut down. It slowed, now keeping pace with traffic rather than weaving in and out.

There could only be one reason for the sudden lack of urgency. "Damn," Amberson's fist hit the dash. "They lost him."

Still, Russell followed. From Fayette Street the wagon turned on to Penn Street and from there, down the ramp that led to the Medical Examiner's Office.

Russell parked along side the ambulance. The detectives caught up to the paramedics just as they were wheeling Eddie into the receiving area.

"He say anything?" Amberson shouted as soon as he got into the room.

"Like?" asked the medic. He was on the twelfth hour of a sixteen-hour day. He'd had two "breaks." Once he stopped for a coffee and doughnut at a convenience store, both of which he gulped down rushing to yet another overdose call. An hour later at Hopkins he stopped briefly to call his wife and use the bathroom. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to get as excited about this dead junkie as the detective was.

"Like did he say who shot him?"

The medic shrugged. "Maybe. I wasn't listening." In fact, the medic had stopped listening a year ago. He'd heard a dying declaration from a gunshot victim, reported it to the police. That lead to his going to court several times, spending hours waiting in a cold, dark hallway only to be told the case was once again postponed. When he finally did get to testify, he was on the stand three hours, as a team of defense attorneys challenged his competency, questioned his hearing and subtly suggested that he'd let the victim die so that declaration could be used in court. When a "not guilty" verdict came back the medic decided that from then on, he'd be deaf to anything not directly related to treating his patient.

~

Like a baby, Eddie felt himself being cradled in someone's arms. There was a gentle, rocking motion. Gradually, the arms became a hand, with Eddie cupped in its palm as if being weighed. He became aware of all the decisions, good or bad, he'd ever made in his life. He saw too all the decisions he'd failed to make. Every path his life could have taken was revealed to him. Some were worse than the one he had lived. Most were better.

From somewhere there was a voice. "A life mostly wasted. An effort at redemption towards the end." A light appeared–a golden light. Eddie was drawn toward it. But he knew without the voice telling him that despite his yearning, he'd get no closer to the light than where he was now.

~

"Can you make the ID?" the attending examiner asked Amberson and Russell.

The detectives looked down at the body. There wasn't much to see: a body ravaged by drugs, thin and dirty from too many months on the street.

"Yeah," Russell answered. "For your records, I identify this body as one Wallace Cromwell, a.k.a. Fast Eddie."

"And do you agree, sir?" the examiner asked Amberson. There was a slight lilt of the Caribbean in his voice.

Amberson nodded. "Well, Eddie," he said to the corpse, "I guess you won't be needing that treatment now. I just wish you'd held on long enough to give us Santos."

Now would be a good time, the examiner thought. In his six months in this country, five months doing this job, he'd seen too much of this tragedy, too many wasted lives. It was time to do something about it, if these men were willing.

"He still could."

Both detectives looked at the examiner, who had finished weighing the body and was now filling out a toe tag.

"Excuse me, Mr.–?" Amberson asked.

"Jones, Dominic Jones. I said that maybe he still could."

"And how, Mr. Amberson, could he do that?"

"I am from the Dominican Republic. My country, as you may or may not know, shares its island with Haiti. When I was in medical school, it was close enough to Haiti that, occasionally, myself and other students would slip across the border to study, shall we say, comparative medicine and religion."

"Voodoo," Amberson said softly.

"Vodou," Jones corrected, giving the word a slightly different pronunciation.

"Wait a minute," Russell said, almost shouting, "you're saying you can bring this guy back from the dead?"

Jones smiled. "Not exactly. Rather, it may be possible to awaken a soul, as if from sleep, before it passes on. If so, one can ask what questions one needs to, before the soul is called away forever."

Russell gave a derisive laugh. Amberson, on the other hand, asked, "And you can do this?"

"I have seen it done. An old man, called back to tell where he had hidden his wealth. A woman, dead after childbirth, summoned from the dark to say which man in the village fathered her child. In each case, the priest performed the ritual. In each case, an answer came from the corpse."

Russell interrupted. "And there are guys in Vegas who stick their hands up dummies's butts who can do the same thing."

"Ventriloquism, Detective? Maybe. But the money was found where the old man's ghost said it would be. And the child grew up in the image of his announced father."

"Do you know the ceremony?" Amberson asked suddenly.

"This is crazy!"

At his partner's exclamation Amberson said, "And we haven't seen crazy before? Besides, it's not like we got anything to lose. Unless you've got a better idea?"

"I can do it, Detective. I have watched the priests and studied with them. One thing about this place: it's got everything I need, except... do you know where we can get a live chicken?"

~

Eddie drifted. Try as he might, he couldn't move closer to the glow. Then he felt himself being pulled away. He thought he heard someone call his name. And then–something else. There was something else he had to do. The golden light got fainter, smaller. Like the dot on an old TV, it faded away.

~

"Eddie, Eddie, can you hear me?" Amberson shouted, shaking the corpse. "Come back, Eddie! Give us Santos!"

"It's no good, partner." Russell drew Amberson away. "It was dumb idea to begin with."

"It should have worked," a despondent Jones said. He looked at the bodies of the dead pigeons in the biohazard waste bin. "We should have used chickens."

"Yeah," Russell turned on him, "and I should maybe run us all up to Mercy for an emergency commitment. Me searching the parking garage for those birds, catching them yet. I have to be crazy."

"The only other choice was regular or extra crispy," Amberson said. "Come on, we've already wasted two hours. Let's get some papers signed and get back to work. Mr. Jones, thanks for your effort, but let's not mention this to anyone."

"Agreed, detective. Now if you two will step into my office, we can get the paperwork out of the way."

It took Jones about ten minutes to find and fill out the forms. Amberson signed them and gave them back. Jones was just putting them into a folder when an alarm sounded.

"What's that?" Russell asked.

"The door to our vehicle bay," Jones explained. "Someone's coming in."

They went out into the receiving area to see who it was. Russell was the first to notice the empty gurney where Eddie's body had lain. "Or someone left."

Beside him, Amberson swore quietly.

"You know," Jones said, staring at the empty place where Fast Eddie had been, "when you use a chicken they don't get up and leave."

~

Eddie woke up, sort of. Light and sound rushed back in. His chest hurt. He felt the cold steel of the gurney beneath him. Not knowing where he was or how he got there, Eddie got up and walked toward the door. It opened automatically, as did the gate of the vehicle bay when Eddie crossed the electric eye. Driven by a need he didn't understand, Fast Eddie walked out into the night.

He was confused. Memories of a warm, safe place where he was loved conflicted with other thoughts. He was talking to someone, someone who was helping him. He heard a noise. He turned. Talking, then more noise, louder this time. Pain. Eddie looked down at his chest. His shirt was open. He could see the holes the loud noise had put there. A clear liquid was seeping from them.

Eddie was still looking at the bullet wounds when he wandered into the street. There was a screeching of wheels, then Eddie was struck by steel, glass and steel again as he went up and over the car that hit him. Eddie stood up and, ignoring the curses of the driver, slowly walked away.

~

"Now what do we do?" Amberson asked no one in particular.

"I don't know about you two, but if he's not back by six a.m., I'm shredding everything and he was never here."

"We'll find him, Jones,"

"We will?" asked Russell.

"Of course," Amberson assured him. "How far can a dead guy go?"

The detectives left the ME's and walked out on to an accident scene: a late-model sedan with pedestrian damage to the hood, windshield and roof; two patrol cars blocking the street; a uniformed officer taking a statement from a distraught driver. No victim, no ambo.

"What happened?" Russell asked one of the officers standing by.

"Damnest thing," came the reply. "Driver here says some junkie walked out in front of him. He couldn't stop in time and the guy went up and over. Says he came down hard, then got up and walked away."

"Driver didn't try to stop him?" Amberson asked.

"Would you?" The officer shook his head. "You'd think the guy would be dead, wouldn't you?"

Amberson looked at Russell. Russell looked back. Neither said a word.

~

Eddie wandered, his thoughts a jumble. He sensed a need, but for what? Dimly he recalled the taste of food, of strong drink. He vaguely remembered the touch of a woman and how that made him felt. Then there was the needle, the high that had made him float and forget. It had taken the place of the others, but it was still not enough, not now, not tonight.

Brightness blinded him. His wanderings had taken him out of the dark streets and alleys and now he found himself on Greene Street.

Streetlights, stoplights, neon and the glow of the not so distant Oriole Park all hit his too sensitive eyes at once. It came back–he needed the light, the golden light he'd been denied earlier. But no, that light was gone, taken from him when he was called back. Its absence left a yearning, a hole to be filled. Instinct turned Eddie to the east, towards the one man who had always given him what he needed.

~

"We've been driving in circles for hours," Russell complained. "It's time to give it up."

"It's only been an hour, and we're not giving up," Amberson said in a flat, determined tone.

"Can't we at least put out a description?"

"And say what? Eastern CID looking for a walkaway from the Medical Examiner's; suspect's a light-skinned black male, about five-nine and believed to be dead?"

"That would do it," Russell said after some thought. "Look, Danny, we're never going to find him this way. We turn right, he goes left and we miss him. We drive straight, he turns down an alley, he's gone."

"So we quit?"

"No, we start thinking like cops looking for a suspect. Eddie never was that bright, and I'm betting that whatever smarts he had died when he did and didn't come back. He's down to memory and habit. Let's hit the Eastside, check out his haunts. See if anybody saw a zombie tonight."

Nobody had. Russell and Amberson hit all the corners where Eddie hung out. They questioned some of the girls he saw when he had the stuff to trade for their favors. They braced the low-level dealers Eddie knew. Everywhere was the same story.

"Nope, ain't seen him."

"Guess you ain't heard, Eddie bought one tonight."

"Hasn't been around."

"Eddie gone, some fool done kilt him over a phone call."

"Eddie got wasted."

"I want a lawyer. This is police harassment."

"Fast Eddie who?"

"You guys don't talk to each other, do you?"

"Eddie wouldn't get off the phone. Junkie wouldn't wait. Blew him away."

"You 5-0, I don't talk to 5-0."

"Thought I saw him. But he be dead, so it wasn't him."

The two detectives questioned this last one more thoroughly. "Where'd you see him? Which way was he going? How long ago?" For answers they got "Around, down there, don't know."

"The good news is," Russell said, as Amberson turned down yet another side street, "is that he's here somewhere."

"So says one lowlife out of ten. And what's the bad news? Other than we haven't found him yet."

"Who says there's bad news?"

"There's good news, gotta be bad news."

Russell thought for a moment. "I guess the bad news is that Santos didn't kill him. Just some crackhead who thought Eddie was taking too long on 'his' phone."

Amberson gave a rueful smile. "Yeah, it would have been nice to pin this one on Santos. Murder one, killing a witness–you get the needle for that."

"Damn shame," agreed Russell. "Santos would have sung just to do twenty to life. Actually would have worked out better than if Eddie have stayed alive to give him up."

Amberson stopped the car, looked at his partner, an idea forming in his mind.

~

I got a good life, Antoine Santos told himself. Not great, but good. A decent house, plenty of food, a nice ride, women when I want them. It's not a mansion in Guilford, steak every night, a Mercedes and Playmates, but it's better than the slobs I deal with have.

Unlike his clients, the ones who bought and resold his product, Santos lived outside the drug area. His house was on the east end of Federal, close enough to the Eastern District police station that it was in a safer neighborhood than most. That's why he bought it, for the security. He also liked the idea of the police helping to keep him safe, that the same cops trying to put him away were, by their very presence, protecting him. Irony, he thought, remembering an old English lesson. It was what Miss Helens back in high school would have called irony.

And was irony, he wondered, about how it ended with that Fast Eddie guy? Word from the street was that Eddie was shopping him to the cops; that he'd worked some kind of deal to trade what he knew about the organization for cash and a ticket out. Santos was going to have the boy hit then he'd found out tonight that he wouldn't have to. Poor Eddie, guess he forgot that you didn't use the holy phone anytime St. Kevin was around. Hell, everybody knew that. Kevin thought that that phone was his direct line to God, that one day the savior would call him up and invite him to Heaven. He got very upset if anyone used it. God might call, and what if He got a busy signal? And who would have thought Kevin had a gun?

As Santos contemplated his life, he heard a pounding on his front door. Who the Hell is that, he wondered. Wasn't cops, they'd have broken down the door. Can't be clients, they knew he didn't sell direct. And his boys had the word not to come to the house. Always some fool didn't get the message. Well, he'd get the message tonight, Santos decided. Find out who that fool is, then fire him or cut him off. He'll be flipping burgers for his cash and going to the Westside for his stuff.

Santos moved to go downstairs. The banging got louder. Then the crashing of glass. Santos paused, got his nine from under the bed, made sure the clip was good and the chamber was hot. He tucked it in his dip, just in case.

More banging, more glass breaking. Santos got to his door just as the invader came through. "What the..." he started as he saw who it was.

Fast Eddie stood in his doorway, his shirt bloody, clear fluid leaking from the wounds on his chest. His face and arms had a death pallor and he moved with the stiffness of the rigor that had come over him.

"Saanntoooosss," Eddie's voice creaked as he raised his pale hands towards the drug dealer. "I neeeedddd..."

Santos reached into his dip, pulled out his nine. "You're dead," he cried, recognizing the absurdity of his statement while realizing at the same time that it was true.

Eddie ignored the gun, kept coming one step at a time. Santos fired–once, twice, a third time. Eddie's body jerked with each impact, but he kept coming. Backing up, Santos emptied the clip. Eddie slowed, stopped, fell.

Relief washed through Santos; he had stopped the Eddie-thing. He wondered what to do next, Eddie's left hand twitched, then clawed the carpet. His right hand moved, fingers clutched the carpet and pulled his body forward. Slowly, Eddie crawled toward Santos.

Russell and Amberson were just pulling on to Federal Street when they heard the shots. They looked at each other. "I got the back," Russell said as they both bailed out of the unmarked car. Amberson gave his partner time to get around back before going through the open front door.

Russell got to the rear of the house just in time to see Santos run out the kitchen door. Both men had their guns out. Santos saw Russell, made him for a cop and dropped his piece. A good thing. A second later, Russell would have done Santos like the dealer had tried to do Eddie.

"You okay?" Russell heard his partner call form inside the house.

"Okay," Russell confirmed, snapping the cuffs on Santos. "You secure?"

"Under control. Come on in."

"Let's go," Russell urged Santos forward. The dealer balked.

"Not going back in there. Don't take me back," Santos pleaded.

Russell shoved the dealer into the doorframe–hard. "Walk or get dragged. Either way you're going in."

Amberson looked up as Russell came in from the back, pushing Santos ahead of him. "Found him," he said, indicating the mostly lifeless body on the floor.

Eddie was still trying to get to Santos, hands and knees weakly moving him along. Hearing the detective's voice, a distant memory came back. He turned towards Amberson, raised an arm and pointed it towards the dealer. "Saanntoooosss," he croaked out. Then, his appointed task done, and with what could have been a smile, or maybe just the effects of rigor, Fast Eddie collapsed and was finally still.

The detectives were quick to seize the situation.

"Doesn't look good, Antoine. Dead man in your house, your bullets in him," Amberson told Santos.

"Why'd you steal him from the morgue? Going to dig the bullets out?" continued Russell.

"No, no," Santos protested. "He was dead when he came in and..."

"And nobody's going to believe that, Antoine." Amberson interrupted. "Except maybe me and my partner." The sound of sirens in the distant, getting closer. "You gonna deal, deal now, else you get you a manslaughter charge."

Men in blue uniforms rushing the house from front and back, Amberson and Russell, weapons holstered, holding up their hands and badges to stem the charge. "I'm yours," Santos shouting over the initial confusion of men and voices. District detectives then homicide men arriving. Amberson and Russell holding tight to their charge.

By the time morning came Santos had given up his entire network, from suppliers down to runners. In exchange, he was charged as an accessory after the fact in the death of Wallace Cromwell, a.k.a. "Fast Eddie," with minimum sentencing guaranteed.

As for how the theft of Eddie's body was explained, Amberson and Cromwell referred anyone who asked to Dominic Jones. Jones, in turn, told the questioner to ask Santos. Santos, whose reputation was only enhanced by the belief that he had committed such an audacious crime, always denied it, but in such a way as to assure his listener that he had beyond doubt done the deed. The Medical Examiner's Office did get a new state-of-the art security system to keep whatever had happened from happening again.

With no one to claim it, Fast Eddie's body was turned over to the Anatomy Board. Unusually well preserved for an unembalmed corpse, it was used for three weeks before it was cremated and the ashes disposed of.

~

Safe and warm, Eddie again felt the warm embrace of loving arms. He floated, bathing in the warmth of the golden light. It was not for him, not this time. He'd been judged and he acknowledged that the judgment was fair and just. He felt a tug, somewhere a new life was being created. Consciousness faded as the soul that had once been Fast Eddie Cromwell sped off towards another chance at doing things right.

Night of the Living Dead Bingo Women

SIMON MCCAFFERY

Even on her bad days, Edna Mae Brewer was invincible.

She'd won five straight games since arriving at noon, excitedly calling out "Bingo!" after marking the last winning square on her playing sheets. The third time she fairly shrieked it in excitement, though her fellow contestants in the hall paid her not the slightest heed. The woman sitting directly across from Edna stared vacantly ahead like a wax figure, streaks of colored ink smeared across her face like a Maori mask. On Edna's left, an elderly black man in a soiled, ripped turtleneck gazed up at the high ceiling while his outstretched hands groped blindly about on the wide table. He swept his ink dauber and stack of playing cards onto the floor and made no effort to retrieve them.

In a remote way, this total disinterest in her good fortune rankled Edna, who was competitive by nature. In the old days, when a player's numbers came in, folks had not just sat there like stones. Most cheered as the caller checked off the winning numbers. Others groaned and everyone applauded like disinterested businessmen at a luncheon. Some even glared at the winner with genuine hatred, muttering under their breath as they discarded their losing sheets. This was no way for a Christian to behave, Edna knew, but she could commiserate; she herself had sat near a big winner on occasion and felt resentment glow in the pit of her stomach like a hot lump of coal.

Tonight, however, Edna felt just fine, thank you. This was largely due to the fact that she had won every game of the session so far, from the Early Bird up through the Bonus Blackout round. Some of the wins had taken longer than others, but she'd kept at it; hunched over her game sheets, concentrating fiercely while marking off numbers.

A tiny voice inside Edna's head pointed out that though she was undeniably a skilled and seasoned bingo player, the fact that all of her opponents were dead might have something to do with her long string of successes. This nasty little voice, which sounded not unlike her nagging (and thankfully deceased) husband Frank, irritated Edna. Winning was winning and fair was fair. Was it her fault zombies weren't cut out for the fast-paced competitiveness of high-stakes bingo?

The next game got underway. The caller, once a handsome young Creek Indian named Joe, began plucking numbered Ping-Pong balls from the big, Plexiglas hopper on the green-carpeted dais. Joe still wore the tattered remains of his cheap tuxedo outfit, though it was badly discolored and seemed to disappear in and out of his flesh in places. Joe's gray face was beginning to look unsightly, Edna noted–like an ice-cream novelty left unattended in the sun–and he was having difficulty calling the numbers in an intelligible fashion. Some sounded as if he was speaking through a veil of rotted seaweed. To make matters worse, he also ate some of the Ping-Pong balls.

Edna had prepared for this, however, positioning herself at a table close to the calling booth. Numbers garbled beyond recognition could usually be eyeballed before the little white spheres disappeared back into the hopper or Joe's mouth.

In an orderly row before her were the tools of the trade: ink daubers and paper playing sheets. Not long after the Reawakening, Edna had helped herself to several new ink daubers behind the now-deserted concession stand. The daubers were larger, gaily colored, and more expensive than those she had once played with. Her old dauber was squat and plain, and she had refilled it with tap water dyed with food coloring because Frank had strictly limited her playing money. The new daubers, used to mark pink, red, and purple circles on the throwaway paper sheets, were scented to smell like strawberries, cherries, and grapes. Edna didn't mind when, hunched over the table, the sickly-sweet smell of the colored ink filled her nostrils; it almost blocked out the odor of her nearby opponents, who sat in dazed rows and shambled blindly along the aisles.

Edna continued marking her sheets in a businesslike fashion, never missing a single number–the secret of winning ( besides playing against zombies, the Frank-voice reminded). Towards four o'clock, her stomach began rumbling. How she wished she could hail a uniformed runner and order a burrito with the works and a large Pepsi! In the old days, during a typical eight-hour session, Edna might consume three burritos with hot sauce and sour cream, a cheeseburger, several bags of chips, a small dish of soft ice cream (chocolate and vanilla swirled together), and a legion of soft drinks.