Zombies: The Recent Dead Part 37

That was when I got the call.

"Merritt," I said.

"Jane Merritt?" the caller asked.

"Speaking."

"Sorry, I . . . I need some help."

"That's what we're here for. You'll just need to come in and fill out some forms."

There was a silence on the line and for a second I thought the call had dropped.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"Uh, yeah. Thanks. Sorry"

"So when would you like to come in? Everything perfectly confidential, of course."

"Thanks. Sorry. It's about my father."

"I see. Yes."

"He's a monster."

I waited for the giggling on the other end. She was obviously very young. I got calls like this all the time. Curious teens with too much time on their hands.

No giggling.

"I mean really," she said. "A real monster."

Then she hung up.

No one else called that day. Business had been slow. I left the office early and stopped at the West L.A. Trader Joe's for a few groceries. Bagels, cream cheese, apples, celery, the cheapest Pinot Noir I could find, and a tub of cat cookies, plus a can of food for David. I wanted to buy myself flowers because that's what all the women's magazines tell you to do when you haven't been f.u.c.ked in too long, but I decided not to waste the money.

There was big bouquet of fourteen white roses with a pink cast. They looked pretty good but I knew they'd blow up in a few days in this weather, petals loosening from their cl.u.s.ter and drifting to the floor. Besides, roses were another thing that reminded me of Max.

I went home and watched CNN while David and I ate dinner. Bad news as usual. The economy, disasters, war. Not to mention global warming and a.s.sorted acts of violence. It was like a horror movie, really. I drank the whole bottle of wine. Then I took a bath and went to bed. I had really weird dreams about letting Max go by himself on a train at night and then realizing what I had done and not being able to get anyone to understand why I was so upset when he didn't come home. Dreams are cruel; they won't let you forget.

Coco Hart came to see me about a week later. She was a beautiful girl in a private school uniform skirt and blouse and a ratty sweats.h.i.+rt that was too hot for the weather. Her long hair up in a ponytail and makeup so lightly and carefully applied that only the most discerning eyes would notice it. She looked perfectly well adjusted but her fingernails were bitten down so far that it hurt to look at them.

"I called you," she said after she'd introduced herself. Her eyes darted around the room trying to find clues. I don't have any in this tiny, dingy office. Not even a photo of Max. I had to hide it in a drawer.

"About your father?"

She nodded.

"Is he hurting you?"

"No," she said. "Sorry. It's not that."

"You can tell me. I'm here to help."

"Thank you. You were the only woman I could find. Well except that one who tries to entrap the guys by wearing wigs in their favorite color."

People always mention her when they come to see me. I'm nothing like that Amazon. Just cause we are both Janes.

"So why not her?"

"I heard that interview with you."

There's only been one. It was in conjunction with the new X-Files movie. The local news compared me to Fox Mulder because of my interest in the paranormal. I expected business to boom after that but it didn't. In L.A. you have to look like a movie star with big t.i.ts or be a guy to make it big in this business. I'm neither.

In the interview I talked a little about some weird, dark stuff, the kind of thing teenagers and X-Files fans eat up. But most teens aren't going around hiring a P.I. and the X-Files fans would rather watch David Duchovny reruns. Like the famous female P.I. who wears the wigs he has a lot more s.e.x appeal than I do.

Coco put her hand to her mouth as if she were about to chew on what was left of her nails, then thought better of it and folded her hands tightly in her plaid-skirted lap. She looked out at the sunny fall day. The leaves of the tree outside my window looked like they were on fire. I didn't know what kind of tree it was. I wondered why Coco was here and not at some mall with her friends or something.

She took some crumpled bills out of her sweats.h.i.+rt pocket and put them on the table.

"That's all I have," she said. "But I'll get more."

"And you want me to do what exactly?"

"Oh. Uh. Sorry." She hesitated. "Do you believe in zombies?" she said, finally.

f.u.c.k.

Sorry but I am not going to pretend to you that I am normal. I am not normal in any way. Yes I shop at Trader Joe's and watch CNN, get my hair cut on a regular basis, shower, and use deodorant. I wear my dark hair sc.r.a.ped back in a tight bun like I did on the force, and dress in flat-front black trousers and white-stretch b.u.t.ton down s.h.i.+rts from the Limited and black heels or flats or boots from Macy's and lightweight trench coats. But that's the only normal stuff.

First of all I am a female P.I. Second of all I live in a silver Airstream trailer in my ex-husband's backyard in Mar Vista. I walk or bike everywhere because I'm afraid that even driving a little will make more holes in the ozone. I wear black Converse and keep my heels in my backpack. I smoke cigarettes even though I know they are bad for me but I take vitamins and won't eat anything with hydrogenated oils or wash my hair with shampoo that has sodium laurel sulfate because I heard it is a carcinogen. I don't know why I really care; it must be left over from being a mom and the thing that happened-although I don't believe that was really the cause.

I have a dog named David who is like my son. When spell check tells me to write "that" instead of "who" while referring to my dog I get angry. He is a mutt and he likes to roam the neighborhood and bring back presents. Sometimes he brings me pigeons and I thank him but then I scold him. Once on Easter he came to the door of the trailer holding a fully cooked ham proudly in his jaws. I didn't scold him for that although some nice family must have had a gaping hole in their dinner menu. David likes me to hold him like a baby with his round tummy sticking out and his front paws draped over my arm like little hands. Sometimes I forget that he is a dog.

I had a real son once. His name was Max. Now he's gone but I don't want to talk about it. I was a cop and I got kicked off the force after what happened. I had what they call a breakdown and Max's dad who is also a cop divorced me and married a kickboxing instructor named Kimmy. When I got out of the hospital they let me live in the trailer in the backyard of what used to be my home. I can see my old house through the trailer window. It is a long, low structure painted avocado green. My ex and I were always planning on repainting it but we never got around to that. Then Kimmy came and picked the green. It looks nasty, even monstrous in certain lights. I planted the roses in the garden but I've stopped trying to take care of them. Once Kimmy came out while I was watering and weeding. I said, "Sorry," and scuttled back into my trailer. The roses remind me.

At night I stay up watching the windows of my old bedroom until the lights go out.

I went into this work because I didn't know what else to do. I thought it would help me forget to get up every day and go to my little office on Was.h.i.+ngton. It helps me forget that I was ever Max's mom but it makes me remember the hospital and the doctor's face, as I sit here waiting for someone who really needs me to come in.

I mostly just follow cheating husbands and wives. Once I followed a woman who was engaged to two men at the same time. The guy who hired me was so upset he started crying in my office. Then he wanted me to dress up like her and f.u.c.k him. That was the most eventful case I'd handled so far. But the thing that happened with Max made me open to the possibility of stuff that wasn't so easy to understand.

Coco told me that her father had been behaving very strangely. She'd seen him eating flesh in big, gross, salivating bites and it didn't look like cow, pig, goat, lamb, chicken, or turkey. Let's just say that. And he never spoke anymore. After his stroke he shambled around the house with these heavy steps just staring at the floor. He grumbled and grimaced and that was all. His skin was a weird shade of greenish white and once when he was asleep she'd felt for a pulse and there wasn't one there. He smelled bad, too.

I said, "Sorry but I have to ask you something. What makes you think he's one of the undead though? I mean, how do you think this could have happened?"

Coco's father was a car salesman in Van Nuys. He'd done pretty well for himself selling SUVs until people stopped being able to afford gas at almost five dollars a gallon. The stress was too much for him. While waiting for the electric car to return he'd had a stroke and almost died. Well, according to Coco there was no "almost" involved.

"When he came back from the hospital," Coco said. "He just wasn't the same."

"What was he like before?" I asked.

"Well, kind of like now. Except I recognized the meat he ate and he had better skin tone and a pulse. And . . . sorry, but . . . he didn't smell so bad."

I tried not to say, "Ouch. Harsh." I was trying to behave with some decorum.

"You sound very angry at your father," I said, recalling a psych cla.s.s I'd taken in junior college.

"Sorry. My father is all right. Well, he was. Before he turned into a monster. I mean, he's a Republican. He voted for George W. And he's against women's right to choose. He still supports the war. But he'd never lay a hand on me, you know. But I'm worried about what he's doing to other people. Where he like, gets his dinner and that kind of thing."

"Why didn't you go to the police?" I asked."

"Um, I think you know why. Sorry . . ."

"So you came to me."

"Well," she said, "Not everyone's kid gets stolen by zombies. I mean, I saw it on YouTube."

Okay, sorry it's true. The thing I'm known for is about Max and the zombies. I wasn't really interviewed by the local news. I made a video for YouTube and posted it talking about what happened. That's how Coco had found me. Not the guy whose fiancee was cheating on him; he got my name out of the phone book.

See, people think my kid got sick and died but I know better. No one wants to talk about it because they're afraid everyone will think they are crazy. Or maybe because they're afraid of even worse consequences.

"What do you want me to do?" I asked Coco.

"Would you please pretend you're a customer and check him out?" she asked. "They have really good deals on Escalades now," she added.

"I ride a bike."

I borrowed Daniel's car and went to the car dealers.h.i.+p where Coco's dad worked. They hired him back part time after the stroke. It was night and the cars glowed surreally in the fluorescent lights. The air smelled obscenely of flowers and motor oil.

Mr. Hart lumbered out toward me, tucking his s.h.i.+rt into his pants. He had a large belly and stiff legs and arms. His skin did have an unhealthy sheen to it.

"How can I help you, young lady?" he groaned. A foul, sulfur smell emitted itself from his body. "We have some great deals on SUVs tonight. What are you driving?"

"A bike," I said.

He looked at me dully. "Thinking of upgrading then?"

"You don't sell any electric cars?" I asked.

"No. Why? You do a lot of driving?"

"Not so much. I'm concerned about the environment."

"Global warming? Sweetheart, that's a myth they created to scare you, believe me. No such thing. G.o.d knows what He's doing."

I smoothed back my hair. It was unnaturally hot for an October evening. There was something h.e.l.lish about that kind of heat this time of year. I thought of the ice floes melting at the North pole and the polar bears dying. I was sweating uncomfortably and I was afraid I might be staining my white blouse. I used deodorant but I had stopped wearing antiperspirant because of the link between aluminum and Alzheimer's. Not that I cared. Alzheimer's might actually be all right. You stagger around in a state of detachment and forgetting.

There are certain things I can't forget, no matter how hard I try. No matter how many photographs I hide or how much zombie research I do. They pop into my mind when I least expect them.

Max used to ask me, "Mommy, when is the Earth going to explode? When is the sun going to burn us up?" Once he said, "Mommy will you hold me from the time the Earth was made until it ends?"

"Yes, honey," I said. "I will hold you forever."

He curled up into my arms, his delicately boned, dusty brown feet tucked up on my lap. His eyes were big and brown with eyelashes that all the nurses in the hospital said they wanted.

"It's not fair," they cooed.

Of course, it was more than fair. The other stuff was what wasn't fair.

"How about a Prius?" I asked Mr. Hart.

"How about a Hummer? Owned by a little old lady from Pasadena. Almost no mileage."

"I'll think about it," I said. "Sorry," I said. And left.

There is a proliferation of zombies around lately, let me tell you.

My ex Daniel's girlfriend Kimmy is not behaving at all normally, even for a stressed out, middle-aged, hyperactive kickboxing instructor dame. She drones on and on about herself and is unable to ask anyone questions about how they are doing. She wears the same rapacious grin frozen on her face at all times, even when she is angry. She talks loudly and proudly at all social gatherings about how she had tumors in her uterus and can no longer have any more children. (I know Daniel finds this perversely comforting; no chance of any more children means no chance of any more tragedies for him). She never lets anyone see her eat, not even Daniel. (He told me this; I think even he is worried). While she cooks his dinner she tells him she caught a bite at the gym and that she doesn't digest food well after four pm. She walks with jerky movements and snaps her gum spastically and calls everyone "dude." Do you see?

In addition there is that presidential candidate and his running mate. I believe they have been bitten. Look at their gla.s.sy eyes. Listen to their hollow voices-hers more shrill but hollow still. Read about their policies to destroy nature and take away women's rights, gay rights. I can just imagine them hunting people out of helicopters and gnawing on someone's thighbone with gristle between their teeth.

I remember that doctor at the hospital where Max was. He strolled out into the waiting room and tried to take my hand but I wouldn't let him touch me. His skin was greenish white under the fluorescence and his legs and arms were stiff.

When I saw him I knew. I thought it was going to be like on TV where they say, "I'm sorry."

I didn't want to hear those words from him. So I said them first.

"I'm sorry!" I screamed. I fell to my knees. "I'm so so sorry."

Zombies are reanimated corpses. I looked it up online. It said that if there is an invasion find a shopping mall or grocery store and barricade yourself inside. Then you will have plenty of supplies until you can come up with a plan.

I called Coco.

"Yes, I think you're right."

"What?"

"He seems to be what you say he is."

"Thanks for . . . Sorry . . . Um. What should we do about it?"

"Come meet me," I said. "But try not to say 'sorry' so much."

"Sorry. I mean . . . "

"It's okay. I do it too. You're very polite. Most people in L.A. don't say 'thank you' so much either."

"Oh. Sorry. We're from Florida."