Las Vegas NV, Page 3

  Joel opened his mouth to say something and then promptly shut it when she leveled her stare at him, peering over her glasses with an expression that dared him to challenge her. As he sat on the uncomfortable chair against the wall and waited, he observed the woman who’d been so brash and brazen with him and realized that she had no idea who he was. He also was willing to wager that she probably wouldn’t have cared if she did.

  Eventually Bill Parks emerged from his office. A short blond woman followed in his wake. On his left hip, the man carried a toddler that seemed to be fascinated with tugging in Bill Parks’ mustache. Each time the child gave it a tug, Bill Parks would pretend to try and gobble up the tiny hand. This elicited squeals and laughter from the child.

  This game continued until Bill Parks turned and spied his boss seated on one of the hard-plastic waiting room chairs. He quickly shoved the little boy into the short blond woman’s arms and hurried across the room. He was stuttering and stammering out attempted apologies as he almost sprinted past the desk of Wanda Jean Billings. Joel only knew her name because it was on an engraved name plate situated on her desk.

  “I am so sorry, Mr. Landon. How long have you been waiting?” Bill Parks managed to squeak out.

  Joel got to his feet and gave the man a pat on the shoulder as he stepped to the side and slipped past his flustered office manager. “Am I to understand that this little guy just turned a year old today?”

  “That’s correct,” the woman holding the child said, her voice cheerful and lacking any of the worry or fear pouring off her husband.

  Joel turned to his manager. “And so my appointment with you was delayed so that you could have lunch with this child?”

  Bill Parks made an audible gulping sound. “Y-y-yes, Mister Landon, sir.”

  Joel nodded and turned back to mother and child. Apparently she had just figured out who he was. Her face had turned a terrible pale shade except for a fiery splotch on each cheek. “It’s my fault,” the woman gushed, her words all running together.

  Jesus, what do my employees say about me to their spouses? Joel wondered when he saw the woman’s fear now matched her husband’s.

  “This is Mister Landon?” Wanda Billings piped in from her desk. “Mister Parks, he never said who he was, and I don’t have him on the calendar for today. I’ve never met Mister Landon. I would’ve never had him wait out here if—”

  “Everybody just dial it down,” Joel said over the commotion of flustered people falling over themselves. He turned his attention to the mother of the child. “I have to meet with your husband, but while I am, I’d like you to get ahold of my accountant.” He produced a business card and offered it to the woman. She stared at it like it was a poisonous snake about to strike. “Tell him that I want a college fund started in this young boy’s name right away. And then why don’t you and the young man have my driver take you on a little shopping spree.” He reached inside his jacket packet and produced a credit card for a store that the woman had never even set foot in due to its reputation for being expensive to the point of what she considered a bit vulgar.

  “I couldn’t possibly…” she tried to protest, but the words were having a tough time escaping her throat.

  “I insist.” Joel pressed the credit card into her hand and then gave the little boy a gentle chuck on the chin. He looked over to see his property manager flushed to the point where Joel thought he might be close to having a stroke. “Now, Bill, you and I have a few things to go over before the acquisition next Thursday.”

  2

  Today

  Joel stared out the window of his penthouse at the top of the MGM Grand. He swirled the glass in his hand, oblivious to the sound of the ice clinking around in the heavy crystal vessel. He did not even taste the expensive scotch that trickled down his throat as he tipped the glass up and drained the rest of its contents.

  “Mister Landon?” a voice called from behind him.

  Joel started and turned to see an elderly man emerge from the suite’s master bedroom. He noticed when the man pulled the door shut behind him and then gave it a slight push as if ensuring that the latch had caught.

  “Well, Doctor Carlson…how is she?” Joel set the glass down, his hand automatically seeking out a coaster.

  “Too early to say, but…” The man paused. His eyes drifted away, unable to hold Joel’s steely gaze.

  “Is she going to live?”

  Joel didn’t need the doctor’s words to know the answer. It was crystal clear on the man’s face.

  “I can’t give you any certainties until we get her blood into the lab and run some tests.”

  “The television is saying that people have seventy-two hours tops from when they are bitten. Is that true?”

  Joel had seen the news the past few days. He’d seen that CDC doctor ridicule the rumors that the dead were coming back and attacking the living. Then she’d come on and reversed her stance. Of course, she’d been bitten by one of their test subjects after they’d apparently run experiments that confirmed the worst. At the end of her last appearance, she’d removed a pair of dark sunglasses to reveal eyes that were shot full of the black tracers that seemed to be one of the earliest symptoms that a person was infected.

  “Her eyes?” Joel asked, his voice barely a whisper. He dreaded the answer, yet he needed to know.

  “There is no firm evidence as of yet to say that—” the doctor began, but Joel cut him off.

  “Don’t bullshit me, Doc. You know damn good and well that the tracers are being reported as the most obvious symptom of infection before a person…” Now it was Joel’s turn to have his voice choke off and fade. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  The two stood in silence for a moment. Eventually, the doctor exited. No goodbye, nothing. He simply left. That alone spoke volumes.

  Steeling himself for what he would see, Joel went to the bedroom door. Taking a deep breath, he opened it and entered. The only light came from a small lamp beside the bed. But it wasn’t the gloom that gave him pause. There was the faintest hint of something sour. It was unlike any sort of body odor he’d ever experienced. There was something familiar about the stench, but it was so faint that he couldn’t pin it down. Of course there was also his grief as he looked at his beloved bride of over twenty years lying in their bed.

  If not for the bandage on her left arm that had already began to show seepage from the rip in her flesh, she could simply be taking a nap. His Wanda did love her naps.

  Moving over beside the bed, Joel pulled the chair that the doctor had obviously been using back so he could sit next to his wife. His eyes found his own reflection in the mirror and he froze. For the first time in his life, Joel Landon thought that he looked like an old man. His hair was wispy and gray, quite a change from his youth when it was thick, brown, and just a hint of curl when it grew out a bit. His piercing brown eyes now just looked tired. The lines in his face seemed deeper, almost as if they were etched all the way down to the surface of his skull. His cheeks were sunken, and his lips were little more than a pair of slashes below his slightly crooked nose. His chest was still broad, but with his shoulders slumped as they were at this moment, it gave him much more of a gut to offset and diminish what had once been one of his best features. It had certainly been Wanda’s.

  Looking at his wife, he could see that her face was pale and drawn, and her hair was a nest of tangles that would make her furious if she woke and discovered them. Last night, her fever had risen to the point where he could feel the heat radiating off her body from several feet away. When it broke, she’d been bathed in sweat. So far, a shower had simply not been something that she was able to take. He’d considered simply carrying her into their massive walk-in shower and holding her, but he knew that would make her furious. Wanda hated being babied.

  “Joel?” Wanda croaked, her voice snapping him from his ruminations about the temper of his beloved.

  “Right here, love.” He took one of her hands in his and patted it
gently.

  “I won’t become one of those…monsters.”

  Joel was about to respond when she opened her eyes. His words stuck in his throat and he felt his stomach clench. The black tracers were stark against the whites of her eyes.

  Joel wanted to say something, but he didn’t have the words. He knew what she was saying. He also knew what she was expecting from him. In all their years together, Joel had prided himself in being able to give Wanda her every desire, no matter how big or small. He had the means, and saw no reason to ever deny her anything. Yet, this was different.

  “Joel, did you hear me?” Wanda asked, her stern tone fighting its way through.

  “Wanda, if you’re asking me to—”

  “I’m not asking…I’m telling you.” Wanda pushed herself up a little bit on her pillow and fixed Joel with a look he knew all too well.

  “You’re asking me to put a bullet in your head.”

  “Again…” Wanda exploded into a coughing fit, but still had the strength to slap Joel’s hands away when he reached for her. “I wasn’t asking. And from what I’ve seen on television as well as what happened down in the lobby, there won’t be anything of me in whatever it is that would come back.”

  “You can’t know that,” Joel insisted.

  “I watched a pair of sweet little old ladies rip a young man apart. They pulled out his insides, Joel!”

  Joel had seen the news. He’d seen his share of what was going on down in the streets below. And he’d heard the screams.

  “You need to put things in order, Joel Landon. Nobody is going to be ready for what is coming. The zombies are only going to be part of the problem.”

  Wanda sunk into her pillow and closed her eyes, a long sigh escaping her. She was silent for so long that he thought she might’ve passed. Her breathing was so slow and shallow, that he feared she would not make it through the hour.

  “You need to take charge. Get someplace safe, and then set up a defense that will keep the undead out and make the living think twice before messing with you,” Wanda finally said, her voice now little more than a labored whisper.

  “What are you talking about,” Joel challenged.

  “You know those books I read…those movies that I watch that you hate so much?” Joel nodded. “Well if any of it is even partially accurate, things are going to get very bad. You know my favorite saying.”

  “People suck,” Joel recited, just a hint of mirth filtering into his voice as his lips curled up just a bit.

  “So, while everybody is running for their lives, you need to pick a spot and turn it into your fortress.”

  “But what about you?” Joel groaned.

  “Sweetheart, I can feel this infection or whatever it is burning me up from the inside. So I need you to swear that, when my eyes close, you will do what I asked and take care of me.” Wanda gazed up at Joel, her eyes pinched at the corners from the pain, a sheen of sweat adding to her sickly appearance.

  “I promise,” Joel finally conceded.

  The couple sat together holding hands for a while. For Joel, his only comfort came in that he was there for Wanda like she’d been there for him all these past years. Part of him wished they’d had children, but another part of him was thankful they hadn’t. He doubted that he could endure seeing a child of his own experiencing something like this. These were the thoughts that occupied his mind when his beloved Wanda shut her eyes and let loose with a long, ragged exhale that would prove to be her last.

  Almost as if on cue, the phone beside the bed rang. Joel considered just ignoring it, but another voice in his head told him that answering the phone would allow him to delay the deed that he dreaded. Pulling his hand free from his wife’s, he scooted around the bed and managed to answer it by the third ring.

  “Joel?” a familiar voice said hastily. The owner of that voice sounded as if they’d just sprinted a few miles.

  “Conrad?” Joel replied, making sure he was speaking to the person he believed to be on the other end of the line.

  “Yes, sir.” Sounds of screaming came from the background on Conrad’s end, almost drowning him out.

  Conrad Parks was the son of the late Bill Parks. He was also one of the finest attorney’s in Las Vegas—an education thanks to the fund Joel had set up on the young man’s first birthday. As soon as he passed the bar, he’d signed on to a very prestigious firm. Within two years, he’d been made junior partner. Within five, his name was part of the firm’s logo.

  “Have you heard from my mom?” Conrad gasped.

  “Not in a few days,” Joel admitted.

  “She isn’t answering at home.” A barrage of gunfire sounded to punctuate that statement. “I know this is asking a lot, but can you send a driver over to check on her…maybe pick her up and have her brought to The Grand?”

  “I would if any of my drivers could be reached,” Joel said.

  There was a moment of silence and Joel wasn’t sure that the call was still connected. At last, a deep sigh sounded in his ear.

  “Look, Conrad, I’d go myself, but Wanda…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the excuse.

  “Wanda?” Conrad blurted, a tremor in his voice caused it to crack a bit. “No…she hasn’t been…” Now it was Conrad’s turn to not be able to complete a sentence.

  A low moan sounded, and it took Joel a second to realize that it wasn’t more background noise from the other end of the call. This sound was close. All he had to do was turn his body a little to the right and he would be able to see the source. The problem was that Joel didn’t want to see it. He wanted to ignore it and hope to God that it had been a figment of his imagination.

  He felt the bed shift slightly against his leg and he could not ignore it any longer. Joel turned his head and saw his deceased wife sitting up in their bed. Her head was turned away from him at the moment, sparing him the pain of having to look into her dead eyes.

  “I have to go, Conrad,” Joel said absently, placing the phone back in the receiver He heard the tinny sound of a voice obviously protesting his seemingly arbitrary decision to end the call.

  Wanda shifted at the sound of his voice. Her head began to swing back in his direction. Only, it was with oddly halting and jerky movements. At last, her face was revealed. Wanda’s normally smooth and soft skin now hung loosely on her face. It was as if all the muscles had simply quit working to hold up the flesh of her face. The eyes were now covered in a disgusting film that made the black tracers stand out even more.

  Her normally olive skin tone was now a sickly grayish-blue, and her lips were almost black. When she opened her mouth, her normally kind voice was gone. All that came out was a low moan that seemed impossible to be coming from Wanda’s mouth.

  Joel stood rooted to the spot as his dead wife began to try and fight her way out from the sheets, blanket, and comforter of their bed. Her moans grew in intensity, but her eyes never left Joel as she fought to free herself. He was still standing there when one of her hands came free and brushed his arm. Joel winced at the uncommon coolness of her skin.

  “I’m sorry, my love.” Joel pushed Wanda back onto the bed and she ended up flat on her back.

  If she’d struggled with the bedding, she was really having a difficult time getting herself rolled over in order for her to stand. At last she made it onto her side. One leg became ensnared by the wadded-up sheets. It was enough to pull her off balance, and the thing that had once been Wanda toppled over backwards and landed out of sight on the far side of the bed with a heavy thud.

  Joel only briefly considered exiting the room and perhaps securing the door, but his final promise to Wanda gave his conscience a stinging rebuke.

  Joel turned the latch on his nightstand drawer and reached down without looking. His hand found the familiar shape of his Smith & Wesson .44 magnum revolver. He checked it out of reflexive habit and then turned to confront the thing that had once been his wife.

  On the other side of the bed, the wad of bedding twitched and
roiled as the undead creature struggled with the task of freeing itself from the tangled mess. Joel stalked around the bed and staggered back a step. The smell hit him full force and brought him to the verge of puking.

  Joel Landon knew death. He knew the stink of a dead body…even a rotting corpse. It was a smell that burrowed into his being during his time in Vietnam. This was not just the stench of death. The smell assaulting Joel was something more. It was infinitely more rotten, rank, and rancid than just the stink of the dead.

  Gathering his resolve, Joel tried to hold his breath as he continued his approach. He brought a foot down firmly on the thing trying to extricate itself from the bed linens. It mewled and moaned in what sounded almost like frustration.

  All of this combined—the smell, the sounds, and the way it looked so different in death—made Joel’s task a fraction easier. Pressing the barrel of the pistol against the shape that he was pretty certain had to be the head, Joel squeezed the trigger.

  The report from the pistol was still thunderous despite any dampening of sound that might’ve resulted from the barrel being pressed firmly against the target and Joel’s ears rang slightly. Stepping back, he could observe the dark and ominous stain centered on the hole his weapon had put in the bedding as well as the zombie’s head.

  He had no idea how long he simply stood there staring down at his handiwork. Part of him kept waiting for some sort of movement, but the main part of him had a bit of a check out. This had been too much to process in one big piece. He needed to break things down into much smaller bites.

  As he stood there thinking, Joel did not notice how his mind began to change. He was oblivious to the icy detachment that wrapped his heart in a cocoon of icy ambivalence. He was even less aware of the awakening of the old soldier that still existed in the deepest caverns of his mind.