room.
And nobody stopped me. Nobody spoke to me. Nobody even seemed to notice me. The medics just went about their business. Gurneys were pushed, some folk shouted, other folk wept. Nurses came and went.
And presently I was outside in the street.
And I took great breaths of New York air and those great breaths were not rewarding or beneficial to the good health of my person. New York stank. It reeked. It was horrible.
It was a nice day, though. Bright sunlight.
Although-
There was bright sunlight, but there was a certain dark quality to this bright sunlight. It was difficult to quantify, really, but things weren’t right. Things were, shall we say, out of kilter.
Somehow.
And then I saw the policeman. He was just a policeman. He stood on the corner, twirling his nightstick as old- fashioned policemen used to do. And the sun, the dark sun, shone down upon this policeman and cast his shadows before him.
And yes, I did say shadows. He cast two shadows, that New York cop. And I could see them clearly.
Two shadows! And I thought about that woman in Croydon who had had the crash on the roundabout and woken up in the Ministry of Serendipity. She’d seen the double shadows. And was it her who had ran me down and died in the crash?
Probably yes, I supposed.
And I glanced here and I glanced there. And saw them here and there. Them. The dead, the animated dead. The ones that cast two shadows.
‘And I can see the shadows now,’ I said, in a whispery kind of a voice, ‘because I have been in a coma for so long and developed these weird abilities.’
‘What a wreck!’ A woman walked by me. A good-looking woman. She’d said that I was a wreck. I opened my mouth to answer her back. But then I realised that she hadn’t said it. She’d only thought it. And I had heard her thoughts. I watched her as she walked away. The woman had only one shadow.
I shrank back against a wall and tried to look inconspicuous. It’s a detective thing. And I viewed the people of New York. And I counted them as I viewed them. And wouldn’t you know it, one in three was casting a pair of shadows.
One in three? Did this mean that one in three New Yorkers was dead? The conclusion had to be yes.
I turned up the collar of my trench coat. The dark sun seemed to cast no heat and I felt chilly withal. He was winning. The Homunculus. One in three. All over the world? The army of the dead growing in numbers, awaiting the moment to arise against the living.
I felt chilled to the bone.
And I was starting to shake.
Going into shock? I couldn’t have that. I couldn’t end up back in the hospital again. What I needed now was a big fat drink.
A big fat drink in Fangio’s Bar.
I had no money for cabs, so I walked. And as I walked, I fretted. He was going to win, that Homunculus horror, and I was powerless to stop him. What could I do, a single living man against an army of the dead? And how had all these people come to die anyhow? I didn’t believe that they had died, been buried, then risen from their graves and gone home to their friends and family, saying that it had all been a big mistake and that they were all fit and well again. That didn’t make any sense. They must have been murdered secretly and then zombified, as the voodoo priests did to their victims in Haiti.
So what did that mean? That there were zombie hit-squads roaming around at night, picking folk off at the order of their evil master, the Homunculus?
That, in all its horror, seemed most probable.
I trudged on, in an ill-smelling trench coat and a right old fug.
And Fangio’s Bar hadn’t changed. But had Fangio? The not-so-fat-boy barman hadn’t attended my bedside in a while. Had he succumbed? Did he now cast double shadows and call the Homunculus ‘sir’?
It was with some foreboding, and no small degree of thirst, that I pushed open the now-legendary shatter- glass door and once more entered the bar.
And there was the now elegantly wasted boy behind the bar counter and he looked up from a magazine and copped a glance at me.
‘A bottle of Bud, please, Fange,’ I said. ‘And a hot pastrami on rye.’
And he fainted. Dead away.
And I roused him with the contents of the ice bucket. And he rued the day that he had not worn a wetsuit to work (this day) and arose all dripping to his feet.
‘It is you,’ he said. ‘And you are awake and here.’
‘And looking like dog poo,’ I said. ‘How come nobody gave my teeth a wash?’ And I displayed my teeth to Fangio. Who fell back before the onrushing of my severe halitosis.
‘You’re going to need some alcohol to mask that breath of yours,’ said the barlord. ‘And then we are going to have to talk some very intense toot. If you know what I mean and I’m sure that you do.’
And he popped the top from a bottle of Bud and served up a pastrami on rye.
And I tucked in to all that he served and did so gratefully.
‘I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to see you up and about,’ said Fangio. ‘Even if you do look somewhat dog-pooish. So do you wish to pay in cash, or should I start a tab for you?’
‘I’ll have these on the house,’ I said. ‘As this is my bar.’
‘Ah,’ said Fangio. ‘Was your bar. The court order came through just last week. When you were declared officially braindead.’
‘Which quite clearly I am not!’ I said. In the voice of outrage.
‘Opinions vary,’ said Fangio. ‘You’re entitled to your own, of course. Personally I incline towards the opinion of the magistrate who signed the court order. But that’s me all over, isn’t it? Upholder of the law and friend to one and all.’
And I did grindings of the teeth. And bits of teeth fell off.
‘I need a wash,’ I said to Fangio. ‘I stink and everything I’m wearing stinks and I need to clean my teeth. A lot.’
And Fangio let me use his bathroom. And he said that he would not charge me for the towels. On this occasion. The man was clearly a saint in the making. And, as he cast but a single shadow, still in the land of the living.
I returned to the bar smelling as sweetly as Elvis once had and reasonably shining-white in the railing regions. And I smiled my almost pearly-whites at Fangio and this time he did not fall back clutching at his nose.
‘It really is good to have you back,’ he said. ‘What are your present opinions regarding the undead? Believer, or non-believer?’
‘Believer,’ I said. ‘Firm and fervent believer. And instrument of vengeance upon the Homunculus. If I get half a chance.’
‘Top man,’ said Fangio. ‘Bonnie Tyler was in here the other day and she was holding out for a hero. I don’t suppose you’re related?’
‘I didn’t know that you knew my real name,’ I said.
‘It was on your hospital records. Which came from extensive CIA files on you. Apparently.’
‘So I heard. Perhaps I should go and speak to the CIA, tell them everything I know. And I know a lot.’
‘Best not,’ said Fangio.
‘You think?’
‘I know. Best not.’ And Fangio pushed the magazine he had been reading when I entered across the bar counter to me.
It was a copy of American Alpha Males Today magazine, which incorporated American Jocks Today magazine. And American Teenage Dirtbags Today magazine. And Hard-Core She-Males Monthly, but this last was in very small lettering.
