Busted Flush by George R. R. Martin
I went to the front window and looked outside. It was pouring. Water covered the street and sidewalk.
“Do you have a boat?”
“Yeah, we got one,” she replied.
“Can your zombies carry it?”
“Yeah,” she said sullenly. “My zombies are handy.”
“Okay, get your boat and your zombies and meet me outside.”
For a moment I thought she was going to argue with me, but then she just set her lips into a thin line and led the zombies toward the back of the house.
After I pulled on my slicker and grabbed my emergency bag, I went outside. Even standing on the wide veranda of Hoodoo Mama’s house, I could feel the rain pelting me. It was coming down harder now, and I knew we didn’t have a lot of time.
Hoodoo Mama appeared around the corner of the house. Behind her were two big zombies carrying a boat between them. There was a small outboard motor clamped on the stern and a pair of oars inside.
“Don’t they get tired?” I yelled. The wind and rain were howling. “They don’t feel shit,” Hoodoo Mama replied. “They’re dead.” There wasn’t a lot to be said after that.
Hoodoo Mama maneuvered the boat toward one brick building that was covered with graffiti. She steered us toward a fire escape at the rear of the building. The zombies dropped off the boat and dog-paddled to it. Hoodoo Mama tossed them the rope, and they pulled us to the fire escape and tied up the boat.
Hoodoo Mama led the way up to the second floor. She grabbed the doorknob, but the door was locked.
“Shit.” She kicked the bottom of the door.
“I can blast it,” I said. I really wanted to blast something.
“Can you just take out the lock?”
I hadn’t bubbled since I’d gotten up to this weight, and I really wanted to do something big. On the other hand, the neighborhood was kinda crappy already, and after the water receded, there didn’t need to be a big gaping hole in the side of the building.
“Yeah, just a sec,” I said. I held my hands up and concentrated on the lock. Liquid fire surged through my veins. When it got hot enough, I let the bubble fly.
The lock exploded with a crunching sound, and Hoodoo Mama smiled at me. It was surprising to see such a sweet smile. Then it vanished. She turned away and opened the door.
Gray light filtered in through windows high up on the walls. There were offices ringing a wide balcony, with the center open to the warehouse floor below. We ran to the railing, looked down, and saw people clinging to rickety wooden shelves.
“Help us! Jesus, help us!” I saw arms waving here and there in the pale light.
“Why didn’t they just come up here?” I whispered to Hoodoo Mama.
“Look over there,” she said, pointing. The stairway had broken off halfway up.
“Then why didn’t they go out the door down there?”
“They went down to check the barricade on the door when the water started coming in. The stairs collapsed when they went back up.”
“And you know this because . . . ?”
“Remember? Zombie rats.”
I sighed and bent over to rest my head on the railing. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. I wanted to be anywhere but here with the responsibility for these people.
A tremendous crashing sound came from outside. A shriek came from below.
“It’s okay,” I shouted, straightening up. “We’re here to help you.”
“I think the levee may have broken,” Hoodoo Mama said. “That sound . . . there’s one not far from here.”
“Listen up,” I yelled. “I’m going to make you some flotation devices. I want you to grab them and paddle over here. We’ll pull you up. Okay?”
There was no answer.
Before I could say “Okay” again, Hoodoo Mama had stepped to the railing.
“You fuckers know who I am, right?” she said loudly. “Bubbles here has a good idea, and I want you to follow it.”
“I can’t swim,” came a faint voice.
“All you need to do is grab hold of the bubble and paddle it over here,”
I said.
“What if I fall off?”
“I’ll jump in and get you,” I said. “Ready?”
I extended my hands as if I were holding a playground ball, and shimmering iridescence formed between my palms. I made it larger—about the size of a beach ball—and I made it nice and firm, so it wouldn’t burst when they were holding on to it.
I glanced down to see where I needed the bubble to go, then sent it on its way. It flew across the warehouse and splashed into the water close to one of the men. The bubble skittered across the surface and he grabbed it.
I kept making bubbles. My pants loosened, and I stopped bubbling for a moment to cinch them tighter. In the pale light, I could see that a few people had actually bobbed over to us already.
“I’ve got a rope in here,” I said, slinging my emergency bag at Hoodoo Mama.
She grabbed the bag, yanked the zipper open, and pulled out the rope. Her zombies came to the edge of the balcony and stood next to me. It was creepy as hell that they didn’t breathe.
“Okay, here’s the rope,” I said to the bubble-floater closest to us. “What’s your name?”
“Floyd,” the man in the water said. His teeth were chattering a little and it made “Floyd” come out as “Fffffloyd.”
“Floyd, I want you to grab the rope as high as you can. You’ll have to let go of the bubble.”
“I can’t swim,” he said.
“No problem,” I replied. “I can. You get in trouble, I’ll come for you.”
“Are those zombies up there?” His voice quavered.
I sighed. “Yes, Floyd, they’re zombies. But they’re not going to do anything to you. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
But Floyd just clung to the bubble.
Hoodoo Mama flung herself against the railing. It groaned and swayed.
“Grab the rope, fucker!” she yelled.
He did. The zombies hauled him up.
One down.
Leaning toward Hoodoo Mama, I whispered, “Got any idea how many are down there?”
She whispered back, “I dunno. Maybe twenty.”
The zombies pulled more people from the water. After a while, the men we’d rescued started helping pull people up, too. Then the water began to rise. I didn’t want to say anything, but it looked like Hoodoo Mama was right. The levee had broken.
I pulled Hoodoo Mama aside. “We can’t get them all out of here,” I said. “One small boat isn’t going to cut it.”
She grabbed my hand and led me toward one of the offices. “Look,” she said, opening the door to one of the offices.
Inside there were cots folded up against one wall and cases of water stacked in a corner.
“They’ve been planning for this since Harriet,” she said. “I helped them.”
“This isn’t enough for that many people.”
“I know that,” she said. She planted her fists on her skinny hips and gave me a look I was now all too familiar with. “Every office on this floor has cots, blankets, water, rations, first aid kits. We didn’t know how many people would be staying. Luckily, fewer than we expected.”
“What about a generator? Bathroom facilities?”
“We got stuff covered. Oh, fuck!” She ran out of the room to the railing. Down below, a man was floundering in the water. I started to bubble up another floating ball, but I could see he was already panicking.
“Crap,” I said. I kicked off my shoes and pulled off my baggy pants. I was not looking forward to jumping into that stinking mess. Outside, with the rain coming down, it was harder to tell just how bad the smell was. But in here, it was foul.
I grabbed the rail, hoisted myself over, and dropped into the water.
It was a shock when I hit. I’d expected it to be warm, but it was pretty damn cold. The guy who’d been floundering had sunk. I dove for him, but it was too dark to see anyth
A few seconds later, I saw Hoodoo Mama at the railing with the flashlight in her hand. She tossed it to me, but she was no Curveball. I had to lunge for it. It was my trusty, waterproof, small-but-bright flashlight. I’d had it since Egypt.
I switched it on, clamped it in my teeth, and dove under again. There was slightly more visibility now, but not loads. The next time down, I found him.
It was tricky getting him up. He was kicking and flailing. I hooked my arms under his arms. As we surfaced, he started sputtering and thrashing harder. So I held him tighter and said, “Dude, I’m trying to save you here. Don’t make me sorry I did.”
He settled down after that, and I got him under the railing.
I released one arm and bubbled with my free hand.
“Hold on to this,” I said as I slid the bubble into his hands. “Lay back like you’re in an easy chair. Yeah, that’s perfect. I’m getting the rope and we’ll get you out of here. Okay?”
He gasped, then squeezed the bubble for dear life. “Yeah, okay.”
I swam to the rope, grabbed it, and swam back.
“What’s your name?” I asked the man.
“Dave,” he said.
“Okay, Dave,” I said as I began to ease the bubble from his hands. I got one hand off and gave him the rope. He grabbed it and let go of the bubble with the other hand. The zombies pulled him up.
As they pulled him up, I noticed that the water had gotten much deeper. The railing was closer now.
He rose out of the water like a landed fish, water sluicing off him in a sheet.
The zombies had just gotten Dave hauled belly-first across the railing when it gave a rusty moan. He squirmed himself the rest of the way home, kicking off the railing. It tottered for a moment, and then it came down on top of me.
Of course, it didn’t hurt, but it did shove me underwater. I sank, thinking I would be able to push myself away from the railing. But it was moving faster than I had expected. I couldn’t get out from under it. And I couldn’t see anything.
I banged into something and a whole pile of stuff fell over on me, pinning me facedown on the warehouse floor. One of my hands was palmup, so I let some bubbles go, but I missed whatever was on top of me.
And then my stomach clenched with fear. I didn’t know if anyone else could swim, but I wasn’t optimistic. Who could get all this crap off my back anyway? I thought about bubbling downward and blasting through the floor, but odds were I’d hit either more water or just dirt.
My breath was running out. I tried to twist around, but I was stuck.
Don’t panic, I thought.
Too late.
Yellow blotches bloomed in my vision. The urge to breathe was too great. I gasped and water rushed into my mouth, down my throat, and burned in my lungs. The yellow blotches went red. And then there was the endless blackness of the water.
It was really a relief. I didn’t have to think about the people who’d died because of me, or little girls who’d been raped, or Ink, or John Fortune, Niobe, or Drake, or anything anymore.
“Is she all right?”
I opened my eyes. Crap. Zombies. Then I rolled onto my side and started coughing and puking up water.
Someone wrapped a blanket around me. “I thought you were fucking indestructible,” said Hoodoo Mama, holding my hair back.
“I’m like the Wicked Witch of the West. Water can kill me,” I croaked.
My throat was sore and my sinuses burned. I pushed myself onto my hands and knees. “How did I get out?”
“I don’t swim,” Hoodoo Mama said. “But the zombies don’t breathe. So I sent them in for you.”
My throat and lungs were on fire, but in an “Oxygen Is Our Friend!” way. I never thought stale, fetid, sewage-tinged, flooded-warehouse air could smell so good.
“Did we get everyone out?”
“Yeah, every one of them.” Hoodoo Mama smiled at me. That surprised me. “I’ve got Dave and Floyd setting up the cots in each office. C’mon, we’ve got one for you.”
I stood up, but I was still a little unsteady. “What about everyone else? Is the water still rising? Are we safe here?”
“Jesus Christ, the water has stopped rising. This place is a dump, but has good enough bones to make it through this. That’s why I chose it. Fuck all, stop worrying and come lie down.”
“I smell terrible.”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me, Jesus, what did I do to deserve this fucker? I think we’ve got some wet wipes.”
“Bubbles.”
I woke with a start. I was never going to get a full night’s sleep again. “Yeah, I’m here. Anything wrong?”
“No,” Hoodoo Mama said softly. “I just wanted to talk.”
I rolled over to face her and pushed my hair back. “Okay, what’s up?”
She was sitting on the floor next to the cot, hugging her knees. “I guess, I, I just wanted to say that as fuckers go, you’re not too bad.”
“Mmm, high praise indeed.”
“Now why the fuck would you go and say something like that? I was being sincere.”
I pushed myself up onto my elbow. “I’m sorry. I’ve been dealing with some stuff lately. And my God, it smells like ass in here.”
“You know what ass smells like? I find that mighty difficult to believe.”
I stifled a laugh, but it really did smell awful.
“C’mon,” she said as she stood up, grabbed the blanket off my bed, and went to the door.
I got up and followed her. We went toward the back of the building where we’d come in. She opened a door and led me into a stairwell. We went up to the third floor.
I’d thought there would be offices, but it was just a big unfinished area. There were windows around the perimeter of the room. Some were broken and let in the air. It wasn’t a lot cooler than downstairs, but it didn’t stink as much.
Hoodoo Mama went to the window closest to us and opened it. We were in the eye of the storm, and things were oddly quiet. We both leaned out of the window, sucking in the fresh air.
“There’s a lot of bodies in that water,” she said softly. That was part of her power, no doubt, knowing where the dead bodies were. It was a terrible power, I realized. Always knowing death.
“So, you were saying that you’re going through shit,” she said suddenly. “You want to tell me about it?”
I was surprised. I’d come to the conclusion that Hoodoo Mama had three modes: kill fuckers, annoy fuckers, ignore fuckers. And what could I say about my life? Killing people who are trying to kill me isn’t as much fun as it’s cracked up to be?
I shrugged. “You’ll probably think it’s stupid, but I got a friend of mine in big trouble with SCARE. They’re this government agency that . . .”
“I know what SCARE is,” she said coldly. She turned away from the window, then shook out the blanket and laid it on the floor. “Anyone got a wild card know who SCARE is.”
We plunked down on the blanket together. I sat Indian style and toyed with a loose piece of weave.
“So, I get sent to do a mission to save this friend of mine. Only after all hell breaks loose do I find out that the guys who are asking me to do all this stuff have lied to me.” It still made me mad thinking about it. Thinking how they lied to me and almost got Drake and Niobe killed.
“Lied to you about what?”
I could feel my hands shaking again. I shoved them under my butt. “They told me that there was this wicked powerful ace I had to ‘contain.’ Turns out that the ace was a kid. He was only thirteen,” I said as I began to rock back and forth. “And so I accidentally betrayed my friend, Niobe, who was helping him escape these other assholes—who I now know want to kill him.”
Her face went cold. “These SCARE guys want to kill some kid because he’s powerful? Fuckers.”
I nodded grimly. “Yeah, they are. At least the Committee was trying to get him away from them.”
&nb
I nodded. “I’m still pissed as hell that they didn’t tell me everything about him, but they were trying to keep him safe.” I closed my eyes. “When we went to Egypt, I brought down these helicopters with soldiers in them.” My voice broke. I bit my lip and took a deep breath to steady myself. I continued. “They caught fire and when they fell I could smell them. Like burnt pork. And they screamed.” I opened my eyes and looked at Hoodoo Mama. “I can’t tell you how it sounded when they screamed.”
She shrugged. “From what I heard, sounded like those fuckers deserved it.”
I hugged my knees to my chest.
“Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. If I had died, would I have deserved it?” I stared out the open window. The light was tinged a strange green color. And all those people I killed would never see any light again. “And there were other things. The Behatu rape camp. Jesus, you don’t want to know what that was like.”
“Did you kill the fuckers who did that?” “Yeah, that doesn’t bother me much. It was the women we found there that haunt me.”
“I know what that’s like,” Hoodoo Mama said. It was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. And when I looked at her face I knew what had happened to her. I swallowed hard and then I leaned forward and whispered, “Did someone rape you?”
For a moment, her hard expression collapsed. The naked pain there was terrible to see. She didn’t answer me, but she nodded.
“I’m so sorry.” Then I took her hand in mine.
“That’s how I got to be Hoodoo Mama,” she said after a few moments.
“My card turned then.” She wiped her nose on the back of her shirt sleeve.
“The fucker died screaming.”
“Good,” I said. I gave her hand a squeeze. Then she put her arms around me. So I put my arms around her.
We held each other for a while. I felt her stroke my hair. Then she slid a hand up my arm to my shoulder and started caressing my neck.
“I, uhm, Hoodoo Mama,” I said.
“Call me Joey. That’s my real name.” Her lips were hovering over mine, and then she kissed me. And, heaven help me, I kissed her back.