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“One thing was certain, that the white kitten had nothing to do with it: it was the black kitten’s fault entirely.” ~ Lewis Carroll, “Alice in Wonderland”

Did Nelson really not know where the Twos like his tattoo guy had been hidin’? Too bad. If the Conch Commander had come out from behind that fence any time in the last six weeks, he could have just asked. Instead, he’d been sittin’ behind his desk like some crazy old man waitin’ for the local kids to kick their football into his back yard.

If I’d known the score, I could have helped. I might have even told him for free, because I knew exactly where they was at! Then again, knowledge around here was a seller’s market.

I know because once it started gettin’ dicey and I started seein’ the “Two’s”—damn, that’s a stupid name—I started lookin’ for a place to lay low. I mean, I’m okay with zombies. The movies didn’t scare me when I was a kid, and the Keys are full of folks walkin’ around, blazed-over on the green stuff, or just lurkin’ around lookin’ down at their phones.

But who ever heard of a zombie that sets up road blocks? Nobody, that’s who. And who ever heard of zombies that get tired of getting played by a handsome local driver whose only sin was gettin’ around that roadblock? Hell, they came after me with an F250 like they was in some cheap gangbanger movie. I pulled ahead of one of them, but the other tried to run me into the gas pumps on Kennedy. I’m not sure what that would’ve done to them, but fried Max wasn’t somethin’ I wanted on my menu or my obituary. I took two hard turns to get them onto the baseball field, then downshifted for a power-slide that kicked me just past a brick wall, just before they learned what happens when cars meet bricks.

I figure there ain’t a lotta folks that can say they’ve been in a zombie car chase. That’s gotta count for somethin’, right? Might even put it on my resume. Still, not lookin’ to make that my new daily constitutional—not at all. Fuck Bontrager’s!

So where did I go? The Armstead Confine. And where was they hidin’ the whole damn time? The Armstead Confine!

Now old man Armstead set his people up in that nice hotel east of Garrison Bight. Just like thousands of tourists before them, findin’ a nice little place near the beach. Nice? It was a nice hotel. I had always wanted to set up shop there, stake out a new fortress on the north side.

They had clean rooms and lots of their own supplies. There were no bloodstains anywhere, and even the water seemed a little bit clearer. They’d set up fishin’ teams on the banks, which looked more like old men in a fishin’ tournament than the last hope for their survival. No one seemed to make any runs at them, and they acted like they had just carved out their own slice of island life. They had their own leader, too, a reverend who preached all funky and had Armstead in his pocket. He was always talkin’ about the Holy Spirit’s protection, and from the outside, they did seem pretty well-protected.

Add on regular sermons from that Reverend, and I figured he was on to somethin’.

He called himself Reverend Daimon Lennox, spent most of his time at the top of the stairs in the lobby, standin’ behind a polished brass bannister. Plush red carpet led down the stairs from him to where his people waited for his words. He had the look, wrapped in a black suit so dark it almost swallowed the light around him. And those blue eyes... you could see the ocean in them. When he talked, his voice drew you in like it was the only light in the universe.

He talked of hope and peace and the comforts of the next world, said God was in everything and every one of them. It was a nice pitch, and that cadence... just slow enough to make you thirsty for the next word. If I was lookin’ for another system, his would be a good one. Hell, he even got me thinkin’ about needin’ to repent. I figured I could sit through one of his sermons, watchin’ him give these folks those words they wanted to hear. I was most interested in how and when he’d pass the plate, how he’d slip in the inevitable call for cash that always kept these guys in business.

‘Cept they never passed the plate. If this guy was a preacher, he was a terrible one. Where was the call to fleece the flock? Did he forget, or was he doin’ it wrong? Either way, I got up from out of the middle of one of his sermons, in spite of all the looks, because nature was on line one and I had to take the call.

I had to give ’em credit for being civilized. There was probably more holy water somewhere, but right next to the pisser sat a bucket of water for pourin’ into the tank so it would flush. Even a man of God needs a workin’ toilet in his hotel.

After I poured the bucket into the tank and gave it a flush, I went to the sink to wash my hands, and I met this guy, with a big ol’ bushy beard, holdin’ a hand over his eye. So I ask him if he’s okay, and he starts tellin’ me how he got somethin’ in there and he’s tryin’ to get it out, but I see this contact lens on the counter. It’s colored, like its blue and white, which matches the one eye I can see. I never thought of vision being the limiting factor in seein’ God, and I wasn’t sure the colors really mattered to a man of the cloth.

Really, who went to all the trouble of wearin’ colored contact lenses in times like these?

Back in the lobby, when the sermon was over, folks broke up into work groups, but I was still thinkin’ about the guy in the bathroom and how I ain’t never seen him before, and why anyone would care about colored contact lenses. I decided to take a look around, maybe get a feel for this place I’d been sleepin’ at the last few nights. I followed a long hall behind the office toward a sign marked “indoor pool.” Wouldn’t that have been sweet? They’d managed to keep most of the hotel workin’. If there had been a pool, that might even have meant bikinis and... oh, the possibilities. Except when I got there, I found particle board nailed over the door. Worse was the acrid smell comin’ from inside.

“Excuse me, brother, can I help you?” The voice was soft and marshmallow-sweet.

When I turned around, there was no bikini, but a shoulder-to-ankle black dress, capped with a school-marm face and a bun held together with a long needle. This chick hung around the reverend like some kind of secretary. I’d seen her, but I hadn’t talked to her.

“It’s not in working order,” she tells me, “but Reverend Lennox’s next sermon begins in two hours.”

“Yeah, I’m just wonderin’ about this place. I mean, do I need reservations, or do I have to see the concierge?”

Between near-sighted Grizzly Adams and this old Goth lady stuck on repeat, I started to get a bad vibe. Reminded me of that old movie where the drifter comes along and finds out the whole damn town is hiding something. Then again, this is Key West. Everyone is always hiding something.

So, I decided to listen to the voice inside of me saying to leave. Actually, what it said was “man, you better get your ass out of this hotel right this God damn minute or else you deserve everything that’s about to happen to you.” Who was I to ignore the smartest person I know. So, I hauled ass. I didn’t know the guy with the beard was a Two until after talking to Artis.

It’s everyone else that’s living backwards. Tryin to undo the past like that’ll unlock the future. Blame, regret, even pride... all that stuff will keep you stuck at the back of the line.

Me? I live forwards. Next meal? Already planned. Next week? Already know where I’m gonna be. All this fallin’ down around me? Ain’t even slowin’ me down.

Before all this, I could make six new things before breakfast. Now, I can dream nearly a dozen—brilliant ideas, each one better than the last. Then I get to pick which one, punch that out durin’ the day like most folks punch in and out of work, then I start all over tomorrow.

I see these folks sobbin’ and cryin’ all around me—mopin’, cryin’, like their tears are going to explode their heads if they don’t let ’em out. Most don’t even know why they’re so sad. The time for cryin’ is when you can change stuff, before you need to fix it. I didn’t see them doing any screamin’ before all this happened. Now, they’re findin’ out that screamin’ during doesn’t change anything at all. And afterwards? I got better things to do.

I was never one to pass up a good deal. After I made my exit from the Armstead, Marlowe had offered me a retainer position at the Sherry, which included a room up on the second floor at the back, facin’ the ocean, in exchange for drivin’ his little hotel shuttle bus. Of course, they’d tried to go all Mad Max on it, addin’ metal plates and a tiara of barbed wire across the top. It wasn’t too shabby, but no one does Mad Max like a Mad... Max. A ride here or there in exchange for the “all-inclusive” amenities at one of Key West’s finest establishments? That was a pretty good deal. After all, how much work could it be? I made a few local runs, but with the roads clogged, it was more like drivin’ through a warzone. The War Bus would have been perfect, but I was savin’ that for a more “lucrative” payin’ customer. Besides, there wasn’t much that the hotel’s tandem-axle transport van couldn’t handle.

Except Marlowe’s guys sucked at security, and allowed a couple of dickheads from 6th Street, with an axe to grind and a shiv to poke, to liberate the air from the van’s tires. It wasn’t my fault I was stranded until he could scrounge some tires. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t ask me if I knew where replacement tires would be. Fortress of Attitude #3 has a nice supply of spare tires for just this occasion, as does the roll-off dumpster behind Amos’s tires. Nelson’s old walls at the CR used tires to bulk-up the shipping containers and box trucks laid out around the compound.

I almost told him, but then I remembered that I was on retainer. My services to him were for transport, not tire mechanic. So, I fulfilled my role that morning, stayin’ sprawled out on the bed next to Claudia.

A former resident of the White Street Pier, until she got tired of all that Kumbaya singing and not having enough fresh water, she didn’t hardly take up no room, and even left me a fair share of the pillow. I nuzzled against her and studied the light spreadin’ through a crack in the window like a prism.

Claudia was already up and wrapped in a green sari, so I took her downstairs and left her with Ms. Elkin and her family of five in their room downstairs. They were already turnin’ over furniture and takin’ cover. I made a quick mental note that I had no bath tubs at the Sherry—no cash to leave behind.

While the jets and choppers were right overhead, I was trapped by Marlowe—not by his body, but by that look. With that 80’s feathery hair wavin’ around him, he turned all motivational, almost like Lennox, doin’ that witchy stuff with his voice and talkin’ about how the Republic was fallin’ apart. He said he needed me, and I countered that I needed to go.

Claudia and Ms. Elkin had shepherded the children into the lobby, and I stole one more glance before duckin’ out of the hotel. Marlowe needed a hero, and I’d be damned if I didn’t know just where to find one.

Oh wait... did you forget who you’re talking to? Of course, you didn’t. If I played it just right, this was gonna be a glory of a payday. I just needed to make a quick run to my fortress #3, which lay behind three barricades, a half dozen checkpoints, and whatever the hell had been blown up this morning on White Street.

Before I had time to talk myself out of it, I was firin’ up the Bus, fillin’ the garage with smoke and the roar of the engine.

When I got back, they was wavin’ at me over at the West Side. Now, Marlowe usually didn’t snuggle up with the West Siders. ‘Bout the only time they talked was when they yelled at each other on opposite sides of the pool. But there he was, hagglin’ with a couple of the Big Four outside the exit door. That was the game. The West Siders took in the Republic’s wounded, figurin’ they would get something out of it, and Marlowe threw my card on the table, figurin’ he could get a piece of that action.

The War Bus was made for transportin’ stuff, but I’d never put people into the equation. The war part worked fine, but when they started dumpin’ my supplies onto the lawn, I started to reconsider this plan. Retainer was one thing, but leavin’ my good supplies behind was another. Three shelves of food were cleared off, makin’ way for three stretchers. They tied them in place with belts, bungies, and anything they could find.

I made a mental note of the transfers, addin’ this onto the tab of whoever was payin’ the bills. Three medical kits and two portable radios were dumped for six folks with yellow fever. Two more injured folks found seats by pushin’ my snack display out the side door. I yelled at them to hurry it up, and as I was complainin’ about them smearin’ blood everywhere, they loaded up Mr. Commander Perry Nelson himself.

I almost didn’t see ’em. South Roosevelt was broke all to shit, where Nelson’s little party had gotten their toys stuck in the sand. I started to veer hard around the smolderin’ wrecks, feelin’ the tires of the war bus skid against the sand before grabbin’ hold and sendin’ us across the beach as smoothly as the highway. I looked in the side mirror and saw this skinny kid and some other dude hobblin’ down to the street from the airport entrance, wavin’ to me, and I went for my sawed-off pistol grip.

The airport looked like somethin’ from The Terminator, complete with burnin’ cars, bodies everywhere, and a few areas charred or burnin’ from seemingly random explosions. We had to go all the way past both runways to pick up the two by the salt ponds. Then we drove the length of the track till we found the little girl covered all over in blood. Once we got ’em all in, I did some arrangin’, stackin’ ’em deep, like playin’ Tetris in an ambulance. A pair of the cops jumped out and got onto the sides, grabbin’ the hand rails of my former town trolley and balancin’ on the chrome side boards.

One of them was missin’ a finger and struggled to hold on—his partner was cold. He solved the problem right there by slappin’ one half of a pair of police handcuffs around his wrist, and snappin’ the other half around the hand rail.

I was gettin’ ready to go, and this older dude with a bad leg, who looked like he could be these kids’ Cub Scout leader, yelled at me to stop. I called bullshit, and he gave me this look like he’d buffalo me, so I leaned back in my seat, ready to put my foot down on the pedal to show Mr. Scout leader why they call it the driver’s seat.

When it was all done, I was carryin’ eighteen of the livin’ and one of the dead, all wrapped up in plastic, that they pulled straight out of a refueling truck like some sort of vending machine for giant tamales.

I strapped in and stepped on the gas, nearly spinnin’ the tires out from under me on the debris-covered concrete. I could see smoke billowin’ up from the road to the east, and I figured I was gonna have to do some backtrackin’. A few harsh turns across some front lawns, and a little backyard demolition, would get me back on course. Duck through a couple of my shortcuts to make this thing work, and we’d be right on target.

The War Bus got us up and over a barricade made of pallets and furniture on 1st Street. She didn’t miss a beat, even got a nice thump when the tires touched down and set the shock absorbers to workin’. The widow Rockport’s place gave me a nice cut-through, even though her carport and prize palm trees met the business end of the Bus. We took some fire at Roosevelt and US1.

We got past the bridge and, behind me, Nelson mumbled somethin’ about the golf course. I caught his drift. It was hard to hide a 12-foot-tall mega-van, and a poorly maintained links seemed the perfect trial for my masterpiece. No problem at all. I even ducked through a sand trap as a proof of concept.

Just ‘cause I’m here, don’t make me a hero.

Count forwards or back, I’m still not the zero.

On the chessboard of life, racing the sands of time,

I’m not the pawn in your game, I’m the king in mine.