Best New Zombie [3] - Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3 by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: +TOREAD, +NEXT, +UNCHECKED
Amazon: B0050BQGRA
Publisher: Books of the Dead Press
Published: 2011-05-09T07:00:00+00:00

Fast Eddie's Big Night Out

JOHN L. FRENCH

Safe, that's what he felt like when he finally became aware of himself. Safe and warm. He hadn't felt like this since, since----he didn't know. It didn't matter. Wherever he was, he was at peace.

~

He called himself "Fast Eddie." It wasn't his real name. That was Wallace----Wallace Cromwell. He'd hated that name. Hated being called Wallace. Hated "Wally" more. Hated being asked how the Beaver was. Then one night he saw a movie on late night TV about some guys shooting pool, Paul Newman and a fat guy. Newman's name was Fast Eddie. He liked that and started using it as his own.

By then he was typically alone. He still lived in his mother's house, but his bedroom was in the basement. He came and went as he pleased. Mostly he went home to eat, sleep and get clean laundry. Some days he didn't go home at all. There was too much happening on the street----people to see, stuff to do.

Some of the stuff involved drinking----beer, wine, whatever he could get. And some of it involved girls----those who gave it away, those who traded it. And some of it involved drugs----reefer, crack, whatever made him feel good and forget the boredom that was at the bottom of his life. And all of it involved money. Money he usually didn't have and always needed. Money his mother had stopped giving him. Money he had to get from somewhere no matter what.

He tried street jobs, but that was low percentage. The guy you robbed might not have any more than you. Or he might be armed, and your payoff would be a knife in the side or a nine in the head. It was better to B&E. Less chance of getting caught, and VCRs, DVDs and computers always brought him enough to get by.

He went home less and less. One night he went back and didn't have his key. Hadn't had it for a long time. How long, he didn't know. He pounded on the front door. No answer. He went around and pounded on the back. Still nothing. He broke the pane of the basement door, reached it and unlocked it.

Things were changed. None of his stuff was there. He didn't know the man standing in the basement. He did know the man had a gun. And he knew that the sirens in the distance were coming for him.

Nobody believed that he thought it was still his house. His mother hadn't lived there for months. What had happened to her he never found out. Without money for bail he sat in the Baltimore Detention Center for six months, awaiting trial. In that time his prints came back on six other burglaries. He got three on top of the half he'd served. Overcrowding forced him back on the street inside the year.

When Eddie came out he went back to the B&E, back to yoking tourists who went down the wrong street, back to jacking cars from the fools who came down from PA looking to buy drugs.

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