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In Boston's nearby Theater District, Scott continued to follow up on a hunch. Their first search of the costume shops had turned up nothing, but that didn't mean the idea was unsound. He was in full stealth mode, poking through dusty abandoned buildings, skulking in vents, and putting pseudopods where they probably shouldn't be.
After a few days of this, he found some people unloading equipment into what was supposed to be an abandoned theater. He'd done a bit of cross-checking; this particular place was not due for renovation. There was no logical reason for anyone to be there. He slunk inside, quiet as only liquid metal could be.
The interior looked considerably better than the outside. He noted a plaque on one wall that read "Hall of Shame." Hanging nearby was a white outfit with a triangle on it. Even if you squinted, it really didn't look that much like a closed envelope.
A half dozen people moved around inside, shifting things around and working on various pieces of unfamiliar high-tech gear. There wasn't a lot of casual conversation. In fact, there was no conversation at all. In fact, he realized after a while longer, none of these people were breathing.
This was probably a bad sign, he decided, and kept watching. Now that he was looking more closely, he noted that they all had a slightly greyish cast to their skin.
Eventually they began packing things into boxes and loading them into a truck to leave. This was odd, seeing as how they'd unloaded it all not that long ago. Scott drifted over to the truck and got the license number and so forth. The six men climbed in and started the engine. A cloud of fog settled, very gently, on the roof.
They drove downtown and picked up I-93 north, out of the city. Crossed the New Hampshire border. Got off the highway onto a small, nameless route. Drove onto a bridge. Turned a sharp right, through the guard rail. The truck plummeted toward the river below.
Scott was more than a little startled by this development. The truck was carried along by the current for a while, as the passengers sat without moving. Then something in the back exploded, and it began to sink. He called the state police.
"This is Scott Silver from the Revolution."
"Yeah? What's up?" a startled deputy inquired.
"I'm currently kind of hovering over the edge of a river here following a truck that plummeted into it full of walking dead guys and high-tech equipment. I kinda need somebody to come along and drag the truck out of the river."
Pause while he scribbled a note. "What route are you on? We'll get somebody out there... walking dead guys?"
"M-hm."
"That's strange."
"Yeah," Scott agreed without further comment.
"All right... we're on our way there." A while later a chopper and a truck showed up to deal with the truck. "Whew. Man, you sure you saw this thing just plummet in?" the officer asked.
"Yeah."
"Jeez."
"They got halfway across the bridge, pulled the wheel to the right."
"Sure he didn't lose control or anything?"
"No."
"We're gonna have to bring these guys in, have a coroner take a look at them," he said uneasily.
"They haven't been breathing for the last three or four hours as I've been watching them." Scott shrugged.
"You sure you don't have specialists you want to have take this case over?" The famous New England stoicism was obviously a trifle shaken.
Scott considered. "Well, we're working on this one. Hm, I wonder where he is...."
"What? Who?"
"Never mind."
"Okay."
"Man, something blew up here in back," another man called, having pried open the back of the truck.
"Yeah, there was a bunch of equipment that I think took poorly to being immersed in the river," Scott told him.
"No way we're gonna be able to figure out what was back here now. Look at this mess!"
"Look at these guys up here," the third commented unhappily from the cab. "You said they're the walking dead?"
"Walking, no heartbeat or breathing, driving trucks," Scott shrugged.
"I'm not a superhero or anything, Mr. Scott," said the guy poking around in the cab, "but I've seen drowned bodies before, and these guys look like they drowned."
He checked to make sure they were the same guys that had gotten into the truck. They certainly looked the same. "Well, maybe they did." They were dead, who knew how they'd gotten that way.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Silver, I just have one concern?" the trooper said carefully. "I've seen all the movies too, and I really don't want to take a half dozen guys that you say are the walking dead to our coroner's office and tell Mike that he's gonna have to cut him open so they can jump up at the last moment and rip his arms from his body."
"I can understand that," Scott agreed.
"And this is not meant as any offense, against you or your team, or anything, but I'm gonna reiterate: do you have specialists you can have take care of this? Please?" he pleaded.
"Give me a minute, let me get on the phone."
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© 2001 Rebecca J. Stevenson
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