The Spy's Little Zonbi Read online

  The Spy’s Little Zonbi

  by

  Cole Alpaugh

  The Spy’s Little Zonbi

  Copyright © 2014 Cole Alpaugh

  Coffeetown Press

  PO Box 70515

  Seattle, WA 98127

  For more information go to: www.coffeetownpress.com

  www.colealpaugh.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Sabrina Sun

  THE SPY’S LITTLE ZONBI

  Copyright © 2014 by Cole Alpaugh

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-184-2 (Trade Paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-185-9 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013943292

  Produced in the United States of America

  Smashwords License Agreement

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  For Sydney Fahrenbach, who continues to inspire

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to Gary Ruckwarger for leading the way to the best firefights, and to the night clerk at the Panama City hotel who surely saved my life. Thanks to the Montage Mountain Ski Team coaching staff for sharing their incredible skills. My gratitude to Bryan Records for letting me tag along inside burning buildings at all hours of the night, and to Ivan for keeping my Kat happy and safe. To Kristine Baney for her lovely notes, and Regan Leigh for her inspiring words. And special thanks to Catherine Treadgold, the most talented editor on this sometimes volatile world.

  Chapter 1

  The lepers shuffled in from the dirt street and took their regular position as cheerleaders. Seven women lined up shoulder to shoulder along the far sideline to murmur and hoot, each shrouded in U.S. Army surplus blankets despite the tropical heat. They were olive drab shadows and glimpses of leathery flesh who celebrated high scoring games no matter which side was winning.

  Chase Allen eyed his assistant coach, worried about another bad scene. When the lepers first appeared at the soccer field each day, Stoney’s behavior was unpredictable. It was probably because the drugs from the night before never had a chance to clear out of his system. His latest kick had been from cocaine and some sort of animal tranquilizer.

  On the defensive, Stoney returned his best friend’s look. “It was the sudden moves, they freaked me out,” he said from behind crooked sunglasses.

  “They move in slow motion. They are physically incapable of sudden moves.”

  “I was having a bad day.” Stoney kicked at the dirt field with the toe of an old Converse. “Everything about this place is bad.”

  Chase blew his whistle and the ball was kicked. He glanced at his wrist from habit, but saw only a pale band of skin starting to turn pink. His watch had gone to that place everything went when you weren’t looking.

  “Keep your elbows down!” Chase grabbed his own arm, pointing, wagging a finger. They were too rough when they were still filled with energy, one bad shove from a free-for-all. “Dude, how do you say ‘elbow’?”

  “Elbow.” Stoney was rubbing his temples, grimacing from the noise and bright light.

  “Funny, thanks.” At least Stoney was keeping his cool. Better hung-over than any more Captain Bizarro shit.

  It was on an equally hot afternoon that Chase had been forced to corral his friend, trapping Stoney inside one of the goal nets before anyone had gotten hurt. He’d pinned him to the searing dirt, shouting his name and reassuring him it was safe, that whatever he’d been swatting away from his head was gone. Stoney had later sworn that hundreds of bats had flapped out of the lepers’ blankets and come straight for him. The boys who’d gathered to play soccer had screamed in laughter, loved every second. One had even tried pulling Stoney free, wanting the show to go on. Craziness was nothing to kids with lives this shitty. No chance one would run for the cops. The cops were the bad guys and these goofy blancs were good entertainment.

  Chase had every right to be pissed at Stoney. He’d put their fifteen credits for school in jeopardy and risked making the drudgery already endured through the first half of spring semester pointless.

  Haiti was a thousand times worse than they’d imagined. Hot and dry until the rains brought the rank mud that flowed through the streets like lava. Chase didn’t understand the buzzing carpet of flies coating the muck until realizing it was run-off from open sewers. When they’d had time to explore, they hadn’t found any hidden gems. They didn’t exist. Back from an evening drug purchase, Stoney had wandered into their room at the orphanage on wobbly legs, face ashen, unable to stop shaking his head.

  “Shit, man, if you see a dog scratching at the dirt trying to dig something up, walk away real fast,” he said, then pulled a little square of paper from his pocket and swallowed whatever was folded inside. Stoney had reluctantly agreed to keep his best friend company in a complete hellhole, sticking it out despite having an open return ticket. It was tough to blame Stoney for all the drugs, but Chase worried. Scoring animal tranquilizers from a street dealer in this frigging place was pushing his luck with a sharp pitchfork.

  The eight week mission was to design and run a youth camp in the main city of Port-au-Prince. It was one of the international aid programs rotating among departments of their college in Northern Virginia. During each term, professors could draft a unique curriculum to suit specific studies. Chase had applied through his journalism professor, then vouched for Stoney, promising to keep him out of trouble. Stoney’s grades and reputation were irrelevant because no other students had applied for this semester’s project in Haiti.

  Chase’s campus paper didn’t cover international politics, but someone was always leaving a Washington Post strewn across the office, comic strips cut out and taped to office doors. The news from Haiti scared them all away, or maybe it just scared the tuition-paying parents. There had been gun battles and coup attempts, headlines with the words unrest and anarchy. To Chase, it was a road trip away from the classrooms and the bullshit check-passing ceremonies filling the newspaper’s assignment board. To Stoney, it was a road trip with his buddy, clinging to the false hope that there would be bikinis and beach volleyball. It was an island in the Caribbean, after all, and he had every intention of nailing a hula dancer or two.

  Chase blew the whistle, jogged to a small boy who’d had his legs kicked out from behind. He lay face down in the dirt holding back sobs, clutching his knee.

  “Nou bezwen yon dokte,” said one of the older players, and they laughed and high-fived. Chase recognized the word for doctor, shook his head and motioned for them to back off.

  A thin line of blood trickled down the boy’s cut shin when Chase helped him up. He was maybe eight years old, still fighting the tears, chest heaving. His skin was rough, small raised scars all over his arms and back. The boy slapped at Chase’s hands when he tried to lead him off the field.

  “Dan bounda ou,” said the boy, his watery eyes narrow and suspicious. Chase knew he’d told him to shove it up his ass, or something close. It was a common phrase for the kids. Chase had also come to understand that any insult not involving violent sex acts and your mother wasn’t meant to be particularly hurtful.

  “Okay, okay,” Chase told him, trying not to smile. He headed back to the sideline with his whistle. “You keep playing, tough guy.”

  From ten to four in the afternoon, Chase and Stoney were in charge of two dozen boys who, like the lepers, seem
ed to appear out of nowhere on the soccer field just as church bells chimed the hour. Only a few they recognized from the orphanage. Even the two adult helpers who delivered sack lunches came and went with just a nod of their heads. They were tall, thin men who wore large gold crosses that bounced and swung over button-down shirts. Both were overly serious, making snarling warnings at any clowning around. The men never introduced themselves to the Americans and didn’t seem to speak English, although Stoney had begun calling one Tricky Dick and the other Agnew. They looked like they must have some double-secret plot brewing or were saving up for a new underground torture chamber.

  The local agency working with the college had provided Chase and Stoney with a nylon bag stuffed with eight completely flat balls, some faded orange cones, and a dented metal whistle. It had taken two days to find a working air pump. They’d also arranged for cots to be crammed in a room adjacent to the kitchen of the nearby orphanage, where they were served breakfast and dinner. Aside from being chaperoned from the airport, the sweaty round man in a fedora who represented the agency had disappeared in the same way the kids did at four o’clock. Chase decided the lack of supervision was fortunate, considering all of Stoney’s drugs.

  Without supervision or any direction, they mostly played soccer and bullshitted in the shade. Good old fashioned boy stuff, especially since it was always so goddamned hot.

  “Imagine how awesome they’d look with real uniforms,” Stoney said, as they watched the ball being moved from end to end in a dusty, barefoot scrum. “Or colored pinnies so they knew who to pass to.”

  Stoney relied on Chase to teach them soccer, or football as the kids called it. Chase had played in high school and had started at center midfield for George Mason University his first two years. Stoney had only shown up to watch his friend play when the cheerleaders were around, actual pink girls, smelling of perfume with all their body parts intact.

  Chase whistled for halftime when the boys, exhausted and thirsty, started bending over and grabbing their pants at the knees. Tricky Dick and Agnew shouted angry Creole at a few of the nearest players before stalking off toward a soda vendor who’d staked out a spot beyond the field. The boys sprinted to a mound of plastic bottles of murky water kept in the shade from the concrete wall surrounding the field on three sides. There weren’t enough, so the smaller boys stood waiting, dripping sweat.

  “Hey, boss, I’m gonna score two goals next half.” The boy, maybe fourteen, had come up next to where Chase sat with Stoney and leaned against the scratchy wall with the other older boys.

  “Not boss. Boss is for work and coach is for sports,” Chase said. But the kid knew far more English than he knew Creole. Stoney had tried to share what he’d picked up from the language, but phrases for where to score porn and dope were useless. Chase’s coaching had been left to teaching by example, which worked just fine. He’d been on a travel squad with foreign players who hadn’t needed to learn a new language. Soccer was a dance you taught or learned by leading with tempo and motion, not words.

  “This is the only good work in Haiti,” the boy said, making a sweeping gesture across the field. He was tall and gangly with knobby knees and long narrow feet. All the boys were shirtless and wore raggedy slacks torn away above their shins. “My father played on the national team against Brazil. I saw him score the winning goal in the big stadium. I’m gonna be a hero like him. You’ll see, boss.”

  The boy jogged out into the sun at midfield and began juggling the old ball with his bare feet. Chase struggled through the alphabet and came up with the name Henri.

  “Good job, Henri,” he called out. “Real good job.”

  “His dad was a ship captain yesterday.” Stoney pulled off his sunglasses to rub bloodshot eyes, curly blonde hair matted to his head. “And something like a general the day before.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “You think any of these kids even knew their fathers?”

  “Hey, they keep coming back and they love soccer. That’s all I care about.” Chase grabbed the bottle of water Henri had left behind. Holding it up to the sky, he could just make out tiny moving creatures. “I bet it wouldn’t be hard to raise money for some real gear when we get back to school.”

  “Yeah?” Stoney took a minute, rubbed his scruffy chin and seemed to give the idea some thought. “We could have a kegger. Five bucks a head, easy. And doin’ something like that for poor kids would definitely score us some sorority pussy.”

  “It wouldn’t take a lot to make a big difference.”

  “We’d have to find somebody to trust down here, though. The round dude who runs this program is totally sketchy. And these guys are from some other fucking planet.” Stoney nodded his chin toward the two Haitian helpers across the field. “Those dudes are grim fucking reapers.”

  “This is a fake charity,” Chase said, as they watched Henri showing off, the ball never touching the dirt. A few others had begun to make their way out onto the field. “That guy who picked us up at the airport is pocketing all the money. He was at Mason to accept one of those big, poster-size checks from the school. There was a picture in the paper. You see five thousand dollars worth of anything around here?”

  “No way, you think?” Stoney looked around the field. They’d spent their own money to buy sacks of flour to line the field by hand, using paper cups and getting sore backs.

  “All that cash woulda bought a truckload of shoes. And just look at this shit they have to drink.” Chase was holding the bottle out to Stoney when an angry male voice barked orders from where most of the boys still sat huddled.

  “What the hell?” Stoney asked as they both scrambled to their feet. They’d taken a few steps toward the cluster of boys when Chase saw a rifle lift above the head of a uniformed man then crash down with a heavy grunt. Chase froze in disbelief, a hand out in front of his friend. He’d heard the impact from twenty yards, but didn’t see what had been struck until the group of boys sprinted away from the dead child. One side of the boy’s head had been completely caved, a dark seeping liquid blooming out in the hot dirt.

  “Holy fuck.” Stoney’s voice was a hiss in Chase’s ear. “Holy fucking shit.”

  The soldier wore mirrored sunglasses across a jet black face. His lips were tightly pursed when he brought the gory rifle butt up and tucked it into his armpit. He spoke more words, his voice muffled by the wood stock, but Chase didn’t think they were meant for the running boys. The words seemed perverse, sexual, and Chase imagined they were the same words the soldier—or whatever he was—uttered at the moment of release while mounting a local prostitute, hands squeezing her throat.

  More soldiers appeared around the field, some clambering down from the cement wall, some camouflage demons seeming to rise from the dust. Each man was leveling a rifle at a target, their fatigues recognizable from the G.I. Joe collection stuffed away in Chase’s old bedroom.

  The two smallest boys were cut down first, bodies bounding in different directions as they were shot from opposite sides of the field, like pinballs caught in a tight corner. Four boys who Chase recognized as his fullbacks made a break for the road nearest the midfield stripe. The lepers took cover in their blankets as they were hurdled by the sprinting boys. Bullet after bullet slammed the boys’ backs. They were struck with slapping thuds that sent them sprawling headfirst into the ground, puffs of chalky dust enshrouding their sudden stillness. The cheerleaders held their ground, quivering and silent, as if waiting for the storm to end, seeming to understand that this time they weren’t the targets.

  As Chase helplessly watched the slaughter, he realized the stories were true. This was the government’s unofficial extermination, the thinning of the homeless boy population. The boys hadn’t bothered pleading with the soldiers, as when they were caught out on the streets swiping fruit. They had known right away to run or die because they’d all witnessed this before. Had he heard the boys joke about being caught together? Hadn’t the older boys warned the younger ones tha
t they risked being shot by the bosses if they were found playing in a group? Maybe, but his Creole was just too weak to be certain.

  With nowhere to hide and no cover, Chase and Stoney stood frozen in place as the slaughter continued. Bullets whizzed by and crashed into the cement behind them, pricking their bare skin with tiny shards. The soldiers fired single rounds, either to save ammunition or provide better sport.

  “Oh, god, no.” Chase was watching the fourteen-year-old boy who planned to score against Brazil like his father. Henri was probably last to be targeted because he wasn’t running, wasn’t trying to get away. Instead, the boy was dribbling through imaginary defenders, the black and white soccer ball at his huge bare feet. Henri crossed the eighteen yard mark into the penalty area, doing a step-over move to fake out one pretend defender, just like Chase had shown him. Six rifles followed the boy’s graceful movements, as he cut left and then right, an attempt at drawing the goalie away from the net. It made for a more difficult angle but Henri was executing the play perfectly.

  With the goalie off his line, Henri took his chance. Instead of a booming power shot, he flicked an artful chip, lofting the ball softly over the charging invisible goalie toward the far corner of the net. It was one of those moments in soccer that is excruciating for the defense and exquisite for the attackers. The ball lifted in a slow arc, just beyond unseen fingertips.

  Before the ball crossed the goal line, a single gunshot rang out. The sharp crack echoed from the cement walls as Henri fell in a heap, one arm stretched out above his head as if in celebration.