"I hope this is sufficient," with a grim smile, Mr. Tibenoch passed me my money. "I slipped in some extra as consolation for… your partner." His voice echoed off the wooden paneling that lined his office, the last words hanging in the air for a little longer than I would've liked. I thought of Dot.
"Thanks," I replied, shaking away the memories and climbing to my feet. Mr. Tibenoch folded his long, monochromatic arms, and shifted back in his chair, a stretched shadow. He was so formal—it was like he had stepped out of the 1800s. I felt underdressed and exposed in his office. Marble and mahogany everywhere, carved into patterns and statuettes. Dot would've liked it, but I fit in like a clown in a funeral home. I was too bright. Way too bright. "Look, I have to get going. I promised I'd meet some friends at a bar, and then I need to get home and pay the bills. Thanks for being so helpful."
"And thank you for accepting our apologies, Mr. Cross," I didn't think I had, but I wasn't going to make a scene. Wherever the blame lay—the council or the zombies or Dot or me—causing a ruckus about what had happened wouldn't do anything. "Few people understand the pointless nature of grudges like you seem to."
"Uh, okay. Well, bye," wandering from the room, I closed the door quietly behind me and frowned. I wasn't in the mood for congratulations or praise for my apparent apathy about Dot's death. Besides, I was a lot more torn up than Mr. Tibenoch thought. I wanted to kick something, or get way too drunk and wake up with a mind-numbing hangover. I wanted to stomp out of the city and bludgeon every zombie in a ten mile radius. But I couldn't do that yet because, like it or not, life goes on, and, as I had said, I needed to pay bills.
The trek back across town to the bar I'd agreed to meet Casimiro and Finas at took a comfortably long amount of time. I might've ended up lost, once or twice. I didn't particularly care. That was just how I dealt with things… I mean, when my parents died, I'd just kind of sunk into my shell for a while to cope and then after a few weeks I came out fine again. I supposed I'd just cycle through that and then come out brand-new. After all, I had Lamont and all my other friends to look out for me, so it'd work out fine.
That's what I told myself, at least.
Shoehorning a spring into my step as I finally found where I was meant to be, I began to prepare myself for meeting with Cas and Finas. They probably wouldn't be sympathetic about what happened, so I had to pretend that I was equally unaffected. They weren't exactly the kindest friends to have around. Pushing the door open and stepping into the bar, I—
"Hanna, goddamnit!" – I was confronted by a surprisingly worried-looking Casimiro. "We have been waiting forever for you!"
"Sorry, I ended up a little bit lost on my way but I got here in the end so it's okay, right?"
"Do you realize how much we were freaking out? Damn, kid, we thought something had happened to you," taking me by the shoulder and leading me to a nearby table, he sat me down firmly on a stool, and then took the seat beside me. Finas nodded silently from across the table at me, before taking a sip from the beer in front of him. Sliding me a full mug of beer, Casimiro lifted one of his own and then solemnly said: "Alright, let's skip straight to the important part. All drinking we do tonight is in the honor of Dot Redfield, the most hardcore awesome of hunters. May we never forget his alternative uses of a crowbar, and his strange ability to make orange look good."
"Amen," Finas agreed, staring down into his drink solemnly. "He was a good friend."
"Good doesn't cover it, man. Like, remember that time he busted us out of that pack of zombies just before you could get eaten?" I had to admit, I was a little bewildered by how much Casimiro and Finas cared. I'd always sort of assumed they'd been friends with Dot and I more out of professional interests than genuine like, but as it turned out, they really had enjoyed having us around.
"He panicked when he saw your eye after that, kept saying that it was his fault for not getting there in time. For all that cold facade, he was more caring than the rest of us,"
"Yeah… He was always there for us, wasn't he? And that doesn't even start to cover how he looked after you, Hanna," around about then, I started to cry, as much as I didn't want to. Cas and Finas were just taking everything in their stride, rolling with the punches and trying to keep Dot's memory alive and I was just… shit. I couldn't take it: outside confirmation that he was gone. "Hanna? Aww, shit, kiddo."
Surprise, surprise: Cas wasn't half as caustic as he pretended. Slinging an arm around me, he tried to give a comforting smile, but it came out all wrong. "Look, it's fine if you need to cry. Finas and I're cool with it. I mean, if I died, Finas'd be a wreck, right man?" Finas raised an eyebrow. "We understand." I looked up at Casimiro's face, checking to see if he was sincere. His good eye—the one that hadn't been scratched out by the undead—showed a strange sort of helplessness, the kind you see in the parent of a crying child.
"I'm sorry guys," I finally spluttered. "Like, I just haven't had any time to think over the past two days and I'm totally out of it and… fuck. Fuck, Dot is gone. It doesn't seem right."
"It never seems right," Finas said, brushing Cas' arm off me and glancing at him as warning against moving towards me again. "That hole inside you isn't one that'll fill easily. I understand." It was true: he did understand. Finas' wife had been killed during the initial outbreak of the horde, leaving him bitter and alone until Casimiro swung into his life and got him into hunting. Every now and then, he brought her up, talking about how they had once wanted to move back to Finas' home in England and have a family.
Dot and I had had kind of similar plans. We'd wanted to catch a plane out to this other city, just a few hours away, where my uncle and cousins lived—whenever I phoned them, they told me how there weren't as many zombies there. We'd actually started saving for tickets a few weeks before—
Another wave of muffled sobs coursed up through me.
"Just let it out," taking another sip of his beer, Finas stared up at me through half-closed eyes. "No-one here'll care. Everyone's heard about all the deaths on Monday. They'll understand."
"… Goddamnit," A breath gushed out of me. I suddenly felt like I could talk openly about Dot and my worries, hearing what Finas said. I gritted my teeth together and peered down at the tabletop. "What am I meant to do now, guys? How can I keep hunting without Dot?"
"You could join with us," Casimiro suggested. "I mean, Finas and I could always do with back-up."
"For once, Casimiro is telling the truth. You're welcome to join our team if you want, Hanna."
"Thanks, guys, but no thanks," I waved my hands dismissively. "I mean, think about how we'd have to split the payout if there were three of us?" Like it or not, I needed all the money I could get from the rare jobs hunters were offered. My crappy little apartment was surprisingly expensive, as was food and water and power for two people.
Damn it, I had to stop thinking about living with Dot. He wasn't there any more! I had just been talking that over with Finas and Cas! Damn it, damn it!
"Suit yourself, Hanna. Oh, hey, maybe you could go with Lamont?" Oh, hah, man. Lamont.
"Only if I want to get stabbed in the back," I said. Dear Lamont, whose loyalty belonged to whoever had the fattest wallet. Of course I'd love to team up with Lamont, who would gladly ditch me in a tight spot if it meant saving his own neck. He'd sort of earned a name for himself around the hunter circles, 'Suicide Lamont', because that was what you were essentially committing if you trusted him too much. He was a good friend, but not someone I wanted to have watching my back.
"Or Dalley?"
"Dude. No-one knows what Dalley is like. He might turn out to be some freaky berserker," the most any of us could say about him was that he used to be a baker, before his shop got caught outside the walls and he went all hunter on everyone. Apparently, he used to make delicious cream puffs.
"Don't make me suggest… her," 'she' was Adelaide, Cas' ex and a crazy-skilled hunter. Word on the street was that she was looking for a new partner, but everyone was too afraid of her to step up to the task and I don't blame them because seriously? Adelaide was batshit psycho.
"She… she's a stronger possibility than the others, but I'm not jumping to work with her either,"
"And people say that you're just a reckless little kid, Hanna. Looks like you have some sense of self preservation after all," Casimiro smirked proudly at me.
"If there was a Venn diagram of people who've worked with Adelaide and people who are currently alive, the two circles wouldn't overlap," Finas chimed in. He liked Adelaide about as little as Casimiro did, though he wasn't as vocal about it. Finas' distaste for her stemmed mostly from the fact that she had taken some of his CDs and his first-edition copy of one of the Lord of the Rings books when she left Casimiro. Petty theft was just the cherry on the top of her crimes.
"Not gonna disagree with that, man!" Casimiro called. "I mean, half of the time I think she must murder them all herself. No-one else could run through that many partners that quickly. I'm lucky I was just her partner in bed, I guess. Not that that didn't cause its own pains."
Casimiro spent another good half an hour slandering Adelaide, bringing up everything from her stupid too-tight underwear to the fact that her last boyfriend smelt like lemon-scented air freshener. It was almost enough to take my mind off Dot and the empty space he'd left in every aspect of my life. When I got home that night – if I got home that night (I was thinking of just going and chilling at Cas and Finas' apartment, since it was closer and it was getting late)—it would be dark and the lights would be out. I would be alone.
Casimiro's ranting was peppered with orders for new drinks, as the three of us slowly doused ourselves in alcohol and tried to forget our problems. Bills to pay, no-one to love, dead parents, parents in Florence, broken cars, crazy exes… it all felt so normal. I broke down periodically, when we hit too close to Dot's demise. So the night wore on.
When I woke up the next morning, half of my memories of the past evening were gone, but I was safe on Casimiro and Finas' sofa, which was a massive relief. So much for a quick drink, eh? The two hunters had been merciful and kept the curtains closed, so my hangover wasn't as bad as it might have been. I spent a good fifteen minutes chugging water and looking around the kitchen for painkillers. Cas walked in at some point and called me a pussy, then told me he didn't have any.
"So what're you going to do?" Was the big question of the day, offered up to me by a quiet, dignified Finas, sat at the kitchen counter eating a croissant. He'd smothered it in jam and I was massively jealous when he bit into it. It made me want Dot's pancakes: weirdly, thinking about that didn't hurt as much as it had the day before.
"I'm going to go it alone for a while, I guess," I tried to look sure of myself as I spoke.
"Good luck keeping alive, kid," Casimiro called to me over the roar of the kettle as he prepared to make Finas his customary daily cup of Earl Grey. "You know the life expectancy for solo hunters."
"Yeah, well, I kept it up for like a year on my own before Dot came along!" Finas flipped open a newspaper, but the systematic glances he shot me showed that he was still paying attention to the conversation.
"Touche," Cas fell silent as he looked for a comeback, but soon seemed to give up, directing his attention to the tea. Rummaging through the cupboards, he eventually found the teabags and then pulled out a mug with cartoonish cow on it. Pouring Finas his drink, he handed the mug over to his friend and then smugly muttered, "You get the cow cup, Finas, because you were a massive cow last night to that chick who was hitting on you."
"All I did was turn her down, Casimiro," he sipped calmly at his tea. "Not all of us would jump on anything with breasts."
"You just-!" Casimiro let out an aggressive noise, midway between a growl and a shriek, and then turned back to me. "So, Falk, you should probably head home soon. It's getting towards midday and Finas and I have hunting to do in a couple of hours." His voice had gotten snappy and he actually looked sort of serious for once.
"Hey, don't worry about me, I'll be out of here ASAP," I assured him, and then rushed off to the sofa I had woken up on to try and look for the jacket I'd been wearing the previous night. After some rummaging, I found it shoved half-under a nearby chair, its orange-and-black pattern poking out just enough for me to see. Pulling it on, I felt a sharp pang of upset as its coloration finally registered with me and once more that torturous thought came to my head: this reminds me of him.
Swooping through the kitchen again, I waved a hurried goodbye to Finas and Cas.
"Godspeed, Falk Cross!" Casimiro called through a mouthful of toast.
"See you around, Hanna," Finas said, and then flicked the paper up to hide his eyes once more.
Once I was out of their apartment, on the skinny open-air balcony the looped around the outside of the building, I took in a deep breath and then forced myself on. There was something distinctly lonely about ditching my two friends, heading home to nothing much. But, that loneliness was kind of relieving in a way, because it meant I could finally get to mourning in my own style, one that wasn't like Cas'. It had been refreshing to do all that crying but it hadn't gotten rid of the ache, and that's what I was really desperate to dispel.
It was a five minute walk to the bus stop, then a twenty two minute bus ride to my stop, then another six minutes on foot to get home. When I looked up at my building, I gave a grunt, feeling a sensation deep inside me that said it had gained a greater lean since I'd last been there. Probably just my mind playing tricks, but it did seem off somehow.
Wandering into the reception, I produced some of the bills from my back pocket and placed them on Blaney's vacant desk. Leaning over onto it, I grabbed some of the paper from her notepad and a pen, and scribbled a message: Hanna Cross here, that's the rent I owe from this month and last month. Pushing all the objects towards her computer, I then pivoted on one heel and tried to exit, only for someone to catch me.
"Falk, that your money?" Mrs. Blaney drawled. When Casimiro called me Falk, it was affectionate and friendly. When Blaney called me Falk, it was grating and spoken in an all-too-smug tone, like hahaha I am your evil landlady, prepare to be broke from trying to maintain the shitty apartment I have gifted you. I'd asked her to call me Hanna before, but she'd argued that the girl in 401 was called Hannah and there couldn't be two of us here, too confusing. Mr. Cross, my second choice, was out, because she couldn't make that sound inferior. So I was Falk. And I hated it.
"Yes?"
"Last month's too, I hope," she swirled her burnt-out stub of a cigarette around between her lips, her eyebrows simultaneously doing a dance. Her face was turning into some kind of South Pacific tribal ritual.
"Of course, Mrs. Blaney," she terrified me and what was worse than that was the fact that she knew it.
"Good. I won't be throwing your things out, then," letting go of my shirt, she took a seat behind her desk and then motioned for me to keep walking. After I had taken just a few tense footsteps in the opposite direction, she called out: "Where has Dot gone?"
"Killed at work. Zombies. You know how it goes," I replied.
"I'm sorry," and she actually meant it.
The journey up the stairwell to my apartment didn't take long, but the walk down the corridor did. The closer I got to it, the more hollow I felt—empty like someone had cut down my chest and scooped my insides out. When I finally eased the door open, I stared into my apartment like it was some foreign land. Papers were strewn everywhere, and there was a tipped chair in the center of the room. I remembered the day Dot died: how I had bumped the chair over that morning, but I couldn't have been bothered to set it upright.
If I had spent a moment fixing it, maybe a butterfly effect-type thing would've unfolded. We would've run into Mrs. Blaney on the way out, and she would've held us up, telling us off for not paying the rent. We would've missed the bus, and been late to the job, and by the time we had gotten through the gate the hunt would've been close to its unfortunate end. Dot and I wouldn't have strayed so far, and we would've heard the alarm and rushed back in with so much time to spare. He would be alive.
It didn't go like that but I liked fantasizing. Not to burden myself with some kind of weird guilt, but to just consider all the million ways things could've been right. A bit of escapism, or whatever—I picked the chair up and sat down on it. The room held all sorts of chores I needed to do: tidying, packing Dot's stuff up, checking my voicemail, paying the internet bill… I decided to look at the voicemail first.
Three messages: one from the library, telling Dot he had a book overdue. One from Lamont, saying he'd heard about what happened, condolences, yada yada. The last was from a girl called Toni Ipres, apparently hiring me to do something.
"There are noises from upstairs," she said, and I was kind of excited because gnee, not often a girl asks for my help. "Groans and gasps and… look, I think I have a zombie here and I know that's impossible because I'm inside the city but please, come and take a look. He practically sings whenever our lead misses a note. All our nerves are shot and we just need your help. I'm at the Ives Theatre, on Hutton and Bradford. I don't have much money, but I can shout for dinner? Goodbye!"
A case? I had a case. Something about that thought made me smile and shit, it felt good to be smiling. A case to keep me thinking and get me out of the apartment that night and stop me from sparking out like an untended fire. Fuck—fuck yes! Hanna Falk Cross had a case and he was going to do well—alone or not.