Death Warmed Over

by Kevin J. Anderson

  But the results were right there on the printout. The chemical analysis offered no incriminating red flags, certainly nothing I could take to McGoo. Nothing we could use against Harvey Jekyll, even if he was the Grand Wizard of the Straight Edgers.

  Nevertheless, something disastrous was happening out there in the Quarter. News reports were buzzing with ever-increasing alarm. In addition to the four zombies that had dissolved, a vampire and two werewolves had also collapsed to the ground and sloughed into piles of oozing skin, muscle, bones, and internal organs. So the disaster affected more than just zombies. Rumors spread about a horrific new plague infecting the unnatural population, a disease that struck indiscriminately and without warning. No one was safe.

  Add to that the increasingly violent depredations of the massive creature that smashed buildings, killed Straight Edgers, and had now staked poor Sheldon Fennerman. The Unnatural Quarter no longer seemed a safe and comfortable place.

  The situation is bad when even monsters are afraid.

  I didn’t have much chance of sneaking into the JLPN factory, but I could still keep an eye out from the perimeter fence. Zombies are good at lurking.

  I borrowed the Pro Bono Mobile and puttered away, nursing the accelerator. Oily curls of blue-gray exhaust wafted up behind me, clearly visible in the rearview mirror. It was long past time for us to get an official Chambeaux & Deyer company vehicle, but Robin was attached to the old bomb she’d owned all through law school.

  The large JLPN industrial compound was surrounded by the usual chain-link fence, with the usual No Trespassing signs, and capped by the usual rows of razor wire. The first time I’d infiltrated the factory, I’d been human, which made slipping inside much simpler. I’d dressed in a worker’s uniform, complete with a counterfeit employee ID badge, and pretended to belong there—piece of cake.

  However, JLPN’s strict “humans only” employment policy made that approach problematic for a zombie, even a well-preserved one like myself. I gazed up at the tall chain-link fence and the shark’s teeth of razor wire curled around the top. Back when I was alive, and ten years younger, I might have been able to clamber over while wearing thick clothes. But that murderous-looking razor wire would take a few good chunks out of me, and I had no desire to get damaged further. I’d already been shot six times in the past few days—that was enough, thank you.

  So I kept watch over the activity from the outside. The day was dark and overcast, and the temperature had dropped enough that if I’d been warm-blooded, I would be shivering. The drizzle wasn’t enough to amount to anything, but it did make the world a clammier place.

  The factory seemed much quieter than it had been last week. Apparently, the new-release Fresh Loam products had been shipped and distributed to apothecary outlets and beauty parlors across the Unnatural Quarter. The shift whistle blew, and fifty human workers filed out of the factory, pulling on jackets and carrying lunchboxes as they walked to cars in the parking lot. I stayed put, guessing that the interesting stuff would happen after the normal activities had ceased for the day.

  Sure enough, in less than an hour, Harvey Jekyll emerged through a side door of the admin building and scuttled to the motor pool, where he climbed into a blue open-bed pickup truck. He backed up to the loading dock, climbed out, scurried up the stairs, and went back inside. With a clatter, he returned, pushing on a hand truck an unmarked metal drum, which he loaded into the back of the pickup. Wiping sweat from his wrinkled forehead, he brought out a second drum.

  I was surprised that the head of the company would do the heavy work himself. Surely Brondon Morris would have been happy to lend a hand, though it might have stained his loud plaid jacket. After securing the pickup’s tailgate, Jekyll swung into the cab and drove off.

  I was smiling inside as I whispered, “Gotcha!”

  Revealing that Harvey Jekyll was the Grand Wizard of Straight Edge might have been embarrassing for his company, and now I’d have proof of his secret dumping of hazardous chemical waste. That was more leverage than Miranda could possibly need.

  As Jekyll’s pickup passed through the automatic sally-port gate and headed off down the road, I ran back to the rusty Maverick, intent on following him.

  CHAPTER 38

  Robin’s car wouldn’t start.

  Knowing Jekyll was getting away, I banged my fists on the dashboard and steering wheel (careful to avoid hitting the horn). I tried the ignition again, and the Pro Bono Mobile’s engine made a valiant attempt, like a little dog trying to jump over a gate but unable to get enough oomph. I flooded the engine.

  So I sat back and waited, counting out a full minute, forcing patience upon myself, even though Jekyll was driving farther and farther with every second.

  Finally, I tried the key again, listened to the starter whir—and the engine caught. A belch of blue-gray smoke curled up from the exhaust pipe. Now I was on my way, and although Harvey Jekyll had a head start, I was sure I knew where he was going anyway.

  Since he might have noticed me following him too closely, the forced delay worked to my advantage. The gloomy drizzle became a full-blown rain as I drove away from the factory, and the puckered old wipers did little more than smear water and smashed bugs across Robin’s windshield. But I managed to see well enough.

  I headed out to the Metropolitan Pre-Used Resource Depository, turned into the gate, and rolled forward along the dirt entrance road, where I saw a set of fresh tire tracks in the mud and gravel. Partway in, I pulled over in a small turnaround surrounded by piled garbage. Since I intended to surprise Jekyll in the act, I didn’t want to drive too close. I switched off the car and pocketed the keys, hoping the old Maverick would start again when I needed to leave. Right now I wanted to creep up and use my phone camera to snap images of Jekyll illegally disposing of toxic chemicals. Although I couldn’t prove what the drums contained, I doubted Jekyll had the required municipal permits.

  Up ahead, I spotted the blue JLPN pickup truck parked next to Mel’s trailer. The rain had slacked off to a halfhearted miserable mist. Big Mel was unloading the two drums from the back of the pickup while Jekyll supervised. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

  While Jekyll fidgeted, Mel chatted away as usual, waving his hands. His folding lawn chair was out in front of the trailer door, with a book spread open on the seat. He’d been reading outside in the late-afternoon rain. Zombies don’t mind the damp, even though the weather can be hard on books.

  When Mel had wrestled the two chemical drums off the pickup bed and onto the ground in front of the trailer, Jekyll pulled out his wallet and extracted a handful of bills, which Mel pocketed—talking all the while. He wrapped his arms around the first drum and began to drag it off to one side.

  Taking pictures of everything, I felt like a predator closing in on a long-awaited kill. A thrill ran through me. Illicit chemical drums, an obvious payoff—and not by a JLPN minion, but by the CEO himself! When added to the silver Grand Wizard ring, this was more than enough for us to force a decent divorce settlement. In fact, it might be enough to bring down JLPN, or at least oust Harvey Jekyll from the company. Unfortunately, that would probably put Brondon Morris in charge, which wasn’t necessarily an improvement, and if we destroyed Jekyll Lifestyle Products and Necroceuticals, Miranda’s divorce settlement wouldn’t be worth much. I would have to be careful about this.

  Nevertheless, I snapped more images. Mel continued his cheery, constant conversation with Harvey Jekyll as he moved the first big barrel. He paused to pop open one of the caps on the lid and sniff the contents. He gave a big, dumb smile.

  Alarmed, Jekyll shouted at him, which startled Mel. The big zombie slipped in the greasy mud, and the drum rocked from side to side, nearly tipping over. Some of the fluid sloshed across Mel’s chest.

  While Jekyll looked appalled, Mel laughed it off. He brushed the stain from his shirt . . . and his eyes flew open, as if a hard candy had lodged in his throat. Mel stared curiously at his hand—which drooped like a wilti
ng flower. Then his fingers fell off. His skin ran like melted wax down his arm, and a hole began chewing its way through his shirt where the chemical had soaked in.

  Dropping all caution, I stuffed the phone in my pocket and raced toward my friend. I didn’t care about hiding any more. “Mel!”

  Jekyll whirled in panic. Mel turned toward me with an odd, abandoned look on his face and collapsed in on himself, flopped to the ground, and disintegrated into a mound of shapeless tissue.

  “You bastard, Jekyll! What did you do to him?” I’d already seen other victims melt down and knew it was too late for Mel. But now I had proof positive that Jekyll was behind the epidemic. I grabbed my gun from its holster and ran up to Jekyll.

  For a little guy, he was surprisingly strong. He shoved the chemical drum over, dumping the fizzy blue chemical onto my legs, my shirt, my chest. I felt the cold sliminess of the strange fluid, and I knew damn well what it would do to me. I’d just watched Mel collapse and do his best blob imitation. Within seconds, my flesh would drip off, my bones would fall apart, and I would become an un-undead.

  Although I didn’t remember anything about being dead the first time, I had no wish to return to the grave. I couldn’t stand the thought of putting Robin and Sheyenne through the grieving process all over again.

  Suddenly I realized that I was not, in fact, disintegrating. The fizzy blue chemical might have stained my suit, but my undead body was still functioning as well as a few minutes ago. I was too stunned to be thrilled by the fact.

  Jekyll dove into his pickup and started the engine. The tires spun, kicking up mud and gravel as he accelerated. I didn’t have time to wonder why I wasn’t joining Mel in the glop brotherhood—I had to stop Jekyll from getting away.

  I placed myself in the middle of the dirt road, but Jekyll didn’t hesitate. He gunned the engine and came straight at me. Being brave, or just stupid, I stood squarely in front of the truck, and the pickup knocked me flat into the mud. The truck roared over me . . . but the tires missed my body. The undercarriage passed mere millimeters above my face, and the truck roared off, slewing back out of the dump and onto the main road.

  I lay sprawled on my back in the soft muck, and eventually I pried myself out of the puddle, reminded of the last time I’d crawled out of the grave. I was drenched, muddy, and humiliated, but not overly damaged.

  Saddened and angry, I sloshed over to my friend’s shapeless remains that were spreading in all directions like a red-and-yellow amoeba. In my jacket pocket, the camera phone was mud-smeared but still intact. I looked for a clean swatch of fabric so I could wipe off the lens. I was going to nail Jekyll for a hell of a lot more than a divorce settlement.

  On Mel’s lawn chair I saw one of his self-help books, soaked by the rain. Mel had always tried to better himself, to do his best despite his circumstances. The book was titled I’m Dead, but I’m OK. He’d made it only to chapter two.

  Poor Mel. What remained of my heart went out to him, just as when I’d seen Sheldon Fennerman staked to the brick wall of the alley.

  Garbage rustled in the giant mounds surrounding his trailer, and I saw gleaming black eyes, pointed snouts, and spiky brown fur as three gargantuan rats emerged from hiding, whiskers twitching as they quested the air.

  They came closer to the pile of ooze and let out plaintive squeaks. Rover, Fido, and Spot—he had named them, befriended them. These oversized rodents were misfits through no fault of their own, just as Mel had been. They looked at me now, as if expecting me to make everything better again, or at least to explain. I had nothing to say, not to giant rats, not to anyone.

  I patted each creature on the head, trying to console them. “You’ll do all right here for yourselves. You’ve got all the garbage in the world as your home.”

  But that didn’t help Mel.

  No matter what, I had enough cold evidence for a long list of criminal charges against Harvey Jekyll. McGoo wouldn’t hesitate to take action, I knew that. He’d be perfectly happy to wrap up the prominent case of the melting unnaturals and get a gold star in his personnel file, although it would take quite a few stars to get him reassigned outside of the Quarter.

  The chemical drums were still here just in front of Mel’s trailer, but I wasn’t going to touch them. I had no idea why the dissolving substance had left me intact while it had disintegrated Mel, but I didn’t intend to give the stuff a second chance.

  I wasn’t going to give Harvey Jekyll a second chance either.

  CHAPTER 39

  I had visions of charging into the JLPN chemical factory with McGoo at my side, guns blazing. The two of us would rough up a few of the perpetrators, slap Harvey Jekyll in handcuffs, shut down the whole operation, and emerge as heroes to a crowd of cheering monsters.

  But Robin stubbornly insisted that we do everything by the book so we’d wind up with a perfectly clean legal case that would stand up to a long and messy trial. She was a dear kid, but she could be incredibly frustrating.

  After I called McGoo with the news, he rushed to our offices, eager to make the arrest. Bursting through the office door, however, he took one look at me and said, “Jeez, Shamble, you look like shit—and you smell bad too.”

  “You always say that. This time there’s a reason.” I needed to change out of the chemical-soaked, mud-spattered clothes, but I’d been in too much of a hurry to clean up.

  I explained what had happened at the dump. Robin had already downloaded the photos from my phone (after cleaning it as best she could) and displayed them on Sheyenne’s desktop screen.

  McGoo scowled. “So Jekyll’s got some chemical that dissolves unnaturals. Then why are you still here if you were doused with the stuff?”

  I looked down at the splotchy stains all over me. “Hell if I know.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Sheyenne said, floating close.

  “There’s enough evidence to warrant Harvey Jekyll’s immediate arrest,” Robin said. “We can get more answers from him during the prosecution.”

  McGoo was angry on my behalf. “Damn right he’s going down. You want me to call in the whole force, Shamble? Or should we go in solo, just the two of us?”

  “If it’s two of us, then it’s not solo.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “We have to be involved,” Robin insisted. “This is our case. We broke it. Chambeaux and Deyer needs to be there during the wrap-up.”

  “Miranda’s divorce settlement is our case, Robin,” I pointed out. “This is criminal activity, and the police should handle it.”

  “The district attorney has more than enough evidence to get a search warrant for the JLPN factory. I’ve already been on the phone to Judge Hawkins,” Robin said. “After Officer McGoohan serves the warrant and we search the factory, we’ll find all the proof we need to send him to jail.”

  “If we’re going out again, I need to change clothes,” I said. “Spooky, is there—?”

  “Yes, fresh shirt and pants in your office, shoes under the desk. No jacket, I’m afraid.”

  “I’ll survive.” That might not have been the appropriate thing to say. I shrugged out of my sport jacket, touched the clumsily sewn bullet holes, decided I liked them. “But I will need this one dry-cleaned.”

  “I’ll take care of it tomorrow,” Sheyenne said. “Let’s get the bad guy tonight.”

  I went back into my office and half-closed the door for privacy as I began peeling off mud-encrusted clothes. McGoo brought me a wet towel from the restroom. “Wipe yourself down at least. No telling what that chemical might do to you in the long run.”

  “Thanks.” I realized I could have used a shower, too, but I didn’t want to waste the time going upstairs to my apartment. Jekyll probably assumed I had dissolved out at the landfill like Mel (at the very least, he thought he’d run me over with the truck). He was sure to be spooked, although he wouldn’t necessarily think he’d been caught, wouldn’t need to panic. But it was only a matter of time. We had to catch him before it was t
oo late.

  I buckled my belt, straightened my slacks; the new shirt was a little tight, so I left the top button open. I looked cleaner, but I still felt soiled by the whole matter. I couldn’t stop thinking of how Mel had collapsed into biological ooze before my eyes.

  McGoo was waiting for me in front of Sheyenne’s desk. “So are we rolling? Come on, Shamble, let’s get him.”

  Robin fidgeted awkwardly. “To make sure this is done properly, I’m going with you.”

  “No, it’s not safe,” I said.

  “I’m going.” Again, I saw the determination in her that won so many cases, and I knew I couldn’t stand against that.

  “Let’s not argue about it—we’ll all go,” I said.

  Before we headed out the door, I made a call from Sheyenne’s desk. “We need to tell Miranda Jekyll what’s happening. Who knows how far-reaching the indictments will go? It is our duty to protect the client.”

  When Miranda answered the phone, I could hear loud music in the background. It was just sunset—she couldn’t possibly be at a nightclub already. I heard someone talking and laughing, then the music swelled again. “Oh, hello, sweetheart!”

  After I explained what I had discovered, she gave a cool click of her tongue. “That Harvey! I knew there was something wrong with him. I’d love to see the look on his face when you march in and arrest him.” She covered the phone, and I heard her muffled voice, then a sultry giggle before she came back on the line again. “I trust in your abilities, Mr. Chambeaux, and I can’t wait to hear how it all turns out. But I have other plans tonight. Full moon, you know—and some of us werewolves only get to let loose a few days each month.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Mrs. Jekyll, this could win your entire case, bring down Harvey Jekyll. You could end up with everything, or you could lose the whole company—depending on what happens.”