Chapter Twenty: How the Other Half Lives
Paddington felt better. He’d shaved off the beard, washed, and even found some hand-me-down clothes that had been too small for Quentin but still looked like parachutes on him. Ten minutes of furious pumping resurrected Quentin’s old bicycle and, having run out of excuses, Paddington said goodbye to Lisa, clamped Quentin’s old hiking boots onto the pedals, and left. The bike creaked and groaned and seemed to take forever.
He wanted to run to the Team’s headquarters, to feel the wind through his fur again, but doubted he could explain the associated nudity.
It was nearly two a.m. when he opened the front door, fully expecting Skylar to shove a rifle in his face, but there was no one there. The house was dark. Paddington grabbed a flashlight off the table rather than risk the overhead bulbs: the wolves were still out there, as were vampires. And zombies, but they weren’t this far north. Yet.
“Hello?” he called.
No answer. A rifle lay abandoned on McGregor’s notes like a giant paperweight. Most of McGregor’s writings were technical or scientific – DNA sequences or lists of symptoms – but Paddington found a page he understood.
Three Ends:
Heart, Head, Fire.
End related to Race? Werewolves lose physical form, therefore heart? Or fire, consuming all physicality? Zombies lose minds – brain? Does that leave the fire for Vampires?
Heart, head, and fire all feature in vampire myths. Zombies it’s always heads. Werewolves always heart. Where’s fire go?
Why can’t this stupid prophecy just make sense??
Paddington didn’t remember stories about Three Ends from school, but Adonis would hardly publicise how to stop a prophecy he wanted fulfilled.
There was a thump from deeper in the house. Paddington froze.
“Hello?” he asked.
Another thump.
Paddington followed the thumps to a bedroom door. Had McGregor locked himself in? Had the vampires found him? Was Paddington walking into a trap?
He wished he could smell who was inside.
With a final breath, Paddington threw the door open and brandished the flashlight like a weapon. A few feet away, a very skinny zombie stared at him expectantly, then raised his remaining arm and opened his rotting mouth. “Bla,” he said. Hi.
“Uh…” Paddington took a moment to absorb the fact that McGregor hadn’t killed the zombie as ordered. Mitchell would be furious when he found out, but Paddington understood the doctor’s hesitation.
Paddington took another moment to absorb the fact that the zombie wasn’t trying to attack him. And that he had part of an ice cream container tied to the lower half of his rotting face. And had spoken with two voices simultaneously.
When all these moments had passed, the zombie emitted another low moan. The words Are you all right? arrived at Paddington’s ears at the same time. Hello?
“How are you talking?” Paddington asked. He couldn’t help himself.
“Glurg!” The usual way. The zombie peered at him with glassy eyes. Who are you?
“Detective Constable Paddington,” he said automatically. Why was the zombie talking? How? Could they all do this?
“Blarg.” Nice to meet you. I’m Norm. How recently were you converted?
“Converted?”
Bitten.
“I wasn’t.”
Pull the other one, Norm chuckled. Well, the words that arrived in Paddington’s mind sounded like a chuckle. The other voice – the gurgling noises that Paddington heard with his ears and which matched the zombie’s mouth – went “Blugh”.
If you weren’t dead I’d be eating your brain.
“And I’d be hitting you with this,” Paddington said, lowering the torch. The shifting light highlighted the once-white shirt now dark brown with blood, the rakish physique, the skull-like face. Norm looked like a walking skeleton.
Hold on, Paddington? The zombie let out a yell. Jim Paddington? The technophilic copper that’s dating the Mainlander!
Something connected in Paddington’s mind. “Wait, Norm? Norman Winslow?” he asked. “I was assigned to find you!”
Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he was still surprised. Of course the man he’d been assigned to find a week ago, a man he’d since forgotten about, had turned up again. After all, his new girlfriend – who was actually a werewolf – had eaten livestock belonging to two brothers who were part of a prophecy that the duke – a vampire – wanted fulfilled. So why shouldn’t the Mainlanders that Paddington had called to catch said werewolf – one of whom was in the prophecy – why shouldn’t their randomly-selected test subject be, of the thousands of zombies on Archi, the very one whose disappearance and infection Paddington had investigated?
It was almost like fate…
No, actually, it was exactly like fate.
Congratulations, you found me, Norm said. Now, can you tell me what I’m doing here? Some people grabbed me. I apologised for trying to eat their brains, but I don’t think they heard me.
“Do you realise you’re moaning?”
Norm sighed and staggered over to the edge of the room. I know, I’m complaining again. And I was doing so well.
“No, really,” Paddington said. “You’re shouting things like ‘Blarg’ and ‘Gak’. Your mouth doesn’t match the words you’re saying.”
That might explain why no one’s responded to me.
“And what do you mean you were doing so well?”
Oh, I haven’t converted anyone since the hall, which doesn’t count because everyone was doing it.
“If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it?” Paddington said, then feared he was turning into his mother. His mother… what had happened to her? She wasn’t responding to her radio; neither was Quentin. Were they both dead? Bitten? Converted? Were they, like Norm, now screaming apologies their victims couldn’t understand?
No point jumping off cliffs, Norm said. I’m already dead.
Paddington hesitated, not sure whether his news was bad or good. It was definitely awkward. “You’re still alive,” Paddington said, “just very sick. A long drop would definitely kill you.”
Norm stared at Paddington, then at the wall, then at the floor. Well… shit. Someone should have told me that a month ago. His head wobbled up. How many humans are left?
“About six thousand.”
We’ve converted a third of Archi? Norm shook his head in dismay. Probably. Can you stop us?
“I don’t think so. All the best fighters have already been bitten,” Paddington said, pleasantly surprised that the zombies wanted the humans to win. It was nice to have someone on his side for once. Especially the enemy.
Can I help?
“Why are you fighting if you don’t want to win?”
When you see a human, the brainlust takes over. You lose control until the humans are dead or converted. Norm frowned with his rotting, skinny face. Wait, if you’re not a zombie, why don’t I want your brain?
“Maybe I’ve got the wrong sort of brain,” Paddington thought aloud.
What?
“Nothing.” Now wasn’t the time to explain that, technically, Paddington wasn’t human anymore.
Well, Norm said in a let’s-make-the-best-of-it tone, I don’t suppose you’d like to release me?
Honestly, Paddington would. Norm seemed like a good sort, but… “I think you fall under the category of ‘a danger to the community’.”
I just want to be home again.
“Home?” Paddington asked. Zombies… getting on with their lives?
You think just because I’m dead, or undead, I can’t have friends? You think I don’t have wants?
“Apart from brains?”
That was a cheap shot. Norm glared at him. Mostly.
Paddington couldn’t exactly release him here, but there might be another option. “Maybe you can help,” Paddington said. “There’s a prophecy about Three Brothers – the Brown brothers. If one of my friends can’t st
op it, tomorrow night the zombies will spread across the world.”
You can’t let us do that!
“If I let you go, can you stop your people attacking?”
No. But I might be able to stop them from going to fight in the first place.
With a deep breath, Paddington stepped closer to the zombie. And again. He moved in until the stench of living decay choked even his weak human nose. The zombie was content to stand still. Honestly, one of them wasn’t much of a problem. Even Paddington could handle one zombie. Especially a one-armed one.
“Okay,” he said. “Lead the way.”
Norm nodded, sort of. Paddington stepped aside and followed, never taking his eyes off Norm. It wasn’t that Paddington didn’t trust him, it was that he couldn’t. Zombies tried to kill you. It was what they did. And yet he was walking toward more zombies. He was leading a zombie to all the other zombies. By himself. Unarmed. Was he insane?
Probably. But he’d never felt more alive.
As they walked, Paddington asked Norm about the attack on Samuel, how he became a zombie, all the loose ends he hadn’t solved yet. Norm answered willingly, but stressed that every conversion was unintentional.
After twenty minutes of walking, they saw their first human.
“Blaaargh!” Norm yelled. Copper! Stop me! His staggering feet pulled him awkwardly toward the young girl who had stopped, crying, at the entrance to the street ten feet away.
“How?”
Grab my arm or something!
Paddington grabbed Norm’s right arm, though he tried to avoid the red blotches and lesions. It was like holding a skeleton, all bone and loose skin. Then, with a loud crack, Paddington stumbled back a step and stared with shock at his prize.
“Norm, I’ve still got your arm!”
Stop me, you useless arse!
Paddington dropped the limb and ran in front of Norm. How to stop the zombie? He didn’t want to get close to the mouth, even with the ice cream container in place. The shoulders? No: Norm only had one, and it was probably the next bit that would fall off.
Hurry! Norm shouted.
Paddington planted his feet and extended one arm at chest height. Norm lurched into it at full speed, but Paddington held him there easily. Norm’s one remaining half-arm reached out toward the girl in the pink dress.
“There you are!” A woman scooped the girl into her arms, then froze when she saw Norm.
Paddington turned and smiled at her. “Nothing to see here, ma’am,” he said.
The woman’s mouth flapped, then she ran off. As soon as they’d gone, Norm’s gargles drained to silence.
Thank you.
“Sorry about your arm.” Paddington nodded at the severed limb a few feet away.
Norm hefted shoulders up and let them drop down again. Bits of skin fell free. It’s not like I use them.
“You’re not angry?”
What would that achieve?
The zombie was making far too much sense, so Paddington changed topic. “I was the only thing between you and her. Why didn’t you try to bite me?” Actually, was it wise to give an enemy tactical advice?
You’re not food.
“Lucky me.” They started walking again. “You weren’t very difficult to stop.”
Try stopping a hundred, Norm said, lumbering next to him. Speaking of which, you really should get something to kill us with.
“You know,” Paddington said, “people keep telling me that.”
Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown Page 51