Almost.
“What are we gonna do?” Wendy’s face was smeared with blood, chunks of hairy skin and drippy globs of fat. Her look of horror was sadly incongruent. Her teeth were shiny and gold, though.
I realized I was still wearing the damn Grillz, too, reached in, pulled them off and handed the sloppy things back to Wendy. She shrugged and did the same, tossing them in her purse.
I scanned the front of the building. “Maybe we could find some way to lock them in. A stick. Something.” I pointed to the two looped handles on the slatted wooden doors. She nodded and darted off into the woods. I turned back toward the Volvo, considering the tire iron. That would definitely be sturdy enough to hold them back.
Honey stood next to the car, her hand dangling from the open door, pale with shock. Mr. Kim stood atop, shaking his head.
“Get back in the fucking car!” I yelled. “And lock the doors!”
My voice had a second effect, one I hadn’t considered; it alerted the horde of newly departed to our presence. I turned back in time to see a pack of the mindless creatures shamble for the doors. To my right, Wendy was barreling through the dirt lot with a piece of pipe raised over her head. I pressed against the doors, grabbing the handles and evening them. I braced for either Wendy to save the day, or a zombie to bust through and make my already dead flesh unrecognizable with their fury.
Tables were upended and chairs and bottles crashed on the wood planks as the undead scrabbled toward the door. A wave of blood, bile and excrement preceded them. It washed out from the gap and splattered its warm mess on my shoes and ankles. The first zombie to reach me was a petite woman—thank God—not that I could tell that from her horrible makeup job; that had been stripped clean off her skull along with her scalp. The whole mess hung around her shoulders like a shawl. Her sunken lidless eyes glowered; she pushed at the doors, shaking them. Alternating one to the other. Creating an opening.
Behind her a couple of husky ghouls sprang forward, tossing the woman into an electronic dartboard and scoring a bullseye with a splinter of bone that protruded from her mangled nose.
“Wendy!” I screamed.
And she appeared, powering forward with the length of pipe, slipping it through the door handles on her first attempt. We stepped away, hugged. I nearly collapsed in her arms.
“Whew. That was close,” I said, taking her arm and just turning back to the RV, when a loud crack broke behind us. We turned just in time to see the door handles come loose and the pipe fly toward us.
77 So much for boundaries, if only the Aryan Brotherhood could hold off on their busy cross-burning schedule and organize an impulse control seminar.
78 A quick zombie primer:
While I can breathe zombie life, my saliva still creates mistakes.
Mistakes are your typical mindless shambler types, hellbent on brains and entrails and not remotely interested in high fashion or skin care.
Breathers like Mr. Kim’s mother and I are the rarest type of zombie.
There has been talk of the old school Haitian kind of zombie, but they aren’t really dead and so don’t count in this primer.
Sentient zombies rot at a much slower rate and have been known to heal, but only like paper cuts and small things. Anything else would be ridiculous.
79 What? You were expecting me to say brrraaaaaainnnnnsssss?
Chapter 12
Well Hello Love Interest80
Online personals are so ′90s. Coffee shops used to be the new meet markets. But nowadays, you can’t meet a decent undead unless you’re fighting beside them …
—Paranormal Star Signs
I don’t enjoy being dirty or bars where you can’t get good vodka, yet there I was splayed out like roadkill in front of a crappy Idahoan skinhead joint. I wasn’t even sure what had happened. But, I did know two things … one: zombies were shambling towards me, ready to tear me three new assholes … and … two: I was going to need a new ensemble.
I pushed myself up out of the mud and scanned the ground for Wendy. She wasn’t wallowing like me, in-stead—to my horror—I spotted her stumbling toward the RV, sporting a brand new accessory, a metal pipe piercing her gut.81 When she reached the door, she turned back.
“You’ve got a cigarette stuck to your cheek,” she said, disregarding her more heinous accoutrement.
I flicked the butt from my face and pointed out the pole. Wendy’s gaze followed mine to flesh puckered and gray where it protruded; a slow gurgle of puss ran from the injury like sap.
“Oh shit.” She grimaced and jiggled it as I joined her.
The zombies were a good fifty feet away and closing, every bit as dangerous, though slowing and losing focus. One merely sat on a piece of broken door preening and eating the bits of flesh that clung to his tattooed arms in such a dainty manner you’d think he’d stopped for a quick spot of tea and a raspberry scone.
I certainly knew where he could find some lemon curd. It was pouring from the widening gash in Wendy’s gut and splattering the ground in fat plops.
“Gross,” she said, as she twisted the pipe. “Could you help get this out of me?”
“Oh God. Do I have to?”
Her eyes narrowed into slits. “Um … yeah. Look at this shit.”
I looked at the side of the Winnebago and directed her to hang on to the handle by the door. I grabbed on a little lower with one hand and with the other I gripped the pipe. One foot bracing against the side of the RV I threw my weight into pulling out the projectile, which detached with a sucking thunk. Decomposed entrails clung to my hand like gravy. I tossed the pipe away, disgusted.
“Does it look okay?” Wendy performed a poorly executed grin.
I dropped to one knee and examined the gaping hole. Its edges were ragged and drippy but the muscle behind was drier. I poked at a dangling piece of abdomen that resembled beef jerky; it gave with some flexibility. Her stomach seemed to be intact and surprisingly red. It contracted with the remains of the afternoon neo-Nazi sample menu. The pipe missed her spine, but not by much. Its knobby presence protruded into the puncture like a pair of scuffed knuckles.
As fascinating as the injury was, the scene it framed in gore seemed a far more pressing matter. Past the rusty transport of the undereducated, past the gravel and mud parking lot, past the overgrowth of weeds and wildflowers a splotch of orange was on the horizon and getting bigger.
The Mustang, barreling toward us.
Someone’s timing sucked, and I don’t think I need to tell you it wasn’t mine.
“Oh fuck!” I yelled.
“What?” Wendy looked down, tried to press the wound together with her fingers. “You don’t think a band-aid will do?”
I stood, and turned Wendy toward the approaching Mustang. It sped into the lot, trailing a cyclone of dust, swerved into a sideways slide and plowed into five of the skinheads.82 Body parts flew like dandelion seed.
There were five left, scattered and roaming. One was still coming toward us, scratching the air ahead of him with curled fingers too newly dead to be atrophied—it took me a second to realize he’d had cerebral palsy while living, which totally explained a limp, not to mention the ergonomic crutch attached to his forearm. The legless bartender had teamed with a willing horse, hanging around the neck of a pimply teen and wandering toward the highway. Then there were the other two. A scraggly-haired woman in dingy flannel shuffled toward the Volvo while repeatedly shoving her own jawbone back into the hamburger that used to be her face.83 Mr. Kim jumped and raised his fists menacingly—as menacing as a middle-aged Korean businessman in a button-down shirt can be, not to mention see-through. The last was a giant. A bodybuilder-type who’d let his muscle go to flab, bounded toward the Mustang, man boobs jiggling.
Zombies on the loose and threatening to spread a global plague not dangerous enough for ya? Containment a near impossibility as it is? Why not throw in a bloodthirsty werewolf hellbent on murder and mayhem?
That oughta do it.
&nbs
p; Markham’s man stepped out of the car, casually, as though fashionably late for a photo shoot, six-two if he was an inch, with a mop of sandy waves flopping and the bone structure of an underwear model. I would have had to fan myself, if I’d actually been a Southern belle. Sadly, the vapors don’t really go with my body temperature.
A car horn cut through the air from our right. Fishhook popped up from the driver’s side window, a deranged homeless jack-in-the-box. He pointed at the man, shouted something. I didn’t need to know that this was the pizza guy. Honey opened her door and ran over, brandishing the gun that Wendy hadn’t hidden so well, apparently.
“I thought you hid that?”
“I did.” She shrugged.
“Super job.”
Honey raised the gun, aimed for my head and fired. The bullet whizzed past my ear and thunked into something behind me. I turned in time to catch the crooked hand of the palsied zombie on my shoulder; it snagged on the sleeve of my shirt, tearing it clean off. The thing’s last action was to bring the fabric to its nose and breathe in; it probably smelled like wardrobe dilemma. Honey had busted a cap right through the ’tard’s forehead.84
I swung back to find her focused on the scene in the center of the parking lot. Markham’s man had gone all wolfy during our scuffle and, let me tell you, six-two is a hell of a lot of meat to work with; he’d grown three feet taller—easy—and his claws were massive, thick and long.85 Dexterous though. He eased the door shut with such comfort in his lupine form as to seem controlled rather than monstrous. The muscle-zombie reached for him then, jaw jacked open like an alligator’s maw. A warbling cry issued from its bloodied gape. The werewolf reached out and snapped off its bottom jaw and then slapped it against the thing’s head on the backswing. The zombie went down, tits jiggling.
The meathead dispatched, Gil’s would-be executioner aimed his snout at the dead woman approaching the Volvo. She’d managed to get the door open and was garbling sweet nothings to Fishhook, who seemed to be scrambling inside for a weapon, or possibly his drugs.
The werewolf dropped to all fours and galloped across the parking lot. His blonde coat glistened and bounced with every pounding of his considerable haunches.86 As he reached the zombie, he reared up and swiped at her head, knocking it into the side of the car and spraying the back fender with blood. He stepped back and cocked his head. The woman was still moving, clawing her way under the SUV. His claws gripped her ankles and pulled her loose, dragging her across the parking lot before swinging her body against the wall of The White House with such force, it exploded into hot dog fixin’s, a veritable buffet of lips and assholes.87
From his spot on the bar’s porch, the werewolf faced the field and snorted. The piggybacking pair had nearly made a break in the forest and were quickly approaching the freeway gulley. I snatched the gun from Honey and ran. I picked off the bartender from five yards—inexplicably as I’d never had any formal training—and somehow expected the entire thing to stop instead of just the top half slap against a tree stump and nod off.
Pimples kept trudging forward, mere feet from a break in the brush but gaining momentum. Cars breezed by on the other side, so close I could hear radio snippets. Raising the gun again, I stepped forward, pressed it to the back of the zombie’s skull and squeezed. Then …
Nothing.
No kick. No dead zombie.
Nothing.
Oh wait. There was a chuckle. The pimpled undead glanced toward me with a lidless eye and moaned a stuttering laugh. And my phone rang, but it seemed inappropriate to take the call so I let it go. Plus, there was a great deal of limbs cracking from within the treed area. So, not nothing.
He stepped through trees and out onto the grassy shoulder of the freeway.
“Hey!” I called and to my surprise he actually turned to face me, lips clenched in a smug little grin. I turned the gun around and raised it to bludgeon him. His expression changed. Eyebrows drooped, shoulders curled in a defeated posture.
“You’re goddamn right,” I said, right before I was pushed aside into the tangle of a thick-leafed rhododendron by the werewolf, who snatched the zombie in one hand and tossed him back into the woods. Pimples gave it the old college try with an attack of his own, but the wolf simply fisted the kid’s head and held him at arm’s length before twisting it like a bottle cap and watching the body drop away.
“That’s lovely.” I backed away, certain it was my turn. I thought about the hole in Wendy’s stomach and imagined similar horrors visited upon my flawless skin. It was enough to send shudders through my dead frame. But, at least she could live with it. This was it.
This was my death. I closed my eyes and waited.
The werewolf didn’t charge though. I heard some scrambling in the undergrowth and caught a whiff of pine rot and freshly disturbed loam, but no physical assault.
When I peeked, the area was empty. Even the body was gone. I trudged through the brush back to the parking lot to find the crew gathered and loading bodies into the tavern. The werewolf had even turned back to his human form and was chatting politely with Honey.
Hello? Was I dreaming?
Marching out of the forest, I assessed my outfit for presentability and decided that mud stains plus blood spatter equaled a bad first impression. I ducked into the camper, swiped a T-shirt and shorts from Honey’s suitcase and prayed that I’d fit into the tiny scraps of fabric. It was a close one. I shook the twigs from my hair, grabbed my cell and returned the call from Marithé.88 She answered on the first ring.
“Where the fuck are you?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Idaho?”
“Jesus! I’ve got some guy from Supernatural Seattle breathing down my neck for a scoop. He’s certain you’ve flown to Bangalore for transcendental surgery on your thighs and he says if he doesn’t get the truth within twenty-four hours he’s going to run that, front page.”
“Tell him I’m in rehab.”
“For what?”
Yes. For what? I couldn’t very well say alcohol; zombies don’t get drunk. Food was out of the question; nothing will kill celebrity quicker than thoughts of incontinence, just ask June Allyson.89 We could tell him I was visiting a sick relative, but then we’d have reporters swarming Rapid City by the time we got there. Not going to happen. And then I landed on it.
“Tell that cockroach I’m providing a personal consultation to a Hollywood celebrity that may be interested in crossing over. That’ll have him drooling. He’ll have his reporters swarming Los Angeles before nightfall.”
“He’ll want to know why Wendy is with you.” She filed her nails in the background.
“Am I on speaker?”
“Oh.” The phone clicked. “You were saying?”
“Tell him she’s my bait. Plus—and this’ll really make him hard—tell him she’s getting the inside story first hand. He’ll cream.”
“Will do.” Marithé hung up without saying goodbye, a less-than-endearing trait.
I slapped my phone closed, checked my face one last time and stepped out to introduce myself to the werewolf.
He was waiting and clothed. I damned my vanity for causing me to miss the full frontal nudity that comes standard with every were-retransformation. Wendy stood behind the guy holding up nine fingers and biting her lower lip in a seriously slutty way.90
“I’m Scott.” He reached for my hand and shook it. Holding on for a moment before releasing, searching my face with hazel eyes like round cut topaz.
For a reaction? I wondered.
“Amanda.”
“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked, a sly smile curling on his lips.
I had caught a passing familiarity, but if I’d fucked him, I’d surely remember, right? It’s not like I was promiscuous, that was Wendy’s bit. He probably wasn’t one of my string of therapy dates, either.91 What can I say, nine out of ten unethical therapists agree, Amanda is an easy mark.
“No.” I smiled and touched his arm. “But, I’d like to. Do refr
esh.”
Jesus.
Was I hitting on a werewolf? Wendy scowled over his shoulder. Apparently she had plans.
“We met briefly last year, very briefly. I’m sure you’ll remember the murders at the Washington Mutual Starbucks. The majority of the staff and customers were … um … eaten?”
“Maybe.”
Maybe nothing. The memories flooded back.
I was hiding in the bathroom when the gunshots started. The garbage can was full and wads of paper towels overflowed onto the floor around it. It’s funny how you remember those things. The gross things. I’d hoped the reapers would come and clean house or the zombies would simply eat themselves out.92 Neither happened.
I counted the gunshots, ten of them, for nine zombies.
I eased the door open and peeked out.
Scott was the shooter. A cop. Gorgeous in his uniform and empathetic to a fault, he gave me a comforting hug, which rubbed my makeup clean off and exposed my dead flesh in all its veined glory—so not a great first impression. Memorable, certainly, but not for romantic reasons. Intellectual, maybe.
If I’d known he was supernatural, I might not have fled. But, how could I know, he looked like a tasty nugget to me.
Must have been fate, then.
“Fate?” he asked.
Had I said that aloud? Crap.
“No way. I’ve been looking for you ever since we met. I guess you could say you changed my life.”
His smile turned into a dark smirk I didn’t care for, but I was happy to return the snark. “Wow. I’m so glad I could be of service. Care to be more vague?”
I didn’t think that last sentence out, clearly, because …
Interlude No. 2 (Excusable
Due to Eye Candy Factor)
A Cranky Werewolf’s Tale
“After you ran, I was left with no proof of what had happened. My back up refused to corroborate my story. I knew it was zombies in that shop—couldn’t be nothin’ else but zombies—but all that was left was dead bodies. The kind that weren’t moving. I won’t kid you; I was shocked and, unfortunately for my career, too honest. My Chief put me on administrative leave when she read the final report. Said I needed R and R. Signed me up to see a shrink. What I needed was to find you.
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