The man’s fever was off the charts. They had slowed it down, but it gradually continued to climb. They were pumping him full of fluids to prevent dehydration.
Much higher, the guy’s brain will boil and turn to mush.
Gently, Darcy slid a pressure cuff around the man’s arm. As she squeezed the bulb and the cuff constricted, several of the pustules on the man’s arm burst and white puss shot out like lava from a volcano. She made her mind up then that if Kirkman wouldn’t call the CDC in the morning, then she would make the call herself.
The man groaned, startling her, and she dropped the bulb. Just get through it. In a few hours it will be someone else’s problem.
She deflated the pressure cuff and unstrapped it. She wrote on the man’s chart, placed it back in its holder, and turned to leave. She had only gotten several steps before the man groaned again. Except it wasn’t a groan. Is he talking?
The man’s lips were clearly moving. Darcy walked back to the bed. She couldn’t tell if he was saying anything intelligible or not, the sound was too faint. She leaned forward, careful not to touch him, and tilted her head to the side, ear inches from the man’s mouth.
The man’s breath was hot, and even with her nose pointed in the other direction, it smelled of decay and…fruit? The sound whistled out of the man’s chest, feeling like a gentle breeze in her ear, but she didn’t think he was saying –
The man’s eyes sprang open. A slender tentacle shot out from beneath the sheets, wrapping around Darcy’s back as though it was pulling her in for a hug. He sank his teeth into the top of her head, ripping away chunks of hair and skin and fragments of bone.
Darcy tried to scream, but her face was smashed into the man’s chest, muffled by his gown. She flailed her arms, pushing away, her fingers sinking into soft oozing flesh. The man kept chomping down, chipping away at her skull until her brains were exposed, and then he began to eat them, making loud sucking noises as he slurped them out of the opening in the top of Darcy’s head.
Darcy lasted for another ten seconds. Eventually, the pain went away. She couldn’t see. Bursts of light penetrated the darkness as though someone was holding a camera up to her eyeballs and snapping pictures with the flash on. The last thing she heard was the man whispering again, but this time she thought she could understand what he was saying. It came out in a low hiss. “Brainssss!”
Chapter 8
Morning came too soon. Ryan woke late, put on the same uniform he had worn the day before (never mind the wrinkles), and headed out the door. By dumb luck, the night hadn’t been as frigid as expected and he was spared the task of scraping ice off the windows of his patrol car. It was 5:54 A.M.
He drove down to the Sheriff’s Office, noticing that Branagan’s Yukon wasn’t parked out front. Inside, he was surprised to find it bustling with activity, which was unusual for that early in the morning. The roads hadn’t seemed particularly treacherous given the fact that the snow and slush hadn’t frozen over, but Ryan was hard pressed to come up with any other reason the phones would be going nuts at that hour of the day.
Before heading to Branagan’s office, Ryan poked his head into dispatch. Cindy Myer and Peggy Colson worked the day shift. Both of them had worked in dispatch for years (Peggy’s husband was one of the seven patrol officers that worked for the Trudy PD), and Ryan couldn’t remember seeing either one of them as frazzled as they looked that brisk but not unpleasant Saturday morning.
Cindy’s cup of coffee still sat off to the side untouched.
“Is the world blowing up?” Ryan asked.
Cindy cupped her hand over her headset’s microphone and said, “If it isn’t, it’s pretty darn close.”
“All kinds of crazy stuff,” Peggy said. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. Whole town’s gone nuts. Oscar Russo called this morning to say someone killed his dog. Left it on the doorstep.”
“Jesus.”
“Wait, I haven’t even gotten to the good part. Oscar seemed to think the dog’s brain was missing.”
“That isn’t the half of it,” Cindy said. “Roger Landry reported a bunch of folks walking down the center of county road eight. He came across ‘em, honked his horn figurin’ they’d get out of the way, but they wouldn’t budge. Said they tried to attack him, clawin’ at the windows of his truck. Said it was like they were hypnotized or somethin’. And he said they wasn’t in too good a shape either. Don’t tell anyone I said this because I know Roger’s a respected member of the community, but I swear he musta been drinkin’ early this morning. You know what he tried to tell me? He said one of ‘em was Larry Ackermann, and that half a Larry’s face was missin’. All messed up, eyeball hangin’ out of the socket. Roger said there’s no way Larry coulda been walkin’ around in that condition.”
Both women were more flustered than Ryan had ever seen them. Every line on the switchboard was blinking, indicating incoming calls.
“Sheriff in?” he asked.
“Left about half an hour ago,” Cindy said. “Somethin’ big happen’ down at Trudy Memorial. He hightailed it oughta here quick.”
“I’m heading down there. Why don’t you guys call around and see if you can get anybody to come in and help you with the phones.”
“Already tried,” Peggy said. “Nobody’s answering.”
This just keeps getting better and better, Ryan thought. In less than six hours, the town was falling apart. Either that, or someone was playing one helluva prank.
“Well, then do the best you can,” Ryan said.
As he turned to leave, Peggy said, “Greg’s on duty. I’ve been trying him for the last hour and can’t get through. That’s not like him.”
“He’s probably got his hands full.” Ryan saw the fear in her eyes; that look that said she really wanted to believe that was all it was, but that nastier thoughts prevailed. Ryan nodded. “I’ll keep an eye out for him.”
“Thanks,” Peggy said. “And Ryan? Be careful. Things aren’t right in Trudy today.”
As Ryan went out the door, he thought: She’s right. Things aren’t right by a long shot.
Chapter 9
Rhonda opened the store at nine o’clock that Saturday morning. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and she hadn’t bothered doing her hair. Deciding against the goth girl look (it was the weekend and too damn early to bother), she had thrown on gray sweatpants and a baggy hoodie that had the Monroeville Zombie’s logo on the front.
Kevin had entrusted her with a key to the store several months ago. He was prone to a severe form of micromanagement, so Rhonda guessed it was a sign of trust and respect that he had given her one. And maybe it had something to do with the fact that Kevin didn’t like to get up early on the weekends. Most of the time, he didn’t stroll in until around noon, which was fine because it gave her time to catch up on some reading.
At three there was supposed to be a Magic: The Gathering tournament. Rhonda didn’t care for the game all that much, but had educated herself so that she could be more knowledgeable when talking to customers. Kevin hated the game, which meant he would be on edge all day; there was something about gamers in general that he disliked. He wouldn’t be rude to them outright (they were still paying customers after all), but his vigilance was on overdrive whenever they were in the store. Rhonda had once asked him why he bothered holding tournaments if he hated them so much, and Kevin had said it was one of the few things the store did that actually made money.
Rhonda had only just sat down behind the display counter and opened the latest issue of The Walking Dead when Derek strolled into the store.
“Good day,” he said, too jolly for a Saturday morning. He had dyed his Mohawk a different color; green was out and red was in, apparently. He was also carrying a mace with a spiked ball dangling from the end of a foot long chain.
“What are you doing here already?”
“I decided to play in the tournament.”
“It’s not until three.”
“I know, b
ut I thought I’d build a new deck beforehand.”
“You know Kevin’s going to go apeshit when he sees that, right?” Rhonda said, pointing at the spiked mace.
“It’s for ceremonial use.”
“You think he cares? No weapons.”
“I’ll hide it before he gets here.”
“Your funeral,” Rhonda said. “All I’m saying is that you earned some much needed brownie points last night. Don’t go fucking it up.”
“It’ll be fine. Want to help me build a deck?”
Rhonda shook her head. “You’re on your own.”
Derek walked to the back table, perusing the Magic cards, which stood neatly arranged in partitioned boxes. “By the way, thanks for sticking up for me yesterday.”
“No problem. Thanks for not making me look like an idiot.”
A couple of hours passed as Derek built a new Magic deck for the tournament and Rhonda went through a catalog, marking items she could use her store credit on.
The bell over the door jangled. It was quarter to eleven, and Rhonda turned on her stool, half-expecting it to be Kevin.
It wasn’t Kevin. It was a woman. She was taller than Rhonda by several inches, wearing a blouse and a long skirt. Her pantyhose were ripped at the knees. She was wearing heels, and at first, Rhonda thought they accounted for the reason the woman was moving so strangely; like she couldn’t find her balance. The strap of the woman’s purse was draped over her shoulder. But all of those details were secondary to the fact that a large portion of the woman’s neck had been torn out, leaving behind a ragged hole, revealing muscle and bone beneath. The woman’s lips were gone, exposing teeth and gums and giving her a permanent leer.
Rhonda froze on the stool, her mind desperately trying to process the situation.
“Halloween’s over,” Derek said, standing up and walking around the table. “But that’s a great costume! Who did your make-up?”
The woman stood there for a moment, mouth opening and closing like a beached fish.
Derek, never one to leave a customer wanting whether they liked it or not, approached the woman, eager to get a closer look.
“Derek,” Rhonda said. “Stay away from the customer.”
Derek sighed. “You’re as bad as Kev. It’s okay, I’ve got this.”
Rhonda willed herself off of the stool, walked around the display case, and stood behind Derek.
As Derek took another step closer, the woman opened her mouth and spoke. It was only a single word that came out as a robotic croak as though she’d had a tracheostomy. “Brains!”
The woman rushed forward. She came down wrong on one of her heels, her foot bent to the side, forming a ninety degree angle to her ankle, and Rhonda heard the sickening snap of bone breaking. The woman was on Derek in a flash, her momentum knocking him backward. They both fell to the floor, Derek on his back, the woman straddling him.
“This is so not okay, lady!” Derek yelled, his hands planted on her shoulders as she kept bobbing her head forward, her jaws snapping shut as she tried repeatedly to take a bite out of his face.
Rhonda bumped into the table and heard the rattle of metal. She turned her head and saw Derek’s spiked mace on the center of the table.
The woman’s long hair hung down in Derek’s face; he kept blowing on it so he could see while trying to keep the woman from taking a bite out of him. “Brainsss,” the woman hissed, a glob of drool sliding from the tip of her tongue and onto Derek’s chin.
“Lady,” Derek shouted, “this is not how you go about getting a discount!”
Rhonda snatched the mace from the table, walked around behind the woman, and swung the mace up behind her head. She brought it down as hard as she could, the chain snapping taut, the metal ball at the end arcing around. The ball struck the woman’s head, the metal spikes sank into her scalp with a sickening thwunk. Rhonda let go of the mace’s handle as the woman collapsed forward on top of Derek.
“Oh my God,” Derek said. “Get her off of me. She smells terrible!”
Rhonda grabbed the back of the woman’s blouse and pulled. Derek slid out from under the dead woman.
For a while, they both stood and stared at the corpse on the floor. A puddle of black ooze pooled around the dead woman’s head.
“What should we do with it?”
“I don’t know,” Rhonda said. “I’ve never had to deal with a dead body before.”
Derek said, “Kev’s going to be pissed.”
Kevin showed up twenty minutes later. Rhonda was on the stool again, leafing through an issue of Hellblazer. At the table, Derek was putting the finishing touches on his new Magic deck. The woman’s body was still face down on the floor. They hadn’t touched it. After much deliberation, they had decided that there was only one course of action: ignore it. To be fair, Rhonda had tried calling 911, but she had kept getting a prerecorded message saying that all circuits were busy, please try again later.
Kevin was carrying a large steaming latte from the gas station on Highway 75 when he walked in. It slipped from his hand and exploded on the worn linoleum floor. His eyes went from Derek to the spiked mace embedded in the back of the dead woman’s head.
“I knew it! How many times did I say it? This is exactly the fucking reason I told you not to bring weapons into the store. Because I knew one day you would end up killing someone!”
“Kevin,” Rhonda said, “relax.”
“Don’t tell me to relax. There’s a goddamn dead woman in my store!”
“It wasn’t his fault. She attacked him.”
“So he killed her?”
“Actually, I killed her,” Rhonda said. Derek looked as though he was about to chime in, but Rhonda shook her head.
Kevin snorted laughter. “Oh, I get it. You two are putting me on, right? This is some big joke? Freak out the boss? I’ve got to admit, it’s not bad.”
Kevin stepped closer to the woman’s body, careful to avoid the large puddle of blood around her head. “What did you use?” he asked, pointing at the blood. “Karo syrup with food coloring? Or hair gel?” He bent down and grabbed the handle of Derek’s mace. He pulled. It was an effort to get it to come free. “Damn, did you glue it in there?” The spikes made a slurping sound as they came free from the woman’s head.
“I tried 911, but couldn’t get through.”
“Uh huh, yeah, sure.” Kevin dipped his finger in the puddle of blood and brought it to his mouth, sticking his tongue out to taste it.
“No!” Derek shouted and was out of his chair in a flash, slapping Kevin’s hand away before it reached his mouth.
Kevin nodded in understanding. “Hair gel. I think it looks better, but it’s toxic.”
“Look…Kev,” Rhonda said. “There’s no easy way to say this, but that’s a real dead person. She came in all fucked up, and then she attacked Derek. So…I beat her brains in.”
Kevin said, “All right, joke’s over.” Kevin grabbed the dead woman’s shoulder and rolled her over onto her back. Then he screamed. Her eyes stared up at him, lips gone, tongue protruding between her teeth. It wasn’t just a good make-up job. “What the fuck?”
“I tried to tell you,” Rhonda said. “There was something wrong with her.”
“Call 911.”
“I told you, I already did. They aren’t answering.”
Now that the situation was real, Kevin had a hard time making eye contact with the dead body, but he couldn’t help it. “What the hell could mess a person up like that?”
Derek bent down, picked up his mace, and said, “I’ll tell you what it is. The bitch was a zombie.”
“What?”
“If you think about it,” Rhonda said, “it fits. She said the word ‘brains’ right before she attacked Derek.”
“Only she said it more like this. Brainsss!” Derek said, drawing the word out in a long guttural hiss, doing his best impression of the zombie woman.
“Granted, there was something obviously not right about her, but she wasn�
��t a zombie.”
“Yeah, she isn’t now because Rhonda killed her.”
“It was self-defense,” Rhonda said.
“Derek,” Kevin said, “shut it. You think she’s a zombie because we were talking about them last night. That’s your problem. You live in make-believe world. You have to learn to separate fantasy from reality. You’d be a lot better off.”
“Then what’s your explanation?” Rhonda asked.
“I don’t know, but I do know she’s isn’t a damn zom –”
There was a loud crash outside. They looked through the store’s plate glass windows. A car had plowed straight through the bench and the glass enclosure which served as a bus stop at the end of the plaza. A group of kids were pulling an old woman out of the car through the driver’s side window. Kevin, Rhonda, and Derek watched in horror as the kids lowered the elderly woman to the ground and began tearing her apart. One of the kids – from a distance, Kevin thought he couldn’t be older than thirteen – picked up a shard of glass from the wreck, jammed it into the old lady’s forehead, and used it to pry the top of her head open.
“Jesus,” Rhonda said.
“We can’t help her,” Kevin said.
Derek stared at Kevin, waiting.
“Okay,” Kevin said, “it might be zombies.”
The plaza’s parking lot was huge, at least three hundred yards across, and the gang of adolescent zombies was on the far end of it, but one of them stood up and began doing slow circles as he sniffed the air. Suddenly, the kid stopped and he was staring in the direction of the comic shop.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Kevin said.
“He can smell us?”
The Z Club Page 5