"You don't think the clothes are like pieces of the body can be sometimes?" I asked out of earshot of the zombie in question.
He shook his head. "The missing pieces are only for raising a zombie, and only for low-level animators who need all the parts to raise a body. It's one of the reasons they can't raise older bodies, because too much has turned to dust. They need solid bits to work with; you never have."
"It never occurred to me: Do any animators need all the parts to put a zombie back in the grave?"
"I've known a few who couldn't lay the zombie to rest if a hand had rotted off and was lost, but I always wondered if it was really a problem, or if they just thought they needed all the parts."
"You mean they believed they couldn't do it without the missing part, so they couldn't?"
He nodded. "I've been called in on a few cases where the animators were powerful enough to do it, but they still couldn't."
"You think they psyched themselves out," I said.
"Yes."
"So, if I don't worry about the clothes, they aren't anything to worry about?"
"Exactly."
I frowned at his logic, but in the end I wanted Warrington below-ground enough to try. He stood on his grave in a T-shirt advertising music that he had probably never heard, and a pair of jeans that whoever had lent them to him would probably miss, but it wasn't my problem.
Traditional wisdom was that you needed salt, steel, and will. I'd learned that the most important part was sheer force of will, but tonight I went old-schoolish, because I wanted to be sure that this zombie went quietly back to rest.
The blood circle had darkened and was smudged in places. "The circle isn't intact anymore," Manny said.
I looked at the ground, and he was right. The blood circle was there, black in the grass, but it was seriously smudged in places, and nowhere near complete.
"I don't really need it to put him back; it's only in raising the zombie that the circle matters to me."
Manny raised eyebrows at me. The look was enough to let me know he did need the circle to lay his zombies back. I forgot sometimes how little we'd worked together over the last few years. Once he took himself out of the vampire execution side of things, he and I had very different dance cards for work.
"Maybe an intact circle for laying the zombie to rest is like the missing body part; you only think you need it," I said.
He grinned at me, smile bright in the darkness. "The student becomes the teacher."
I smiled back and shrugged.
"What do you need, then?"
"I've done it with just will and word, but tonight--" I lifted a container of salt and the machete still sheathed out of the nice leather bag. Every time I used Jean-Claude's gift I knew it was just a matter of time before I got something bloody, or worse, on the nice leather, but I'd use it until I ruined it. Sometimes nice things don't last long, but they're pretty while they do.
"You don't need another sacrifice?"
I shook my head.
"I should shadow you one night when you're on the job. I think you've changed a lot of the rituals I taught you."
I shrugged again. "I've streamlined some."
"It's all right, Anita. I knew you were a more powerful animator than I was the first week I took you out with me."
I let him see that he'd surprised me. "You never told me that."
"I didn't want you to get a big head about it, or put too much pressure on yourself as a new animator. I knew you'd figure out just how powerful you were."
"It took me a while, but yeah, I guess I did."
Domino called out, "Anita, you might want to get over here."
The tone in his voice was enough to make us turn and look toward him, Nicky, and the zombie by the graveside. Warrington was still standing on the grave nice and passive, but something had spooked Domino, and Nicky was standing ready, like he expected to be using the handgun at his side.
I handed the machete and salt to Manny and reached into the back for the shotguns and the AR.
"Why are you getting the big guns?" Manny asked.
"Not sure, but I trust my guys." I put the AR in its tactical sling over one shoulder and carried a shotgun in each hand, and headed for them. Manny came behind with the salt and steel I'd need to lay the zombie, but right that moment the guns meant more to me.
I heard Warrington say, "I'm so hungry, so hungry."
I handed one shotgun to Domino, kept one for myself, and tossed the AR to Nicky. He caught it and stepped a little away from the grave. I'd have preferred him with me for the close-in work, but he was a better shot with the AR than Domino, and they could both handle shotguns just fine. Honestly, I might have been the best shot of the three of us with the AR, but I couldn't back off the grave and let them take the close-in part. It was my zombie, and I wouldn't let them take the bigger risk.
I snugged the shotgun to my shoulder and got a bead on one of the zombie's knees. Yeah, a head shot would take away his ability to tear with his teeth, but I'd had enough large men run into me and just the force of that could hurt; take out one leg and he'd have to crawl to reach us. Crawling gave you more time to pick your shots.
"How hungry are you, Mr. Warrington?" I asked, voice very, very calm, as if I weren't standing beside Domino with both of us pointing shotguns at him.
"Famished," he said.
"As hungry as you were in the mountains that winter?" I asked.
Domino didn't react to the question, which probably made no sense to him at all. He just kept his position and his aim, and did what I needed him to do. I didn't have to look behind us to know that Nicky was doing his part. I trusted him to have our backs, absolutely.
"Yes, and no," Warrington said. His face wasn't as human as it had been. The flesh seemed to be thinning down, so you could see the bones of his face, almost as if he were starving right in front of our eyes. His body was consuming its own flesh, so that the skeleton was beginning to show underneath the skin. I never seen anything like it, but then he'd been a surprise from the start.
"Explain what you mean, Warrington; how can it be yes and no?" I asked, and realized I'd taken my eyes off targeting his knee so I could see his face when he spoke. I went back to watching the target I'd chosen, but it was hard not to watch his face.
"I don't feel as hungry, but I'm looking at your two men here and I see them like I saw Charlie after he died."
"You see them as meat," I said, resettling the shotgun to aim at his face. I had to watch him talk; it was almost a compulsion. Those nice hazel eyes, grayed in the dark, were rolling in their sockets, because the flesh had receded enough that they weren't secure. What the hell was happening to him?
"Yes, they're meat, but I don't see you that way. Why do you still look like a woman that I should take care of and help out of carriages? The men are worse than any enemy on the battlefield to me now."
"You mean you hate them more?"
"No, but I don't see them as the same as me, as men. They're just something I want to tear into and devour. I've never even looked at a cow and thought these terrible things, and I do like a nice steak, but this is something far worse, Miss Blake, far more terrible than butchering a steer."
"I understand," I said, voice soft.
"Do you? Then please explain it to me, because I am mystified that I could look at another man and think such terrible thoughts, and be filled with such horrific longings." He looked at me with his eyes beginning to roll wildly in their sockets. He was having more trouble controlling the muscles that moved his eyes as the flesh that held them in place wore away.
"You're becoming a flesh-eating zombie, Mr. Warrington."
"I am so glad that you took me away from Justine before she saw me like this. Thank you for that, Miss Blake."
I was glad he hadn't been alone with her when the change came over him, because what I was seeing now would eventually tear her throat out while she screamed for help. I'd seen zombies do it before, just never talked to them
while they lost their senses and became a ravening thing.
"Let me put you back in your grave, Mr. Warrington."
"Please do, Miss Blake, and hurry, before I give in to these terrible images in my mind."
Nicky asked, "Do you mean you have pictures in your head of what you want to do to us?"
"Yes."
"Are they your thoughts, or is someone putting them in your head?"
"I do not know, but even speaking with you now, it's as if my pork dinner were talking back. I'd think I was mad, but I still want to eat it."
"Eat me, you mean?" Nicky said.
"Yes, very much." The southern drawl was thicker with every word, as if by the time he rushed us, or we shot him, he'd sound like Scarlett O'Hara.
"Interesting, Nicky, but save it," I said.
"There won't be a later for asking him questions."
He was right, of course, but only a sociopath could have stood there this close, watching the process, and asked the questions that might help us understand what was happening. It was good that we had Nicky with us, because I was so spooked my mouth was dry.
"Manny," I said.
"I'm here," he said from behind us. He sounded a lot farther away than Nicky, but he was unarmed, so I was okay with that, but now I needed him.
"I need you to get some salt ready to throw and unsheathe the machete."
"Okay." I felt the machete's blade bare like a thrill of energy through me. I trusted that the salt was in his hand.
"Ready, Manny?"
"Ready," he said, and just from his voice I knew he was much closer to me, just behind me.
"With salt, steel, and power, I bind you to your grave."
Manny threw a handful of it in the zombie's general direction. I wasn't sure it actually hit him, but it touched the grave; I hoped that was enough. Manny started to come up beside me with the machete naked in his hand, but I told him, "Don't cross in front of the guns." He moved back without arguing.
"I still want to eat them," the zombie said, and now he looked like the corpse he was; the handsome man who had wooed Justine wasn't there anymore.
"No, you will not harm them."
"I want to obey you, Miss Blake, I truly do, but I'm so hungry, and they're so close."
"Do not move off your grave, Warrington."
"Again, I want to obey you, but only part of me does; the other half wants fresh, bloody meat between my teeth."
"I bind you to your grave, Thomas Warrington!" I let my voice fill with power so that it echoed through the trees around the grave.
He struggled to leave the grave, but it was as if some invisible force held his feet in place. His long arms lashed out trying to touch Domino, but he couldn't reach him without taking at least a few steps and I had bound him to his grave at last.
"Go back to sleep, Thomas Warrington; go back to your grave and walk no more!"
The ground underneath his feet began to flow like mud and thick water, sucking his legs down like movie quicksand. "No! I must feed! Don't put me back with this hunger in me, Ms. Blake! Please, don't put me back like this!" He screamed as the earth swallowed him up. The last thing I saw was his eyes, wide and terrified. That wasn't supposed to happen either.
Then the grave was smooth and hard as if the earth had never been disturbed; that was the only thing that was normal about what had just happened. "Fuck," I said, and that one word seemed to hold all the emotion that I hadn't let myself feel in the last few minutes.
"Anita, you have to get an order of exhumation," Manny said.
I turned and stared at him. "What?"
"You have to dig him up."
"We barely got him covered before he went berserk," Domino said. "Let him stay in there."
"He should have gone empty and quiet before the grave swallowed him. He was still struggling, Anita, he was still aware. You can't leave him down there awake and trapped."
"Maybe he's just dead, just bones and dust again," I said.
"Maybe, but if he's not, would you really be able to rest knowing he's down there forever trapped and starving?"
I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for strength and patience, and just help. "Motherfucking son of a bitch." God is okay with me cussing; if He weren't He'd have stopped listening to me a long time ago.
"I know what you're feeling," Nicky said.
"Because you can feel it, too," I said.
"Yep."
"Then you know what I'm going to do."
"We have to dig him up."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"You mean like with shovels ourselves?" Domino said.
"No, legally we need an exhumation order now, and honestly I'd rather be using a backhoe than have anyone close to the coffin with a shovel."
"You just raised the man as a zombie; why not do it again?" Domino asked.
"Because then I won't know if he's alive or dead down there, and that's what I need to know."
"Okay, I get that, but how do we get an exhumation?"
"We need a judge," I said.
"What are you going to tell the judge?" Manny asked.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, tell the judge?" Domino asked.
"We have to give a reason that we want the body exhumed," Manny said.
"I don't suppose you can tell the truth."
I just looked at Domino.
Nicky said it. "Do you really want Anita to tell a judge she raised a flesh-eating zombie and now she wants to make sure it's not trapped undead in its grave?"
"It wasn't technically a flesh eater. It just wanted to eat flesh," Domino said.
"Oh, that's much better," Nicky said.
"Enough," Manny said. "We need a judge and a favor."
"I know who to ask for a favor, and I'm hoping he knows a judge, because I don't know one who would sign off on this for me."
"I can't think of a lie that would work to get us an exhumation order for a grave this old," Manny said.
"Me, either." I rested the shotgun on my arm, dangerous end pointed at the ground, and got my phone out with my other hand. I couldn't leave Warrington down there undead, aware, struggling, starving, afraid for all eternity. There wasn't a sin bad enough to put someone through that kind of hell, and Warrington had seemed like a good man. He so didn't deserve this.
"Who are you going to call?" Nicky asked.
"Zerbrowski, he owes me. I just hope a judge owes him, or he knows someone else who owes him a favor who knows a judge." His number was in my favorites list. I let the phone dial it, and prayed that someone I knew, knew a judge.
32
"TELL ME AGAIN why I'm awake and in a cemetery at the ass end of night?" Zerbrowski asked, as he stood beside me in the dark listening to the backhoe drive closer through the headstones.
"Because you love me like a brother," I said.
"I never had a brother, and I like you better than I like my sisters, though if you tell either of them that I'll deny it."
It made me smile, which was probably why he'd said it; he was good that way.
Manny stepped closer to us as the backhoe got nearer and noisier, and said, "I'm afraid it's my fault, Sergeant Zerbrowski. Anita brought me in to consult, and I was the one who thought the zombie might be trapped down there."
"Explain how a zombie can be trapped in its grave again?" Zerbrowski asked.
I answered, "I told you that this zombie didn't go down like the others. Their eyes should be dead again, just corpses that lie down and wait for the grave to swallow them. This one was afraid and screaming. He went under the ground begging me to save him; I've never had a zombie do that."
Zerbrowski blinked at me behind the faint glint of his silver-framed glasses. "And you're afraid that this one is alive down there, but trapped."
"Not alive, but undead and aware and trapped."
He looked at Manny as if for confirmation, and the other man nodded.
"I'd hoped I'd dreamt that part of Anita's phone call," he
said, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks. He'd apparently put them on over his pajamas, or at least he'd kept his pajama top on instead of getting a shirt, unless he had shirts with little trains all over them. I wouldn't put it past Zerbrowski, but I knew his wife, Katie, would have made sure the shirt "disappeared" out of his wardrobe. They'd been happily married for a couple of decades, but she lived in hope that she'd get his clothes down to things that would look good no matter what he grabbed. I was pretty sure it was a vain hope, but I'd seen the choo-choo pajamas before at late-night crime scenes. Though I guess technically this wasn't a crime scene.
"You know that just adding a tie to the train jammies doesn't fool anyone, right? We still know it's jammies."
He grinned. "Hey, I put on a tie and a suit jacket."
I shook my head at him.
Domino came up to us. "They're asking if they can move the headstone, or if that will mess up what you need to learn from the zombie?"
I shook my head. "They can move it. They just need to be careful not to damage it out of respect for the family, not out of worrying about the zombie."
"I'll tell them," he said, and hurried back through the tombstones toward the waiting men. He still had the shotgun over his shoulder, like I had mine in its tactical sling. Before we got the grave dug out, I'd be loading up on all my gear in the back of the truck, which would put up my customized AR and leave Nicky with the spare he'd grabbed at the Circus.
Zerbrowski said, "I thought zombies couldn't feel emotions."
"Normal ones can't," I said.
"But this one wasn't normal?"
"Not even close," I said.
"No," Manny said.
"Any idea what made it go wonky?"
"Actually, yeah, he'd eaten human flesh while he was alive."
Zerbrowski gave me wide eyes.
"Yeah, it was a first for me, too, but he got trapped up in the mountains during winter, a companion died, and they had enough meat to survive."
"And you think that's what made him go weird?"
"We both do," Manny said.
I nodded. "I'll write a paper about it for the academic publications, and just put the word out to add that to the list of things that put a big fat do not raise this corpse sign over a site."
The backhoe was at the graveside, so we moved farther back so we could hear ourselves talk.
"What else is on the list?" he asked.
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