Weatherby got Sly and Henry Wallace out. “Right,” he said. “The elevator is right there. Let’s pray to all the gods and devils in existence that it still functions properly!”
He headed for the elevator, running under the cover of our guns. I waited until they had made it to the end of the lobby, and hurried to join them. A zombie croupier in a red vest and bowtie reared up to stop me, and I dispatched with a kick and a tommy gun round to the face. Joey Verona and Bobby Belasco reached the elevator next. Weatherby had already punched in the proper key.
“So where is it?” Sly asked, still holding Henry Wallace close. The poor guy was more frightened than any of us. “Why isn’t it coming?!”
“It’s got twelve floors to go through, Mr. Baum!” I cried. “It might take a while!” I turned to Weatherby as the zombies charged us. Now there was nowhere to run. We had to put our backs up against the wall and fight or get eaten. “Weatherby, you got any more of that crow potion?”
“I only produced one vial!” Weatherby shouted, over the gunfire. He had his large revolver in his hands, and fired at the zombies. I wasn’t even surprised when he scored a headshot, blowing out the brains of some unlucky tourist. There were so many zombies that he couldn’t have missed if he tried.
I opened fire with the Thompson, knowing that the clip would empty in any second. Verona swore as he worked the pump on his shotgun, and grabbed an extra shell from his pocket to slam into the breach. Belasco reloaded, slamming in an extra clip to the carbine and firing from the hip.
“This ain’t good, Mort!” he said, grinning as he blew away the incoming zombies. “And let me take this moment, before we’re all devoured, to apologize for everything. Really.” The mock sincerity would strangle me, if the zombies didn’t gobble me down first.
The horde drew closer, second by second, and before I knew it, they were upon us. I fired the tommy gun wildly, blowing apart every corpse that got close to me, and then the drum magazine clicked empty and I was swinging the wooden butt against the skulls of the walking dead and breaking them open, one after the other. Dead fingers grabbed the barrel of the tommy gun and pulled it away. I let it go, then drew out my pistols and opened fire. I couldn’t see anything but flesh and erupting blood, and gun smoke filled my nostrils.
Weatherby was yelling at me, but I couldn’t hear him. I heard a soft bell ring, and felt his arm on my shoulder. “Hurry!” Weatherby cried, and pulled me into the elevator. The zombies tried to get in, but Joey Verona’s last three shotgun shells sent them back in a wave of blood and lead. Then the golden doors clicked shut and the only sign of the zombies was the puddle of blood on the floor and their moans from outside. Weatherby had punched in the top floor, and the elevator started speeding upwards.
Belasco leaned against the wall and smiled. “Not bad, Mort,” he said. “You ever considered a career in espionage?”
“You say another word, Belasco, and I’ll feed you to the zombies myself,” I replied. I pressed my fingers against the cold steel of the elevator doors. “The damn Packard’s down there. It’s gonna get vaporized in an atomic explosion. I’ll never get another ride like that.”
“I’m sure we can find a suitable replacement,” Weatherby said, as he carefully reloaded his revolver. “And it seems we will all escape from this abattoir of a city relatively unharmed. That is something worth being thankful for.”
“Yeah,” Joey Verona muttered, straightening his tie. “Thank the Blessed Virgin for that.”
The elevator doors dinged and rolled open. Verona stepped out, walking down a long hallway with ivory white doors flanking the pale carpet. “All right, boys!” he said, knocking on the door. “Come on, come on! It’s show time!”
The nearest door swung open, and a red-faced wiseguy in a badly fitting olive green suit stepped out, a lupara sawed-off shotgun in his hands. “Boss!” he cried. “Boss, you finally got here! We’s all been worried! We barricaded the doors where the stairs are, and just waited for you. The boys wanted to take off, but I said, boys, I said – we wait for Joey!”
“You done good, Lou,” Joey said. “The rest of you – get out of here! We got a job to do!”
More of Joey Verona’s henchmen came out of the penthouse rooms. I felt a cold chill run down my spine, and I cursed myself a hundred times for being dumber than a sack of dead cats. Joey Verona had brought a whole squad of torpedoes with him, and he’d led us right to them. No wonder he had suggested the Dorado for an escape.
His wiseguys slid out from all angles, covering us with a dozen guns. I holstered my .45s and put a hand in my pocket. Joey didn’t take his eyes off of Henry Wallace and Sly, and Weatherby stepped in front of them, his pistol pointed towards Verona.
“I waited a long time for this,” Joey said. “But when Joey Verona gets paid to do a job, the goddamn job gets done. There’s been a bit of trouble, and I want to thank you, Morton, for helping me through it. But why don’t you let me take care of Sly Baum and little Henry Wallace from here on out?”
“Please…” Sly started to beg. “Not my son. Not my boy.” He held Henry Wallace close to him. The little boy looked away and didn’t say anything. I could only imagine what he was thinking,
Weatherby cocked his revolver. “You move against them and you will die, you mafia thug. I can certainly execute you at this range, and I guarantee you won’t—” One of Joey’s henchman leaned forward and bashed Weatherby with the length of his shotgun. The kid cracked against the wall, and slumped down. The mobsters grabbed his arm and dragged him back. Belasco watched the whole thing, nodding slowly. It was all entertainment for him.
Now Joey had nothing between him and the Baums – except me. “Morty…” he said, racking his shotgun. “Come on now. You don’t want to die. Not for this, not now after you came so far. Let me just whack the gambler and his brat and then we can ride Tommy Gabriel’s helicopter out of here.”
He thought I was beaten and for a few seconds, I thought the same. I had one of my hands in the pocket of my trench coat. There was something in there, which I had brought along with me from the Packard. I had thought about using it against the zombies, but I didn’t have a chance. That had turned out be another stroke of luck.
“Sorry, Joey,” I said. “They’re friends of Weatherby’s. And friends of Weatherby are friends of mine.”
I drew out the pineapple grenade and pulled the pin. I gave it a quick underhand toss, letting it roll along the ground, under the legs of the panicking mobsters, and all the way to the barricaded door at the end of the hallway. The grenade went off, smashing wood outwards and knocking the two nearest button men to the ground.
Joey Verona flinched from the explosion, and then looked at me. “You dumb shamus! You missed!”
“Nope,” I said. “Just listen.”
My grenade had blown open their barricade, and laid out the welcome mat for the zombies. They gratefully accepted my invitation, charging up the stairs and running into the packed hallway. The mobsters turned to fire at them, giving me all the distraction that I needed. The zombies came in, dragging down the nearest gangsters and ripping out their flesh with teeth and bare hands.
I grabbed Weatherby’s hand and helped him up, then turned to Verona as chaos and gunshots filled the hall. “You son of a—” Verona cried, swinging the shotgun to face me. I grabbed the barrel and slugged him in the chin, knocking him back into the mass of zombies.
He started to fight his way out, his pistols cracking at the zombies that surrounded him, and gave me the time to run back and get some space. A couple zombies headed my way, but Belasco and I gunned them down quickly. The mobsters blazed away with their luparas, but got pulled down one after another.
A mobster came towards me, his shotgun leveled. Belasco bashed him with the handle of his machete, and then held the blade to this throat. “You mind telling me where the roof entrance is, pal?” he asked.
With a weak nod, Verona’s gunsel nodded and pointed behind us. I saw a small stairwell,
leading upwards to the roof. Belasco grinned. “Thanks, buddy. You’re a real life-saver.” He grabbed the lapels of the hapless gangster and pushed him backwards, right into the middle of the zombies. I saw his mouth open in a scream, before a zombie took a large chunk out of his face.
Weatherby led Sly and Henry Wallace to the stairwell and Belasco followed. I brought up the rear, my pistols blazing away and keeping the zombies from reaching me. Both automatics were on their last clip, and I was battered, tired and dizzy from the smell of burnt powder and blood. Weatherby reached the stairwell first, and led the Baums upstairs, with Belasco close behind. Weatherby kicked open the door and I saw the blue of the sky, clear and blue as a millionaire’s swimming pool.
I reached the stairwell and started going up, when I heard someone call my name. “Morton Candle!” I turned around and saw Joey Verona. He leaned against the wall, his pink suit ripped to shreds. His pistols were smoking next to him, and he was waist deep in slumped bodies.
“I’m gonna survive this! Don’t know how, but I will!” I heard more footsteps coming behind him, as another swarm of zombies entered the room. I saw Verona raised his hand, holding up a bloody fire axe. “And when I do – when I beat each one of these dead bastards into paste and survive a nuclear bomb – that’s when I’m coming for you.”
“Good luck,” I said. Then I turned away and ran to the stairs, following Bobby Belasco to the roof.
We got there just in time. I stepped into the light, blinking in the desert brightness and reaching the wide roof. I risked a look down at the city and saw that it was now a necropolis. Zombies stalked the streets, running in packs towards any sign of movement, any hint of a snack. To tell you the truth, I don’t think Paradise City looked that much different when the suburban zombies running to their chance at a fortune were still alive.
Sure enough, a helicopter stood on a small helipad in the center of the roof. It was a wide luxury model, painted shining chrome silver. The zombie pilot lay on top of someone, trying to take a bit out of him. Belasco executed the pilot with a pistol shot through the skull, and Weatherby pulled aside the corpse.
Tommy Gabriel, the famous lounge singer, sat up and wiped blood and brains from his thousand-dollar haircut. He wore a slick silver jumpsuit, his dark hair gelled up into an elegant pompadour. “Ah, man!” he whined. “That was my pilot! I don’t know how to fly this crazy thing!”
“But he was a zombie, sir,” Henry Wallace pointed out.
“I don’t want to hold that against him.” Tommy stood up and grinned at me and my friends. “You guys want some autographs before we’re all eaten?”
“I can fly the chopper, Mr. Gabriel,” Belasco suggested. “And may I say what an honor it is to make your acquaintance. I’m a big fan of your classic album ‘Songs of You,’ particularly ‘Love me Like the Lightning Loves the Thunder.’ Brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.” He walked over to the helicopter and opened the door. “We’d best dust-off real quick now. The mushroom clouds will be growing soon.”
We hurried into the helicopter. It was cramped, but Tommy Gabriel traveled in style and his helicopter had enough room for everyone. Henry Wallace sat between his father and Weatherby, and I sat across from them, next to Tommy Gabriel. He even had a small refrigerator aboard, and handed out everyone a cool glass bottle of coke. I felt the cold liquid sparking down my throat as the chopper roared to life and lifted up.
Weatherby sighed. “It’s in Belasco’s hands now,” he said. He glared at me. “We should kill him, Mort. As soon as the helicopter lands.”
“No.” Henry Wallace looked up at Weatherby. “You’re a good guy, Weatherby. You and Mr. Candle are heroes. Heroes don’t kill people, not unless they can help it.” The small boy slumped in his seat, and his father wrapped an arm around him. “And I think there’s been too much killing already.”
“Very well,” Weatherby relented. “I have no wish to cause you distress, Henry Wallace.”
We flew over Paradise City, getting as much ground as we could. Belasco knew we were running low on time, and he put that helicopter through its paces. We were buckled in, but I could see the pavement and buildings zooming by under us, soon replaced by mile of mile of desert.
Then, Tommy was pointed up out of the window. “What’s that plane doing here?” he asked. “This ain’t the time for sightseeing!”
I followed his finger and saw a military bomber swooping down from the sky. I realized what was happening. “Cover your eyes!” I shouted. “Look away!” I closed my eyes and covered them with my hands. There were a few seconds of silence, and then the loudest explosion I had ever heard.
The wind from it knocked the helicopter around like a kite in a storm. I don’t know how Belasco managed to keep us airborne, but I guessed he had gotten us far enough away from the bomb. When I opened my eyes and looked back at Paradise City, I saw nothing but the great pillar of smoke, rising upwards into a bulbous head as it spread out and blasted the resort town to pieces.
Weatherby waited until the ringing in our ears had died down. “Monstrous,” he said. “Weaponized zombie plagues. Atomic warfare. My family’s most depraved occultists could never conceive of this evil, not alone manufacture it on a national scale!”
“Way of the world, kiddo,” I replied.
“But there are still good things, right?” Henry Wallace asked.
I didn’t know what to say, but Weatherby did. The kid had lost his innocence a long time ago, right after seeing his parents shot down before his eyes by Nazi thugs. He didn’t want that to happen to Henry Wallace. “There are, my dear friend,” he said, patting Henry Wallace’s shoulder. “And there will always be good people to fight for them.”
“Thank you, Weatherby,” Henry Wallace replied, as we flew away from the smoldering, radioactive crater that had been Paradise City.
The graveyard around Castle Stein stretched into the distance, a seemingly endless field of tall, stately crosses, tombstones, angels and mausoleums resting on marble columns gone gray and black with age. All of the dead members of the Stein family, from decadent aristocrat to depraved occultist to pioneering mad scientist, found their final resting place somewhere under this dark earth. Stranger symbols than crosses marked many of the tombstones, along with careful carvings of the faces of the past Stein family, staring out with marked disdain at the living.
Walking among these tomb stones was a little boy, no older than eight years of age, with a roll of white paper and a crayon held gingerly between his thin fingers. He had dark hair, straight and short, and very bright blue, curious eyes between round spectacles. He wore a schoolboy uniform from a prestigious boarding school in England, with its dark vest, coat, tie and shorts, but seemed uneasy in it. There was a slight tremor to the way he moved, like he could fall to pieces at any moment. His name was Weatherby Ignatius Stein.
The little boy paused over one of the graves of his ancestors, an old slab that must have dated from the Renaissance. He looked around the tomb stones, through the rows of graves to the tangled, almost primal trees of the Black Forest beyond. “Oh, that’s interesting,” Weatherby said, his chirping accent a strange, hesitant mixture of German and upper class English. “I don’t think I have this one in my collection.”
He pressed the paper against the top of the ancient inscription, and began to make a careful rubbing. Some boys his age collected stamps. He collected the names of his dead ancestors. Every time he made one, he would ask his father, Dr. Wolfgang Stein, about their legacy, and receive a story more wonderful and bizarre than any that could be found in a book or cinema. “Our family has its legacy, my dear little one,” Dr. Stein would say, as he patted Weatherby’s head. “Even if we have nothing else, we have our legacy.”
“I wonder what your story will be, Viscount Wagner Vaniah Stein?” Weatherby asked as he finished the rubbing. “Were you a hero or a villain? Well, you can’t very well be worse than the villains who rule over us now.”
He was right.
On the highest pinnacle of Castle Stein, which rose in a gothic tower high over the peaks of the Black Forest trees, the swastika-emblazoned flag of the Third Reich fluttered proudly. The Nazis had arrived a few months ago, and now fully occupied the castle. Weatherby didn’t understand the situation properly, but he knew his mother – and himself – belonged to a group that the Nazis didn’t like. If Weatherby’s father didn’t do what the Nazis wanted, something bad would happen to them all.
Weatherby finished making his rubbing and tucked it in his pocket. He looked up at the sky, gray and hanging over them like the flat blade of a sword. A few drops of rain started to fall down, and Weatherby stepped away from the tomb stones. He turned around and started hurrying back to the castle. His black dress shoes pounded quickly through the mud, and he soon reached the hallway leading inside Castle Stein.
He stepped carefully onto the flagstones, but then spotted a hulking form leaning against the wall, a cigarette burning in his mouth. The large man stepped forward, seeping out of the shadows to tower over Weatherby. It was Sergeant Morgen, one of Castle Stein’s occupiers. He was a large, brutal slab of a man, with dark eyes set in a square head. He wore a peaked cap and a rumpled dull olive Waffen-SS uniform with mustard stains on the death’s heads at the collar.
Sergeant Morgen let one of his hands rest on the heavy luger at his side. “Where are you going, boy?” he asked. “You getting out of the rain? The rats always scamper out of the rain.” He blocked Weatherby’s way, licking his thick lips with a large tongue. “And, often, right into traps.”
The Stein & Candle Detective Agency, Vol. 1: American Nightmares (The Stein & Candle Detective Agency #1) Page 15