The chrome pistol hung loose and casual in his grip, like an extension of his hand. He pointed more than aimed.
Alex pulled the trigger.
Noise and flame exploded from the end of the barrel.
Emelia Warren's head split like a dropped pumpkin.
He pulled the trigger as he ran, again and again, firing so fast the shots seemed to blur together, the sound a roar like a string of firecrackers. Orange and blue flames spat from the chromed barrel.
Brass shell casings spun crazily and glinted in the desert sun. The oncoming zombies dropped, one after another.
Mrs. Haversham, the school principal, jerked once and fell as the right side of her face vaporized. Emil Hicks, the old mine foreman, looked deeply concerned as his brains exited via the back of his skull.
Alex's gun ran dry and the slide locked open. He had the fresh magazine in before the first six zombies hit the ground. He hit the slide release and the chrome slide snapped shut. Alex fired seven times, as fast as he could pull the trigger. Seven more zombies ended in geysers of blood and bone and gray matter. The dead—the twice dead—lay in piled heaps, thirteen in all, from thirteen bullets.
The remainder shuffled toward him like nothing had happened.
Alex sprinted through the crowd of zombies. He kicked and shoved the shambling horrors, dodging like a running back. He stooped and snatched up Chet's baseball bat at a run.
He gave the bat a spin, then crushed Neil Cowan's skull with an overhead smash. Next up, Doris Perkins. Donnie Walton. Ed Moore. Gloria Watkins.
Darryl Perkins, activity manager at the Prosperity Retirement Village, was the last zombie standing. Alex wound back with a two-handed grip, drove the bat in a horizontal line, and smashed Darryl so hard that the remains of his skull wrapped around the bat. The lifeless corpse slid to the ground.
Silence descended on Main Street. Alex stood, panting softly, the blood-spattered bat hanging loosely from one hand. The handcuffs still dangled from his wrist. All around him, like petals fallen from a flower, lay strewn piles of gore—caved-in skulls, splattered brains, shattered bone and cartilage, vertebrae, and teeth. Blood dripped steadily from the end of the bat and splashed on the pavement. The wind hummed softly.
The survivors shuffled out into the street and stared at the scene in shock.
Josh finally broke the silence. “Holy shit, dude.”
Alex bent down and picked up the pistol magazine Harbaugh had dropped. He carefully threaded his way through the maze of lifeless, broken corpses.
The sheriff sat on the ground, nodding and trembling, staring off into nothing. Still dangling the bat from one hand, Alex dropped the pistol magazine at Harbaugh's feet. “You know somethin'? I don't think I feel like gettin' arrested today.”
Harbaugh slowly picked up the magazine. He stared blankly at it and nodded.
Rudy paced back and forth, rubbing his face and whispering, “Jesus Christ, sweet Jesus.” Emily stumbled toward the pile of chewed meat that used to be Chet, her hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes. Josh took a step toward her, stopped, and stood there dumbly.
Rachael was as pale as the corpses. She shuffled silently down the street, looking down at the mess that used to be her neighbors.
Josh turned in a slow circle, looking at the carnage all over the street. He ran a hand through his hair and said, “Holy shit, dude. Zombies. I mean, real fuckin' zombies.”
Alex approached Josh. “Kid, how'd you know that a head shot was gonna do the trick? You know somethin' about all this?”
“No, dude.” Josh shook his head vigorously. “I mean, it's just what I know from the movies and TV. Holy shit, this is just like the movies!”
Alex scratched his head. “Well, in the movies, where do the zombies come from?”
Josh shrugged. “Nobody ever says. They just show up. I mean, sometimes they have, like, theories, like radiation, or a disease, or Armageddon or something. But most of the time, nobody ever knows.”
The vampire hunter nodded. “Any of these movies got any other weird shit, like cell phones going dead, power going out, cars won't start? That kind of thing?”
Josh shook his head. “None of the movies I've seen.”
“Huh.” Alex paused, lost in thought for a moment. “In the movies, how do they fix it?”
Josh swallowed. “In the movies, the zombies win.”
Alex raised his eyebrows. “Well, shit.”
Harbaugh rose shakily to his feet. He turned to Alex. “I can't believe you're actually asking him that. Like some bullshit from a movie is going to help?”
Alex turned around to face Harbaugh. “I don't suppose you got a better idea? Seems to me like this kid knows more about zombies than all of us put together.”
Harbaugh glared. “They aren't fucking zombies.”
“You know, Jim.” Rudy pulled a red handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Nobody has a better theory right now. I think maybe we ought to just go with zombie. I mean, for lack of a better term.”
The sheriff muttered, “Whatever.”
“Or, you know, we could come up with something else,” said Josh. “Nobody says zombie in a zombie movie. They're always zeds, or walkers, or shamblers or something. Why don't we call them eaters? Or, ooh, feeders!”
Rudy sighed. “Let's just stick with zombie.” He turned to Alex. “And say there, mister, that was some fine shooting. When you say you're in pest control, I'm getting the feeling you weren't talking about ants and spiders.”
Alex shrugged and looked down the street, his eyes hidden in the shade of his hat brim. He sniffed. “If y'all want the truth, I'm a vampire hunter by trade. The name's Alex Rains.”
Harbaugh threw up his hands. “Oh, for fuck's sake. Are you kidding me? First zombies, now vampires. Do you hunt unicorns and leprechauns, too?”
Alex picked at his teeth with his fingernail. He laughed softly. “Nah. Just vampires.” He glanced at the piles of corpses. “But it's startin' to look like I gotta update my resume.”
“Oh, man,” said Josh. “Are you serious? A vampire hunter? Like, real vampires? That sounds so cool. Do you have, like, superpowers? How do you get to be a vampire hunter?”
Alex pondered the question. “Well, mostly, folks get into the business after they have everything they ever loved in their life taken away, everything what gives 'em meaning or joy, leaving 'em a hollow, burnt-out shell of a human being, with nothin' to sustain 'em but the thought of revenge.”
Josh looked crestfallen. “Oh. I was thinking, like, a trade school or something.”
Harbaugh turned to the assembled crowd. “I can't believe you're even listening to this lunatic. There's no such goddamned things as vampires.”
“I seem to recall that's the same thing you said about zombies, hoss. And yet, here we are.”
The sheriff said, “Kid, don't listen to this asshole. If he's a vampire hunter, I'm Marlon Brando.”
“The sheriff is right,” said Tom, approaching the group. “Vampires are total bullshit. They're a false flag, manufactured to distract us from the truth.”
Alex smirked knowingly. “And what truth is that?”
“Oh, jeeze.” Rachael rolled her eyes. “Buckle up, folks. We're headed to crazy town.”
“Oh, just go ahead and laugh. Pretty soon you'll all see. This is just the start,” said Tom.
“Start of what, exactly?” asked Alex.
“The invasion,” said Tom, his eyes opening wider. “It's the Greys, most likely. It could be the Grey aliens, the Reds, the Nephilim, or even the Lizard People. It's too early to say for sure. There are a lot of factions vying for control of this earth. Whoever it is, this has to be the first phase of their plan to weaken and disorient us. But pretty soon the masks will come off, and we'll know who we're dealing with.”
“So, your theory is that it's . . . space aliens,” Rachael deadpanned.
“Trans-dimensional aliens,” Tom corrected her. “Oh sure, you think I'm crazy.” He
turned to the rest of the crowd. “But I've been studying this for years. It's finally happening. If you'd just been listening to my podcast, maybe you'd be more prepared for this sort of thing.”
Rachael laughed. “Oh, I've listened to your podcast.”
Alex shrugged. “Hell, y'all can believe what you want. It really ain't none of my concern. But this whole herd of dead folks what just tried to eat us? Well, that does concern me a bit. So I tell you what, let's just concentrate on that for right now.”
Grudgingly, Harbaugh nodded. “Fair enough.”
From around the far corner by the sheriff's station, Dan Sinder appeared, pedaling his bicycle. He saw the pile of corpses, and his jaw dropped. He dismounted and let the bike fall to the ground as he stumbled through the scattered dead, gaping at horror after mutilated horror. At last, he raised his head and focused on the survivors.
“Oh my God, what happened?” he yelled as he ran toward them. “They're all dead! Oh, God, they're all dead!” He ran to Emily and put his hands on her shoulders. “Emily, are you okay? Is everybody okay?”
“It's okay, Mr. Sinder,” said Emily. “I'm fine.”
“Everybody is fine, Dan,” said Harbaugh.
Rachael nodded toward the pile of corpses. “Except for them.”
Sinder said, “What in heaven's name happened here, Sheriff?”
“We're a little in the dark ourselves.” Harbaugh sighed, then admitted, “We'd likely all be dead now if we didn't happen to have this one-man killing machine visiting town today.”
Sinder turned and looked at Alex. “You did all this?”
Alex shrugged. “Most of it, yeah.”
Harbaugh said, “Dan, how in the hell did you get past all of them?”
“I was heading home when I saw them heading down Old Mine Road. Something happened . . . You're all going to laugh, but . . . I believe God spoke to me. He told me to hide. So I pulled off the road and hid in a backyard. And I saw them . . . I saw them eat Mr. Haversham. Oh, God, it was horrible. By God's grace, they passed by me. I tried to continue on Old Mine Road, but it's like this everywhere. The whole town is overrun. I heard screams and gunshots coming from this direction. I decided I had to come and see if there was anything I could do to help.”
The sheriff nodded toward the mess on the street. “Well, maybe you can help. You're the scientist. You have any theories here? Can you think of anything that could cause dead people to start walking around and eating the living?”
“I . . . I wouldn't even want to hazard a guess. This is entirely unprecedented. I mean, you say they were dead? Even before . . . this?” Sinder gestured toward the carnage on the street.
“Dead as a frog with a brick up its ass,” said Alex.
“I mean, take a look at Buddy there,” said Harbaugh. “He's as dead as dead gets, and he's still squirming around.”
“Could this be some kind of new disease?” asked Rudy. “Bio-terrorism?”
“Remember, the power is out, too,” said Tom
“Not just the power,” Josh added. “Everything. Flashlights don't even work.”
“I'm telling you, it's aliens. What else could it be?”
“Let's not go off the deep end just yet,” Harbaugh said. “This is some weird shit, there's no doubt of that, but there's got to be an explanation. It can't be too long before somebody notices that Prosperity's dropped off the map. What we need to do is get to the sheriff's station, arm ourselves, and do what we can to protect the town until reinforcements show up.”
“How do you know it's just us, though?” said Tom. “What if it's the whole world?”
Harbaugh didn't respond.
“Ah, Sheriff?” said Alex, peering down the street. “I hate to interrupt such meaty philosophical discourse, but I think we might have us a problem.”
At the corner of Main Street and Old Mine Road, a second crowd of zombies rounded the corner, larger than the first. At the same moment, another contingent came around the corner from the direction of the gas station, cutting off their escape toward the highway.
Alex said, “And I'm clean out of bullets.”
“Jesus,” said Harbaugh. He stood for a moment as he watched the horde approach. “Everybody in the diner. Now.”
Everyone hurried into the diner. Rudy rolled down the metal security grille and turned the key.
A shotgun blast sounded from the direction of the highway and echoed down Main Street. Then two more. A figure rounded the corner, running full tilt.
“It's Buck,” said Harbaugh. “Goddammit.”
Buck, still dressed in his blue mechanic's coveralls, sprinted towards Main Street with a half-dozen dead shuffling after him. He carried a matte black shotgun easily in one hand. When he saw the horde of zombies closing from the other direction, his step faltered.
“Shit,” said Rudy.
“Open the gate,” said Alex. “I'm goin' back out.”
Rudy bent down and put his key back in the lock.
“Wait a second,” said Rachael, “we're safe here. What if we throw that gate open and they get in?”
“Are you serious, Rach?” Rudy said. “That's Buck Henry out there! God, are you that bitter about—”
“I'm with Rachael on this one,” said Tom. “It's tough beans. Buck's on his own.”
“I don't believe you people!” said Rudy. “Sheriff, are you gonna—” He turned and saw Harbaugh, slumped unconscious in one of the booth seats.
“What if they get in here, though?” Lila whimpered.
Josh looked around with a look of disgust. “What's wrong with you people?”
“Kid,” said Tom, “you wanna go outside and help him?”
Josh said nothing.
Tom folded his arms. “Yeah, that's what I thought.”
“I'm afraid they're right,” said Sinder, very reasonably. “We have to be logical about this. We'd be risking nine lives for the chance of saving one. There's nothing wrong with looking out for yourself.”
“No,” said Emily. “No! It's wrong! We can't just leave him out there to die if there's anything we can do. If you won't help him, then I—”
She stopped at the sound of the security grille rattling open and turned in time to see Alex slide underneath, the baseball bat clutched in his hand.
“Or, we could do that,” said Josh.
Buck dodged like a running back as he threaded through the mess of zombies, smashing the butt of his shotgun into any mouth that got too close.
The reanimated corpse of Mr. Covington, the high school biology teacher, seized Buck's wrist. Buck stumbled and lost a step. He pulled loose a moment later, but his momentum was gone. The zombies closed in on all sides. He swung the shotgun wildly by the barrel, cracking skulls left and right, but the undead crowded closer. Mr. Covington grabbed Buck by the shoulders and opened his mouth wide.
Alex's bat smashed Mr. Covington between the eyes with a meaty crunch. Blood poured from the zombie's nose as it collapsed. Alex swung again and again. Bones snapped. Heaps of corpses littered the cracked asphalt.
Cold, dead hands seized Alex's wrists. He pulled, but they held fast. Teeth descended toward his arm.
Buck jabbed straight out with the shotgun butt, connecting solidly with the zombie's face. It let go of Alex and staggered backward. Alex shoved the zombie back further, then finished it with a home-run smash.
Another zombie lunged at Alex from his blind side. A pistol shot cracked, and the creature's head burst like a popped pimple. Alex glanced over to the doorway of the diner and saw Harbaugh there, leaning against the doorframe and holding a smoking pistol.
“The diner!” Alex screamed at Buck. “Get to the diner!”
Buck nodded.
With careful, precise shots, Harbaugh made a hole in the wall of zombies. Buck and Alex drove hard, shoving and dodging their way through the crowd. They slid through the door of the diner. Alex's hat fell off his head, and he reached back out to grab it just as Rudy slammed the security grille shut. A w
all of zombies slammed against the steel mesh.
Buck rolled over onto his back and stared at the ceiling for a moment, panting. He giggled madly. “And here I thought it was going to be a boring day. Fucking zombies. Who would have thought?”
“See?” said Josh, looking pointedly at the sheriff. “Zombies.”
Harbaugh threw his hands up in exasperation.
Buck sat up. He said, “I owe you one, mister. As soon as this is all sorted out, I'm gonna buy you a beer. Hell, a whole case of beers. And your motel room is comped.”
“Shit, weren't nothing,” said Alex.
Buck looked at the waitress. His expression cooled. “Rachael,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Buck.”
Outside, the crowd of zombies pressed against the security grille, chewing on the steel links and poking their fingers through the holes.
Rudy shut and locked the glass door. The noise from outside diminished. “Jesus,” he said. He plopped down into one of the stools at the counter. “Well, we're inside. Now what?” Everybody sat for a moment, in shock, staring at the grinding mob of corpses outside. Without air conditioning, the little diner grew steadily warmer.
Harbaugh sat down heavily in one of the booths. He set his pistol down on the counter and rubbed his face with his hands.
Alex took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced the hat again. “Well, when we boil it right down, it's pretty simple. Way I figure is, we got two choices. We can stay, or we can go.”
“Where the hell would we go?” said Rudy. “Cars don't work. There's twenty miles of desert in every direction.”
Alex smiled. “Hell, I don't know. I just got here myself. Anybody got any suggestions?”
“Wait,” said Rachael, “are we sure that all the cars don't work? I mean, what if the sheriff just had a dead battery?”
“I tried my Toyota and the tow truck,” said Buck. “Both dead.”
“At least we're in a restaurant,” said Lila. “We should have food.”
“Not as much as you'd think,” Rudy answered.
“We've got plenty of soda and chips,” said Rachael.
“Ultimately,” said Rudy, “the decision comes down to the nature of this . . . this whatever this is. The question is, what in the hell happened? And how widespread is it? Can we just hunker down and wait for the cavalry, or is it like this everywhere?”
Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter (Book 2): Hell Night Page 6