He pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his sweating brow. It wasn’t that hot, so I couldn’t tell if he was overwrought from his experience with the zombies, or if running into a giant redneck with a gun had him sweating bullets. I reckon either one was a pretty valid response.
He went on with his tale. “A man spoke to me from within the church, exhorting me to leave town and send help. He told me that they were overrun with zombies, but they only hunted a night. So, the entire surviving townsfolk were taking refuge in the church, praying for some assistance.”
“I would have expected most of them to be hiding in that tavern you mentioned, seeking aid from spirits of a different kind,” I muttered.
Terlindor looked over at me with a sad smile. “According to the man in the church, some had attempted that very thing. But when I went to the tavern, I found nothing but a shattered front window and some smears of blood on the walls and floor. There were no townsfolk remaining.”
“Well, shit,” I said. “So we’ve got a whole town’s population trapped in a church against nightly zombie raids, and they sent you out to find somebody to help them?”
“That is the situation in a nutshell, yes,” Terlindor replied.
“I reckon y’all would take exception to me saying we oughta make camp here, sleep the night ten miles away from the shitload of zombies, and plow through in the morning, leaving the zombies to somebody else, wouldn’t you?”
Skeeter was the only one who said anything, and all he said was, “Yes, I would take exception to that asshole plan.” Joe just folded his arms and gave me the same steely glare he usually reserved for when I was confessing something particularly stupid and egregious. Amy was the one who tipped the scales, though. She knows how to get me every time. She gave me her “I’m disappointed in you” face, and all debate was over. It’s not really fair, to be honest. She knows I can’t handle the disappointed face. I can even hold out against the puppy dog eyes for a little while, but the disappointed face is an instant win for her. Good thing for me she doesn’t drag it out that often.
“Okay.” I turned back to Terlindor. “Did you see any of the zombies?”
“No. I did as the man suggested, and I got back on the road as fast as I could. I stopped only to water my horses. I didn’t even take them out of the traces.”
“Did the people in the church tell you anything about the zombies?” Amy asked, slipping back into her role as federal agent investigator.
“No, my lady. They only said they were zombies.”
“So, we don’t know if they’re slow zombies or fast zombies,” Amy said with a frown.
“Do they even have fast zombies in Fairyland?” Skeeter asked.
“I hope not,” I said. “Fast zombies suck.”
Almost three hours later, Skeeter looked around the deserted town of Dun Sheene and declared, “The old dude was right. This place is creepy as hell.”
I couldn’t argue with him. It was creepy. There were eight or ten little cottages, cozy places with thatched roofs and wooden doors, but they all seemed to be locked up tight. The doors were shut, and the curtains drawn over every window. No children roamed the streets, and no one worked in the fields as we walked into the village. All the gardens were abandoned, and the fire in the forge at the smithy was dark and cold. If any place I’d ever been looked like the perfect setting for a horror movie, it was Dun Sheene.
“Fan out and check the buildings,” Amy said, drawing her pistol. “If there are zombies, go for head shots. I don’t know if lead will kill a Fae zombie, or if it has to be cold iron, but at the very least it’ll slow it down until Bubba can get there and pulp its head.” She looked over to me, and I nodded.
I pulled the pair of caestus from my belt and slipped the iron-banded gloves on. The knuckles had cold iron studs screwed into them, making my fists pretty damn lethal weapons against fairies. With the protection of the heavy leather and spikes, I wasn’t afraid to punch a zombie to death, either.
Amy and Skeeter went left, and Joe and I went right. I flung the door to the first cottage open, and Joe darted inside with his rifle out and sweeping ahead of him before I even got the door all the way open. I followed, but it only took us a couple of seconds to see that the little house was deserted.
“Clear!” I called across the dirt path to the others.
“Clear!” Amy hollered back. Part of me worried about making so much noise in the middle of a zombie infestation, but the rest of me decided that dead things shouldn’t be able to hear, so it didn’t matter. I didn’t know what kind of zombies we were dealing with, so I couldn’t tell if they were still somewhat sentient or not.
We repeated the process half a dozen times, with each house proving to be as deserted as the last. After sweeping the dozen houses that made up the center of town and giving the blacksmith’s shop and attached home a quick once-over, we gathered in the center of the street. “Well, there ain’t nothing in here,” I said.
“Yeah,” Skeeter agreed. “If there’s any people here at all, they’re either in the bar or the church.” He pointed to the two largest buildings in town, set off about twenty yards from the row of houses. One had a small porch in front of it and a glass door with a mug etched on the glass. Another dozen yards from the houses stood a structure that looked a lot like every small-town church in our world, right down to the white clapboard construction and the steeple.
“So far it seems that everything Terlindor has told us is true,” Joe said. “Should we just assume that the rest is true as well and move on to the church?”
“Nah,” I said. “You know what happens when you assume, right? You make an ass out of yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s how that saying goes, Bubba,” Amy said.
“Really? Ah, whatever. Either way, I’m all about investigating the bar first.” I turned and took a step in that direction, but Amy stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“You sure you aren’t just looking to pilfer some unattended booze, Bubba?” she asked.
“Would I do that?” I put on my best innocent face, but it didn’t stop all three of my best friends in the world from standing right in front of me and nodding like a bobble-head Jesus on a trucker’s dash. “Well, maybe,” I admitted. “But zombie hunting is thirsty work, so you can’t blame a guy for trying.”
“We do need to check it out,” Skeeter said, unslinging the shotgun from his shoulder. “Why don’t me and Bubba check it out while y’all negotiate with the fairies in the church to let us in?”
“What makes you think we should negotiate?” Joe asked.
“Uncle, who would you send in to ask somebody nicely, the preacher and the pretty girl, or the giant tattooed hillbilly and the black queen? Remember, there are no black people in Fairyland, so they might not know what I am and decide to shoot me on sight. And there’s a better than even chance they’ll think Bubba is a monster. Like a bugbear or something.”
“I’m gonna choose not to be insulted, since I don’t know what that is,” I said.
“Good call,” Joe said. “Fine. We’ll go talk to the townsfolk in the church while you go make sure the alcohol is safe.”
“I know exactly where it will be the safest,” I replied, grinning.
“If you do your Fat Bastard impression from Austin Powers, you are going into that zombie nest alone,” Skeeter warned me.
I stifled a “get in ma belly” roar and walked to the bar, a little disappointed that I didn’t get to do my bit, but my spirits were lifted by the potential of booze in my near future. The bar was as deserted as every other building in town, but it had one noticeable advantage—a dozen bottles of whiskey sitting on a shelf behind the scarred wooden bar.
The whole place looked a little run down more than lived-in, like the town was a couple of drunks short of keeping the place prosperous. I pulled the stopper out of one of the bottles and had it almost to my lips when I heard something odd.
“Hey, what’s that noise?” I turned
to see a narrow door beside the end of the bar that we hadn’t noticed before. There was a scratching noise coming from it, and it got louder and more frantic the closer I got to the door.
“Bubba, don’t open that door,” Skeeter warned.
“Skeeter, it won’t be nothing. We’ve covered every inch of this place, and we haven’t seen a single zombie. The old man said they don’t come around until after dark, and we’ve still got a good couple hours of daylight yet.” I put my hand on the doorknob and turned, pulling the door open.
I’ve really got to learn to listen to people. A pair of zombies lurched out of the door, and I had just enough time to look out the front window of the bar to see the sun dipping below the horizon as they came after me. I’ll say it here, just this once, for posterity.
Skeeter was right, dammit.
4
“ShitshitshitshitshitSHIT!” I yelped, staggering back from the door and trying not to land on my ass with a couple hundred pounds of zombie fairy on top of me. The good news was that these zombies were the slow, stupid kind. The better news was that because they started off as fairies, they were pretty small and light. So once I had my balance, it wasn’t too hard to keep them off me.
Skeeter was about as much help as I expected him to be, which is to say none whatso-damn-ever. He took one look at the zombies and hauled ass around the bar to the front door. I fended off the first zombie’s snapping teeth by jamming my caestus into its mouth, then I drew Bertha from under my left arm, pressed the barrel of the big pistol to the side of the zombie’s head, and made a fifty-caliber attitude adjustment.
Bertha is a loud lady of a pistol, and in confined spaces, it’s even worse. When she barked, the zombie’s head damn sure exploded, but I wasn’t too sure what shape my eardrums were in. Either way, I swung her around and blew the shit out of the second zombie, and that was all anybody needed to write about that. I holstered Bertha, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the shelf behind the bar, and walked to the door, where Skeeter was staring through the glass like he was watching Avengers 7 or something.
“What is it, Skeeter?” I asked, but when he turned to me, I couldn’t hear him. I shook my head and pointed to my ears, and he nodded.
“THERE’S A BUNCH MORE ZOMBIES OUT THERE,” Skeeter yelled, pointing out the window. I looked over his shoulder, and sure enough, there were a couple dozen zombies shambling up the main street of the town. Where the hell they came from, I had no idea. There weren’t any zombies in any of the houses in town, we hadn’t seen any graveyards or anything like that, and we’d only been in the bar a few minutes before the sun went down. Which also seemed to happen too fast. I would have sworn we had a couple hours’ worth of daylight left. Damn magical dimensions, screwing with time and shit like that.
I turned around in a circle, giving the interior of the bar a good look to make sure there were no more zombies inside, then walked to the door. “This is going to suck, Skeeter.”
He winced, then nodded. I might have been talking a little louder than normal on account of the ringing in my ears, but it sure wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. I stepped onto the small porch of the tavern and turned to Skeeter. “Get to the church and get inside with Joe and Amy. I’ll hold them off until you’re inside; then I’ll come in and join you.”
He moved his lips, but I didn’t hear anything. I shook my head at him, and he pursed his lips, then yelled, “HOW WILL WE KNOW IT’S YOU AND NOT A ZOMBIE?”
“I’ll be the one cussing. The zombies will just be moaning.” He turned to run, but I grabbed the back of his belt. “Here, take this.” I handed him my bottle of whiskey. “Don’t you let Amy drink all that. I’ve been sober this whole damn trip, and if I survive a zombie attack in Fairyland, I intend to change that first thing.”
Skeeter nodded and ran off up the street toward the church. I looked at the passel of zombies heading my way and let out a sigh. This was going to suck. I stepped down the two rickety steps onto the dirt path that passed for a main street and slipped off my caestae. I needed all my limited manual dexterity to change magazines as fast as possible, so my iron-clad gloves would have to sit this one out. I tossed the gloves onto the porch and drew Bertha. The zombies were about twenty yards away, so it was time to get to killing.
After taking out the two in the bar, I had five rounds left before I would have to reload. I made them count, steadying myself against one of the porch railings to give me more accuracy. I dropped four zombies with five shots, then ejected the spent magazine. I pulled a spare out from under my right arm and slapped it home as the horde shambled ever closer. Seven shots, five zombies down. The other two rounds did damage, but they weren’t head shots, so they weren’t kills. I mean, a shot in the shoulder from a fifty-caliber pistol will kill a human, and pretty much anything else in the world, but when you’re shooting something already dead, you gotta be accurate.
I ejected the second magazine, letting it drop to the dirt next to its brother, and slapped another home. The mass of undead was less than ten yards away now, but I managed to drop another four before the slide locked open. I popped the magazine release and reached in my back pocket for my last clip. Seven shots left, and there were still a dozen zombies just a few feet away. This was about to suck.
The only upside to the zombies getting closer to me was that I hit six out of seven head shots this time, so I only had half a dozen zombies closing on me when I ran out of bullets. As much as it hurt me to treat her that way, I didn’t even holster Bertha, I just dropped her to the ground and drew Great-Grandpappy Beauregard’s sword. I didn’t know if I was good enough to take out half a dozen zombies without a gun or some backup, but I sure wasn’t just going to lay down and let the smelly dead bastards take me without a fight.
I stepped back up onto the porch, using the railings to funnel the zombies into a tighter kill box, and when the first one bumped into the steps and leaned forward, I sliced the top of its head off like I was Gallagher in Las Vegas. It dropped, fouling the steps of the one behind it, and I jabbed it through the eye socket like an oversized Michonne from The Walking Dead. It fell on top of its buddy, and I was building a nice little zombie barricade to hide behind. Until the porch railing to my left cracked and gave way and two zombies clambered up onto the porch beside me. Another one climbed over the pile of its buddies in front of me, straight into my sword.
Three down, but all three of the ones still standing were coming at me all at once. I backed up, but the porch was wide enough for two zombies to come at me at the same time, so I ducked under their grasping arms and lashed out with the sword. I don’t know what the hell Great-Grandpappy made this sword out of, but it cut through muscle and bone like it was warm butter, and two zombies fell right off their legs onto the porch. I stabbed one through the back of the head, stomped the other one’s skull flat, and stepped forward, driving the steel blade through the eye of the last zombie.
I wiped the blade down on a dead zombie’s shirt, slid it back in the sheath over my shoulder, and picked up Bertha. I promised her a good cleaning as soon as we got back to anything resembling civilization and put her back in her holster. I picked up my caestae from the porch, clipped them to my belt, and looked over at the church to see if I could get a glimpse of Amy, Joe, or Skeeter. I’ll admit to having a little bit of a desire for Amy to have seen me being all badass, but it was not to be.
“Hey!” I yelled down the street. “Hey! I killed the zombies! Y’all can come out now, it’s safe!” I even jumped up and down and waved a little, hoping they’d see me and come on out. Nothing. At least, I thought it was nothing at first, then I saw the glint of a tiny bit of reflected twilight off glass in the church bell tower, and I realized that Joe was up there with his rifle.
I waved at him again, trying to catch his attention. He didn’t wave back, but the rifle did crack as he shot at something.
“Hey!” I yelled. “What the hell are you shooting at? I killed all the…shit.” I realized just how ba
d I had jinxed myself right about the time I turned around to see another horde of zombies, this one more than twice as big as the first, shambling up the street right at me. “Shit,” I repeated, and hauled ass up the street toward the church.
I didn’t get very far since zombies poured out of the spaces around all the houses and jammed the street between me and the church. Seriously, where did all these dead people come from? It was like every damn tree in the forest between the edge of Summer and here turned into an extra from Z-Nation. “Puppies and kittens, people,” I muttered, jamming my hands down into the iron-wrapped gloves and drawing my sword.
I waded into the sea of zombies, really hoping these were magical zombies and not plague zombies. I don’t mind chopping up any kind of walking dead things, but it’s really hard to keep from getting bitten when you’re fencing with dozens of dead assholes. So I just resigned myself to some flesh wounds and hoped the worst I got out of the deal was a heavy need for penicillin. After all, Skeeter was the closest thing I could find for brains, and he wouldn’t be worth more than a light snack anyway.
The first zombies went down easy, heads flying from shoulders like I was warming up in a batting cage. I took down a good dozen of them in half the distance to the church, but my arms were starting to really burn. Bertha’s a heavy girl, and emptying four magazines worth of ammo into zombie heads, followed up by chopping down ten or twenty more walking corpses was a hell of an upper body workout. Eventually I had to just slide my blade back into the sheath and wade in, fists swinging.
The problem with punching dead fairies, as opposed to live ones, is that they don’t feel pain. You slam a live faerie in the face with a cold iron glove, he’s gonna fall on his ass with a smoking handprint on his cheek. There might even be a little screeching, depending on how hard you hit. You hit an undead faerie with the same glove, you’d better crush his damn skull because he ain’t going down easy. And skulls are pretty damn solid, even dead ones.
Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 4 Page 31