Jailbait Zombie

by Mario Acevedo

  “That’s not funny. I lose control sometimes and have shit in my pants. So no more shit jokes, okay?”

  Okay. Better that I look sympathetic. “You’re sure you have Huntington’s?”

  “One hundred percent positive. I might live to thirty. Most likely twenty-eight.”

  Dead at twenty-eight? Wasn’t a diagnosis but a death sentence. I’d really be shitting my pants. “With a diagnosis like that, you seem almost cheery.”

  “Because I have a way out.”

  “Which is?”

  “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Make me a vampire and I won’t die.”

  My kundalini noir lunged in attack. I clenched my muscles to keep from showing the reaction.

  “In case you’re unfamiliar with the concept, we vampires are undead. We exist with one foot in the grave. Sometimes we sleep there. Being a vampire is no picnic.”

  “Neither is dying of Huntington’s.”

  “We have other problems.”

  She asked, “Do vampires die of Huntington’s?”

  “Not that I know of. We’re immune to most human diseases. How do you know about vampires? About me?”

  “My hallucinations.”

  “How?”

  “I get images in my head.”

  “Images?”

  “Perceptions. I wish I could explain it better but I can’t. It’s like describing colors to the blind, sounds to the deaf.” Phaedra stared at the dashboard. For an instant, her eyes turned vacant. “I send out special ‘thoughts’ and they wrap around what they find. At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. Over time, I learned to focus my thoughts and I began to create sharper perceptions of things.”

  “What things?”

  “Things in a place.”

  “Place?”

  “A gigantic void. Like another world with nothing in it but a way to get from one location to another.”

  Was Phaedra talking about the astral plane?

  She continued, “We have time and space and I’ve found something more. In this void I can see another side to everything.”

  Void? She must’ve read the confusion on my face, and her forehead clenched in frustration. “Sorry, that’s not the right word, but I can’t think of a better one. Being in this void made me think differently about the world. I began searching. Maybe in this void, this dimension, I’d find it.”

  “Find what?”

  “A chance to not die like my mother. What happened to her was so wrong.” Phaedra’s eyes glistened. “Day by day, she lost more and more control over her body and mind. The Huntington’s took everything. I remember finding her on the floor helpless with a puddle of mess between her legs.”

  Tears pooled in Phaedra’s eyes, the drops fat and heavy with sadness. “I cleaned her up. I could read the awful question in her face. Why? I felt so ashamed for her. And I knew that’s what waited for me.”

  How wrenching, but I wasn’t much for the emotional wringing needed to drive these heart-to-heart talks, especially since I had no heart. “The Huntington’s is responsible for your hallucinations and that in turn has led you to…” I didn’t want to say astral plane, so I said, “the void.”

  “Seems that way.”

  In a cruel twist, nature had compensated Phaedra. What a trade: get psychic power at the expense of your brain turning to mush.

  The inside of the windows by Phaedra had fogged up. The windows around me were still clear.

  I asked, “You looked for me?”

  Phaedra wiped a spot on the passenger window. Rain dribbled along the outside glass. “I didn’t know what I was looking for. You are what showed up.”

  “How did you know it was me?”

  “It was like I was walking inside your head.”

  Phaedra said this casually, but she had been privy to my most buried thoughts. My skull seemed to split open and let a rush of violation flood my brain.

  I felt the withdrawal from the world. I clutched at the steering wheel and forced myself to remain engaged in the present.

  Phaedra said something.

  I was still a little off center. “What?”

  “When is it going to happen?”

  “It, what?”

  “When are you going to turn me into a vampire?”

  I tightened into combat mode, taut as the trip wire of an antipersonnel mine. She mentioned vampires and my reaction was to kill her.

  What did Phaedra know about this vampiric existence? The lurking on the fringes of civilization. The masquerading as an ordinary human. The fear of discovery. The terror of the morning sun. The long stretch of immortality without the sanctuary of real family and love.

  As a soldier I had killed one little girl and that tragedy had since defined my life. I hadn’t turned anyone and promised myself that I wouldn’t condemn another soul to my fate.

  I said, “I won’t do it.”

  “Why? Isn’t that what you vampires live for?”

  “Not this one.”

  Phaedra studied me like she hadn’t quite figured me out and was looking for the hidden buttons to push.

  “There’s another reason I’m here,” I said. “Barrett Chambers.”

  I expected Phaedra to recoil in surprise. She didn’t.

  I asked, “Do you know what happened to Barrett?”

  Phaedra nodded. “He became like the others.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Was Phaedra talking about zombies? Now we’re making progress. “What do mean ‘the others’?”

  “I don’t know what else to call them. They move through the void but they are not alive. And they’re not dead.”

  I wanted to fill in the blanks by mentioning that Barrett had been a zombie, but the less Phaedra—a human—knew about the supernatural world, the better to protect the Great Secret.

  Zombie behavior was new to me. So were psychic signals and Phaedra’s use of the astral plane. Maybe the geniuses of the Araneum could figure it out. For now, what mattered was that Phaedra was in the middle of this supernatural whodunit.

  I had part of my mystery solved. I knew the cause of the psychic signals and who was responsible. “How long have you been going into this void?”

  “Years. Most of the time I didn’t know what I was doing. Whenever I mentioned it, the docs would up my meds. See this”—she pointed to the zits in her face—“side effect of the haloperidol. Plus dry mouth.” She swigged from her bottle. “The images didn’t stop, I only quit talking about them. I kept sending signals and seeing what I could learn.”

  “What about what you did to me today at the restaurant? What kind of a signal was that?”

  “Don’t blame me,” she replied. “That was a reaction to you. When you showed your claws and I saw the look on your face, my thoughts lashed out.”

  “I promise to behave myself,” I said, knowing this was one promise I would always have trouble keeping. “You said your mother has passed on. Where’s your dad?”

  Phaedra gave a chuckle that said, Him? Like he matters in my life. “My father’s doing life in Trenton, New Jersey. For murder. He doesn’t speak to me, and I don’t speak to him. I’m sure he preferred being locked up to dealing with me and my mom. You know, the Huntington’s.”

  “Who are you living with?”

  “Right now? My uncle Sal.”

  “Gino’s father?”

  “No. Uncle. He’s Sal Cavagnolo. For years I was passed among the relatives. Try being the crazy orphan girl going through puberty.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I gave my first blow job when I was eleven. I got laid when I was thirteen.”

  Eleven? Thirteen? Disturbing to the point of revulsion.

  I didn’t kiss a girl until I was fifteen. By that age, Phaedra was well acquainted with men and their dirty cocks.

  She rattled the pills in her pocket. “Another side effect of these is increased sex drive. Not that I needed an excuse. I was dying anyway, so fucking was
a good way to pass the time and make money. What was I waiting for? Usually it was better than watching television. Even with a scumbag like Barrett.”

  “You slept with him?”

  Phaedra gave a devilish laugh. “I never slept with anyone. But if you want to know, I didn’t have sex with Barrett. He paid me twenty dollars to look at my titties.”

  “And that’s it?”

  “No. I had to watch him jack off.” Phaedra put a charge in her voice like she took pleasure shocking me.

  Which she didn’t. Instead I pitied her. Her story explained the “allowance” money that had fallen out of her pocket. She was dying and traded her youthful innocence for fast, cheap thrills.

  “Don’t look so sad,” she taunted. “I learned lots about sex and even more about the way the world works.”

  “And your uncle Sal?” I hadn’t met the guy but I had already pegged him as a rat. If he abused Phaedra, this was another reason to hang him by his tail.

  “Uncle Sal’s been good to me. Around him, I can pretend I’m not the family’s dirty secret. But my aunt Lorena, Sal’s wife, hates me. She sees the effect I have on men. She calls me the strega, witch.” Phaedra gave a grin that was both ironic and condescending. “I don’t know what makes my relatives more uncomfortable. That I’m dying of Huntington’s or that I know who among them is a child molester.”

  “And Gino?”

  “He’s been okay. Nothing happened between him and me. Besides Uncle Sal, Gino’s the only friend I’ve had in the family.”

  “Does Gino know about your reputation as a strega?”

  “He says I’m the nicest of the witches in our family.”

  “Any idea where I could find him?”

  “I know where he lives.” Her side of the Toyota was completely fogged up. She adjusted the heater vents to clear the windows.

  I drove from the restaurant parking lot. Phaedra gave directions west. “Go half a mile and get ready for a left.”

  My sixth sense gave an electric pulse, though I suspected it was from my own misgivings rather than from an actual threat. Phaedra knew a lot about me. Too much. The scary part was that she learned it by going straight to my psyche.

  I had to learn everything I could about her and confirm how much of the Huntington’s was true.

  We approached the spur of the mountain where it crowded against the highway.

  Phaedra pointed. “Here.”

  I made the left turn and stopped in front of the county hospital. I fished a street map from between my seat and the center console. The county road went south along Pinos Creek. To the right, the vista remained open farmland; to the left, the ground rose into steep, rocky hills that lead to Horseshoe Mountain. The rainy fog turned the mountain into a jagged gray hump.

  I put the map away and continued. We drove past a few houses.

  Another county road branched from the right. We kept on the original road, passing a power relay station behind a tall wire fence, and proceeded south on the incline up the narrowing valley. No one but us fools would be out in this rain and gloom. I was sure we’d be alone for a long time.

  I pulled onto a wide muddy shoulder and halted.

  “What’s the matter?” Phaedra scanned the instrument panel.

  “I need answers.” I removed the contacts from my eyes and looked at her.

  Phaedra’s aura burned red, a typical human psychic shroud. Not vampire orange. Nor alien yellow. Just plain human red.

  The penumbra broke into sharp points like it was covered in finger-sized thorns. I kept my hypnosis power in check, as I wanted to read her raw emotions.

  Phaedra’s expression held an awed, fearful look like she’d put her face close to an open furnace.

  I gave a leer and exposed the long fangs jutting from my upper lip.

  Her aura flashed neon-bright with terror.

  Good. She wanted a vampire, here I was.

  Now for my questions. I blasted her with hypnosis. Her expression softened and her aura took the form of translucent gel.

  I focused my gaze deep into the psychic conduit of those brown eyes. “Tell me your story. What do you know about the psychic world and what do you want from me?”

  Under the power of my hypnosis, she had no choice but to tell me what I wanted to hear.

  The truth.

  CHAPTER 20

  The tendrils withdrew into the sheath of Phaedra’s aura. Her lips parted and her eyes looked into the faraway.

  To deepen the hypnosis, I grasped both of her hands and massaged the webs of flesh between the thumbs and index fingers. I could’ve fanged her but I didn’t want my mouth close to her skin. Enough creeps had taken advantage of her and I didn’t want to be on that list.

  Her hands had smooth, unblemished adolescent skin. Her fingernails were ragged from where she’d been chewing on them.

  To verify what Phaedra had told me, I went through the items she’d mentioned. Her name. The Huntington’s. The details between Gino and herself. How much she knew of her family’s criminal pursuits. What about the source of her psychic powers?

  It was all as she’d originally told me.

  And the zombies? She had no knowledge of zombies except to call them “the others.” Those between the living and the dead. Like me. But different. Good, I didn’t want to be confused with zombies.

  It’s a crapshoot with hypnosis. When you go deep into the subconscious there’s all kinds of junk cluttering the mind. Sometimes you get right to the “truth,” like with Phaedra. Other times, sifting for answers was like dredging through mud, and there were the instances where you got a subject who gushed like a broken faucet.

  I ordered Phaedra to sleep while I kept kneading her hands. Her head tipped forward and her breathing became heavy.

  I let go of her hands and replaced my contacts.

  “On three, wake up,” I said. “One.” I brushed back a wet curl that fell across her face. “Two.” I settled into my seat. “Three.”

  Phaedra’s right eye twitched. She blinked and looked around the interior of the 4Runner.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  Phaedra checked the front of her jacket. Her expression turned cross. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You think you know about vampires? Then if you’re with a vampire, you gotta expect all kinds of weird shit. But I didn’t touch you if that’s what you want to know.”

  Phaedra fumed, angry and perplexed.

  I put the shift lever into drive. “Do you want to help me find Gino or should I take you back into town?”

  She slugged from her bottle. “I’m no chickenshit. Let’s go to Gino’s.”

  I angled from the shoulder and onto the asphalt. “How close are we?”

  “Keep going. Past the wooden fences. I’ll tell you when.”

  The mountain pressed against us from the right. To the left, the bottom of the valley widened and narrowed as the stream meandered through aspen thickets. Dense clusters of yellow leaves clumped around the pale, straight trunks. In the flat areas along the stream sat houses, ranging from Airstreams on blocks, to log cabins with porches and garages, to expensive ranchettes with horses and corrals.

  White wooden fences bounded the more imposing properties. The white fences became ordinary wood, then simple straight posts holding up wire. After a while, the posts turned crooked and the tangled wire fencing appeared as if it had been scrounged from a salvage yard.

  Phaedra sat up and brought her face closer to the windshield. Her breath fogged the glass for an instant before evaporating. “Go past the barn, then take a left at the first dirt road past the fence.”

  Clouds sank between the mountains like big wet blankets and drenched the air with a steady drizzle.

  A red barn loomed out of the mist. Muddy tracks veered off the asphalt. I slowed down.

  “Wrong road,” Phaedra said. “Keep going past the fence.”

  I gave the Toyota a little ped
al but kept the speed low. I didn’t want to lose the fence as scrub bushes hid the posts and thick mist camouflaged the barbed wire.

  Phaedra gave a heads-up about the fence line. The strands of barbed wire became slack and disappeared into the weeds.

  The ground on the left dropped abruptly and an arrangement of rocks marked the entrance of a dirt road down the incline.

  “This is it,” Phaedra said. She drew even closer to the windshield to peer over the left fender.

  I halted for a moment. The asphalt here was clean, indicating no one had recently come onto the county road. I didn’t see any fresh tire tracks in the mud going the other way. No one, it seemed, had been at or left Gino’s lately, by car anyway. I put the Toyota into four-wheel drive, just in case the ruts got deep.

  Electric lines on tall poles ran parallel to the dirt road. We circled the northern border of the property with the red barn. The road cut through a grove of junipers to a flat stretch of mud and grass. Yellow aspen peeked from behind the dark green junipers.

  Phaedra pointed ahead. “That’s it.”

  A long one-story house sat on the right side with Gino’s silver Titan pickup parked next to it.

  Overlapping siding painted pastel yellow covered the building. A gray satellite dish pointed up from the corner of the roof closest to us. Water dripped over the tops of the rusted gutters. The place reminded me of government housing on an Indian reservation.

  I slowed to a crawl and thought about putting Phaedra under again so I could scope the area sans contacts. But if I kept hypnotizing her, she’d wonder about the gaps in her memory and lose trust in me.

  The house looked deserted. I halted the Toyota and paused. I put my sixth sense on maximum gain and detected nada.

  Phaedra chewed on a fingernail. “Gino should be here.”

  “Does he live alone?”

  “Yeah, mostly. Sometimes his friends crash and he’s got girls spending the night.”

  “Maybe he’s at their houses?”

  Phaedra shrugged.

  I couldn’t be as complacent. This started because of a zombie. Gino contacted me to investigate the details behind the mutilations and deaths of his riffraff comrades. Now I was here and Gino was missing.