Jailbait Zombie

by Mario Acevedo

  I eased alongside the Titan. Phaedra didn’t wait for me to stop before popping the door. As soon as the Toyota quit rolling, she sprang out and circled for the front of the house.

  I palmed my H&K .45 and got out. This time, I see a zombie, I’m going to pump him so full of lead he could be used as ballast on a freighter.

  I stood for a moment and absorbed the ambience. The fog muffled noise and added a melancholy texture to the afternoon. I sniffed damp earth and the faint scent of a cedar fire from a distant chimney. I focused my sixth sense like a ray and scanned the building, the road, the surrounding tree line, the open grassy area to my right, the wall of mountain behind us. Everything seemed normal.

  Phaedra cupped her hands against the front window and peered inside. Her breath fogged the glass. She wiped the spot clean and peered again. She backed away and shook her head. No Gino.

  I tried the aluminum screen door at the entrance. Locked. I gave the knob an extra twist and broke the deadbolt. The main door was also locked.

  Phaedra dragged a plastic milk crate under the window. She stood on the crate and jimmied open the sliding glass window. Moving quick as a squirrel, she levered one leg over the windowsill and tumbled inside.

  Me and my vampire superpowers remained outside, still screwing with the door.

  Phaedra screamed.

  CHAPTER 21

  I charged the door and kicked it off the hinges.

  The odor of human gore filled my nose. Dried blood, lots of it.

  I entered the room, pistol held at the ready, fangs extended, my nerves tingling. My kundalini noir tightened into a protective coil.

  Phaedra was doubled over against the wall, between a couch and an upright lamp. She gasped in the effort to speak.

  I made a shush motion.

  Phaedra covered her mouth and withered, sliding down the wall to the baseboard.

  The front room had an ugly plaid couch, coffee table and end tables covered in vinyl woodprint, and mismatched lamps. A bong, a lighter, and a bag of pot sat on the coffee table.

  Blood on the carpet trailed from the hall on my left and to the kitchen in front of us.

  The kitchen table was on its side, two legs broken off, and the chairs scattered like they’d been thrown aside.

  I crept along the wall, my eyes peering down the sights of my .45, and turned the corner into the bedroom.

  Blood-soaked bedcovers lay twisted from the mattress and across the floor to the hall. A heap of clothes covered a chair in the corner. The butt of a pistol stuck out from under the only pillow along the headboard. A cell phone was plugged into a charger on the nightstand.

  Tough guy Gino must have been asleep, taken by surprise, and dragged out. I didn’t see evidence—women’s clothing, for example—that indicated he hadn’t been alone.

  Congealed drops of blood clung to the headboard. If he had been clubbed on the head, there would be a fine spray of blood spatter across the headboard and walls. From the looks of the blood pattern, I guessed that he had been stabbed and the drops on the headboard were what had flown off the blade.

  Phaedra appeared in the doorway. One hand still covered her mouth and she looked liked she was about to throw up.

  I backtracked from the bedroom and examined a ruffled trail on the carpet nap. Phaedra put her free hand on my shoulder and stayed close.

  Our boots left dirty tread marks. There was a series of faint shoe prints across the middle of the carpet; one had heels like a men’s shoe, the other a continuous sole like the bottom of a cross-trainer. Not much mud in these prints. The zombie attack happened before today’s rain had started.

  Another detail. These prints didn’t match those of yesterday’s zombies. Meaning, at least two more zombies for a total of four.

  When I stopped for a closer look, Phaedra bumped against me and recoiled, startled.

  A wide shallow mark showed where a heavy object had been dragged, probably Gino’s body. Considering all the blood spilled in the bedroom, there were only scattered drops on the hall carpet. Whoever took Gino must’ve wrapped him in a blanket or bedsheet. Either that or he didn’t have much blood left when they carried him out.

  The table and chairs in the kitchen had been pushed aside to clear a path to the back door. Cornflakes littered the floor. Maybe I’d luck out and find a bloody handprint on the door. No, the doorknob and frame were clean.

  The back door was shut but didn’t look right. I adjusted my grip on the pistol. I hooked the edge of the door with my shoe toe and pulled. The door swung open. The knob clattered to the floor. The back screen door lay twisted in a puddle of rainwater on a concrete patio slab.

  I paused at the threshold. A weedy yard gave way to junipers and Ponderosa pines climbing up the hill behind the house. A metal tube snaked to a white propane tank in the yard. I studied the muddy ground beside the tank and saw no tracks or evidence that someone hid behind it. Convinced that no surprises waited, I stepped out and examined the patio slab.

  Rain splashed into a line of pink puddles between the door and the far end of the slab. They had carried Gino this way. I crossed the slab and looked for prints in the mud or a path broken through the weeds. The few remaining footprints had been obscured by the rain.

  The weeds and grass were bowed in two trails leading east, toward the creek. They had left several hours ago. I didn’t see any point in following. The rain would’ve obliterated their prints and I couldn’t leave Phaedra behind.

  They had gone east. What was there?

  Gino was a big guy, how had they trucked him off? In a litter carry, or was he chopped into convenient, easy-to-carry pieces?

  Back inside, I found Phaedra leaning against the refrigerator, hugging herself and trembling. She mumbled, “At least they didn’t cut him to pieces like they did Stanley.”

  I wouldn’t be too sure. “You mean Stanley Novick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you know him?”

  “Through Gino. He told me what happened.”

  Why had they taken Gino instead of leaving his mutilated corpse?

  Phaedra’s right eye blinked so fast I thought her eyelids would spring loose. She pressed it with the palm of her hand.

  We had broken into Gino’s house and tracked mud and left our marks over everything. I wasn’t interested in preserving the crime scene. This wasn’t CSI, I was after zombies.

  I took her free hand. She wouldn’t move.

  “Come on,” I said, “there’s no point in staying.”

  I led her out the front door. She followed in a faltering shuffle.

  We got back to the 4Runner. Phaedra opened the door and reached for her water bottle. She dug the meds from her slicker. Her trembling hands rattled the bottles. She took a tiny blue pill and a red-and-yellow capsule and downed them with a gulp of water. Her right eye kept blinking and she pressed her hand over it.

  “You better?” I asked.

  Phaedra lowered her hand. Her eyes became hard as marbles with a look that accused me of causing her troubles.

  The echo began.

  I covered my ears and locked my legs to keep from stumbling. “Goddamn it,” I yelled, “stop that.”

  The echo crashed like it rang from enormous bronze bells. The vibration shot from my brain and down my spine. My hips gave out and I sank to my knees. “What do you want from me?” I screamed.

  The echo quit. I blinked, grateful that my head was quiet and clear. The front of my trousers were soaked from kneeling in the mud.

  Phaedra looked down at me. Rain dripped from her slicker. “Don’t ever patronize me. Don’t take me for granted.”

  “I haven’t. I won’t. What gave you that idea?”

  Phaedra propped the Toyota’s front door open, sat inside, and waited. “So we understand each other, okay?”

  Yeah, we understood each other. I had my duty to perform. I straightened upright. “Okay. Sure.” My wet trousers pressed against my knees.

  “You know who the ot
hers are, don’t you?” Phaedra asked.

  “I do.”

  Phaedra pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and cleaned her nose. “This is all a big secret, isn’t it? You as a vampire. The others.”

  “It is.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a world parallel to the human one. You’ve discovered a way into it.” Mud had splashed on the slide of the pistol. I used my cuff to buff away the smudges. “This world is full of vampires and other supernatural creatures.”

  “Why is it a secret?”

  “Because we can’t trust humans.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Humans are the most treacherous and cruel of all creatures.” Add to that equation Phaedra with her mental mojo. “They wouldn’t hesitate to destroy us.”

  “How can humans be worse than the ones who killed Gino?”

  “I’m not going to debate that right now.” I racked the slide and caught an ejected cartridge in the palm of my left hand. The gun should fire, no problem. “What’s important is that we have a strict rule about revealing the existence of the supernatural world.”

  “What’s the rule?” Phaedra asked.

  “If a human finds out about the existence of vampires”—I pointed the pistol at her—“I’m supposed to kill them. Like I have to kill you.”

  CHAPTER 22

  If the echo started, blam, Phaedra would eat a .45 slug.

  No echo. Only her eyes looking back at me. Red and puffy like a pair of bruised welts. They said: Go ahead.

  I already had enough guilt over killing one girl. I didn’t need more from killing another.

  Where would I go from here? Now that I’ve confirmed the zombie attacks, I was sure I could find them on my own. I no longer needed Phaedra.

  The Araneum had ordered me to find the source of the psychic signals. I hadn’t been told what to do next.

  But Phaedra knew too much about vampires and the supernatural world. Then again, every human she had shared this information with—her doctors, therapists, family—all thought she was nuts. No one would believe these stories.

  I’d use this as wiggle room around the rule.

  I lowered the pistol.

  Phaedra’s lips crooked in triumph. “Every rule has an exception, right?”

  “Always.” I slipped the .45 into its holster.

  “I thought so.” Phaedra slammed her door closed.

  The rule had only one exception that allowed humans to live with the knowledge of vampires. Those humans must be chalices, sworn to never reveal the Great Secret or else get killed.

  Phaedra wasn’t a chalice. I couldn’t bring myself to drink her blood.

  The other way would be to turn her into a vampire, a request she’d already made. But she was only sixteen and I’d already decided not to fang her. I haven’t turned anyone yet and I had no plans to, especially a young woman like her.

  Every time I dwelled on Phaedra, my thoughts curved back to the memory of the Iraqi girl. In my mind, Phaedra and the Iraqi girl were practically conjoined. I had already killed one, I wouldn’t harm the survivor.

  I got in the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Phaedra asked, “Who are the others? What kind of monsters are they?”

  “You gotta make a promise.” I drove from Gino’s house. “You have to keep this a secret.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  I stepped on the brake. “It’s not my rule, okay? You violate this rule, we both die. It’s that simple.”

  She gave a petulant sneer.

  My talons extended, quick as wasp stingers. My arms were about to snap at her and I fought to keep them close to my side, my hands quaking from the effort.

  Terror sparked in Phaedra’s eyes. For a moment she made no motion other than to let out a nervous exhale. Her right eye started that nervous tic. She gulped and said, “Hurt me if that’s what makes you feel better. I won’t stop you.” Her expression hardened in contempt. “You might even like it.”

  The words sounded practiced. Evil. I had the image of sadistic uncles and cousins whipping her naked back and ass with belts to punish her for their sins.

  I wasn’t one of them, but Phaedra had to know the consequences to both of us.

  My talons withdrew and I slowly and carefully put my hand on her knee. “You talk, we die. For me, I know it won’t be pleasant. Understand?”

  Phaedra’s eyes said: so what?

  “You don’t understand.” I let go of her knee and settled into the driver’s seat. “I’m scared of what could happen. Me. A vampire. Think about that.”

  “Scared of what?”

  “Other vampires. The ones in charge of keeping us a secret.”

  “What would they do?”

  “Skin me alive. To a human? Something worse.”

  “How many vampires?” she asked.

  “Thousands at least.”

  She folded her hands on her lap, not in surrender but to bide time. “All right. I’ll do as you tell me.”

  Good. I smoothed my coat. I drove the Toyota toward the county road. I felt relieved for two reasons. First, Phaedra understood what was at stake. Second, I’d gotten the point across that her psychic powers couldn’t always protect her.

  She put a hand to her blinking eye to keep it still. “You were going to explain about the others.”

  Might as well tell her. I was miles past the line I was never supposed to cross. “Zombies.”

  Her eyes moved in a searching pattern. She gave a tiny chuckle. “This is all crazy.”

  She shut her eyes tight, so tight that her eyelids seemed glued together. “Maybe this is a hallucination.”

  “Phaedra,” I said, “open your eyes and deal with this. You wanted to know. Here it is. Gino’s dead. So is Stanley. Zombies killed them. And you wouldn’t have recognized Barrett. None of this is a hallucination. You could be next.”

  Phaedra kept silent and stared out the windshield.

  We trekked north, down the canyon.

  “What are they like?” she asked. “The zombies?”

  “Disgusting. Revolting.”

  “How are you better than them?”

  I laughed. “Don’t put me in the same category. They’re walking bags of septic waste. Besides, Gino asked me for help, right? I’m the good guy in this story, aren’t I?”

  “Are you?”

  “For your sake, you better hope I am.”

  “And your job is to wipe them out?” she asked.

  “As extinct as possible.”

  “Does the government know about them?”

  “Our government knows a lot of stuff.” The feds certainly knew about aliens and UFOs. “But zombies? I don’t think so.”

  I better be right. Otherwise our government had their greedy, scheming hands on the supernatural. We’d be enslaved and destroyed.

  The rain lifted. The clouds parted and sunbeams bore down from the sky. Where they touched, they illuminated the ground with a searing brilliance. The autumn colors—the yellow aspens, the red cottonwoods, the orange gooseberries and currants—made the landscape as brilliant and lively as a fresh oil painting. My eyes stung from the intense light and I put on my sunglasses.

  The clouds dissolved, and when the road turned level and the land flattened into planted fields, the sky was an azure blue.

  Phaedra turned off the heater and unzipped her slicker. She squirmed in her seat. Her breasts, round as apples, filled the front of her sweat top. The shoulder belt lay snug between her breasts and emphasized the swell of each firm boob. B-cups for sure. Maybe Cs. The yellow stripe on her sweatpants followed the curve of a shapely thigh. She looked as fertile as the moist farmland.

  Her scents—from the damp hair, shampoo, soap, her perspiration—made Phaedra a smorgasbord of temptation.

  Bloodsucking pussy hound that I am, I had scruples. Regarding sex, I don’t go where I’m not invited. In Phaedra’s case, I wouldn’t consider an invitation.

  “You’re
quiet,” she said, not pulling her eyes from the road.

  “There’s a lot on my mind.”

  “About Gino?” She arched her back and those fine titties pushed against the sweat top. “Or something else?”

  That “something else” hovered in the air for longer than I should’ve let it. Minutes ago, Phaedra was buried in sorrow. Now she teased. Was this hot-cold emotional routine a family trait? Maybe growing up around career criminals had taught her how to flip between feelings as easily as turning a page in a book.

  I had to change the subject. “How much do you know about your family business?”

  “Is that important?”

  I let my foot off the gas. “Here’s another rule. I ask a question, you give a straight and complete answer. If I ask, consider it important.”

  She put those brown eyes on me and they were stormy with resentment. “I’m not supposed to talk about what I know or don’t know. In our family business, silence is golden. Anything less than golden is…” Phaedra pantomimed putting a gun to her head. “Even for me.”

  I pressed the gas. The Toyota lurched forward and we rocked against our seats.

  “Your family and the business have new priorities. You saw what happened to Gino. Unless I stop the zombies, keeping the family secrets is going to be easy because all of you will be dead.”

  Phaedra’s face softened, then hardened, her eyes moving left and right as thoughts jumbled in her head.

  I could use hypnosis but I wanted Phaedra to make the decision to trust me. “What do you know about the family business? Is it drugs?”

  “Mostly. What they don’t handle directly, they collect a tax from anyone smuggling through this area.”

  “Tax? Protection money?”

  Phaedra’s eyes said: Of course. Don’t play stupid.

  “Anyone who?” I asked.

  “Mules. Mexicans. Some Russians. Mostly people from out of state going east–west, north and south. Oklahoma. Nebraska. Wyoming. Illinois. Of course California and Texas.” She paused to breathe. “But I wasn’t really paying attention when the subject came up.”

  “Some of them might object to paying this ‘tax’?”

  “Probably.”