Reginald opened his lab coat and pulled out a meat cleaver. He struck Gino across the back of the neck, again and again. Sparks and milky goo sprayed from Gino. He shuddered and jerked left to right.
Zombies swarmed over him, in a frenzy of swinging weapons and clutching hands. Other zombies ripped apart the lab, scavenging pipes and lengths of wood to use as clubs.
Reginald snagged Hennison’s wrists and pulled him behind the workbench.
Phaedra lay on the floor, dazed.
I had time for one task before the zombies turned their attention from Gino to me. Either rescue Phaedra or kill Hennison.
I could return and finish him. If Phaedra died, I’d never get her back.
Phaedra’s aura burned with distress.
The zombies turned from the battered remains of Gino. They came at me, two at a time. Bus Driver and Super Cheesy led the attack. They advanced with their arms stretched out, a clumsy move I realized was to distract me from the second and more dangerous wave, four other zombies armed with sharpened metal poles.
I waited for Bus Driver and Super Cheesy to close upon me. When they reached for my arms, I swung the ax across their knees, chopping cleanly through bone. Their bodies toppled like cut saplings.
The other zombies charged with their poles. I ducked left, right, and they stabbed at empty air.
I threw the ax tomahawk-fashion at a fifth zombie. The ax hit him squarely in the face, his head split in an eruption of gore, and he flopped backward. I grasped a pole from another zombie and wrenched it free. Twirling the pole like Robin Hood with a quarterstaff, I beat the remaining zombies until they huddled one behind the other. I lanced them with the pole, skewering all four into a zombie kebob that I pinned to the wall.
Bus Driver zombie pushed up onto the stumps of his legs and tottered for me like a pissed-off munchkin.
More zombies gathered at the exits from the lab, blocking the doors and the broken windows.
I pushed the shelves aside, scattering cardboard boxes and glass jars. Plastic tubes carried bubbling liquid to a row of stockpots along the wall to my left. Vapor from the cryogenic plumbing drifted from the steel bowls at the base of the stockpots—more decapitated heads à la mode.
A zombie jumped on my back, his cold hands digging into my naked shoulders. I grabbed his hair and punched him in the face. Undead goo shot from his flattened nose. I spun him though the air, holding on to his head for a hammer throw. I let go and he smashed into the other zombies, dropping them like bowling pins.
When I got close to Phaedra, I used my talons to cut the cable around her neck and sever her wrist restraints. She clutched my arms and drew herself against me.
A pipe sailed inches from my face and stuck into the wall. The zombies advanced across the laboratory in a ragged phalanx. They brandished lengths of pipe like spears.
I lifted Phaedra across my shoulder. I dashed around boxes marked biological waste—to-go food for zombies?—and sprinted out the front door and onto the deck and into the cool, fresh night air.
I sprang off the deck. My powers of levitation were weak, and with Phaedra on my shoulder, I crashed to the ground.
I got up and grasped Phaedra’s hand. I began to run and dragged her behind me.
My truck was miles away. Phaedra couldn’t make the run. But we had no choice.
We staggered into the gulch. My bare feet pounded the cold dirt and hard rocks. Thorns stung my heels and toes.
Up ahead, a zombie appeared on the high ground beside the gully. He carried one of those improvised spear poles.
I tightened my grip on Phaedra and yanked her along. She stumbled behind me as fast as she could. I put a good hundred feet between us and the zombie before I slowed down.
I was scraping the bottom of my reserves. Phaedra was doing worse. Her chest heaved and she sucked for breath in whooping gasps.
A faint whistling approached. I took no mind of it until I felt Phaedra shake and give a painful moan.
I smelled fresh blood.
Her blood.
The spear pole fell from her side, its sharpened point shiny and dark.
Phaedra’s aura grew faint. Her legs started to bend and I hugged her tight to keep her from falling. I tore open her parka. Blood poured from a hole in her blouse along her ribs.
My kundalini noir slinked back in dismay and sorrow. We were so close to escaping.
I tore a strip of material from her blouse and jammed it into the hole.
Zombies silhouetted themselves against the night sky. Kimberly and more zombies followed through the gulch. They shambled in the darkness, their feet dragging across the sand so that the sound was like a giant serpent grating its belly. A second spear pole clanged across the rocks by my feet.
Phaedra’s eyes rolled back into their sockets. Her face and hands became cold, almost zombie-cold.
I grasped Phaedra as if she was a sack of stolen loot. I held her around the tops of her legs. She put her arms around my neck and pressed her clammy face to my neck.
I could outrun the zombies if I knew where they were. But they had the uncanny ability to direct their numbers around me. All they had to do was slow me down enough for them to gather like army ants and overwhelm me.
I stood and adjusted my grip and took off in a run.
Fatigue took over my brain, a sensation as thick and heavy as mud. How many bad decisions had I already made? I couldn’t afford to make any more or Phaedra would die.
CHAPTER 48
I took gliding strides and let my knees absorb the bounce of my steps. I tried to keep Phaedra still, but the jostling aggravated her wound. Warm blood pumped from her blouse and pooled in the crevasses where my arms gripped her legs.
The aroma from her blood was the last temptation I needed, famished as I was. A quick stop for a taste, that’s all I needed. But if I did that, she’d die.
I chose a straight path over the open ground. Zigzagging cost precious moments we couldn’t afford.
Up ahead, a juniper seemed to come apart. It was a zombie coming from behind the bush. The zombie loped for us, adjusting his track to intercept mine.
If I didn’t have Phaedra, I could’ve easily sliced the zombie to bits with my claws. Hell, I could’ve sprinted away and not bothered fouling myself with its filthy body.
The zombie swung a chain fastened through a cinderblock brick. He let go and the brick spun at me, the chain flailing.
Instead of aiming for my center of mass, he’d gone for my legs. I skipped and took a long bound. The brick and chain flew under my feet.
Missed me, you rat shit bastard.
I landed when a sudden painful jerk took my left leg from under me. I collapsed and rolled onto my back to keep from landing on Phaedra.
We smacked the earth and she gave a loud “Uff.” Blood and bile sprayed from her mouth. Phaedra was minutes from dying.
The chain from another cinderblock missile was wrapped around my ankle. A second zombie loomed from behind a pile of rocks. He advanced in low simian crouch with a metal pipe in his hand.
I kicked the chain free and stood. Phaedra sagged in my arms. Her aura faded to a low burn.
Things were getting worse by the second.
I held Phaedra tight and took off again. I ran from the gully and crested the rise.
A Jeep charged up the other side. No lights. No aura. A zombie was at the helm.
The Jeep came straight at me. With Phaedra in my arms and dying I froze with indecision. Jump? Run? What?
I needed those wheels to escape.
I let the zombie come right at me. At the last possible instant I jumped out of the way.
The zombie swerved to hit me. In a flash of vampire speed, I snagged the steering wheel. Hard. The front tires bit into the dirt and the Jeep flipped onto its side.
I put Phaedra down and hustled to the Jeep. The zombie lay squirming where he’d been flung against the firewall of the vehicle.
“You should’ve worn a safety belt.” I ga
ve him a karate chop across his neck to break his upper spine. His head lolled to one side, eyes bulging and drool gushing down his face. I grabbed him by both arms and threw him out of the Jeep.
I ran to the other side of the Jeep, hooked my hands under the front fender, and heaved it upright. The strain stabbed my back, and my right leg felt like it had gotten shot again.
I lifted Phaedra, hobbled to the Jeep, and buckled her into the passenger’s front seat.
I flopped behind the steering wheel and twisted the ignition key. As soon as the engine kicked over, I stomped the gas. The rear tires threw tails of dust and pebbles as I spun the Jeep around.
The road was two hundred feet away. We bounced over the uneven ground and skidded onto the road. I straightened the track of the Jeep and raced north.
Zombies closed upon the road, moving stiff as fence posts. I zoomed beside them, seeing their pale faces gaze at us.
We had escaped. The zombies couldn’t catch us now.
A quad bike rounded the bend ahead of me, a zombie at the controls. The fat rider hung on to the handlebars like they were the horns on a buffalo. A second quad bike shot through his dust trail.
Two quad bikes against this Jeep?
No contest. I aimed for the lead bike.
They came at me full speed. The zombie riders let go of their hand controls and stood on the foot pegs. They intended to ram me and fly into the Jeep.
Fools.
I kept accelerating. Drawing from the last measures of my supernatural juju, I forced my reflexes to go to vampire speed.
Milliseconds decelerated into seconds. The zombies and their bikes moved in slow motion.
They flexed their legs to leap off the pedals.
I swerved right. The Jeep fishtailed against the first bike.
We bucked to the side. The front tires of the quad bike flattened against the side of the Jeep. The struts holding the wheels ripped free and the bike somersaulted behind us. The zombie smashed against the rear panel of the Jeep.
I wrenched the steering wheel in the other direction. The Jeep nearly tipped as it careened to the left.
I bore down on the second quad bike. This zombie rider readied a large spike.
The Jeep rammed his quad bike and crushed the front end. The quad bike crumpled and dragged the zombie beneath our wheels.
Thonk. Steam and the odor of glycol sprayed over the Jeep’s hood.
The zombie had punctured the radiator.
Time sprang back to normal speed.
I checked the gauges. They were still in the green. We had a few minutes before the loss of coolant destroyed the engine. My kundalini noir jerked spastically, twitching with anxiety because we were miles from safety.
I raced along without lights. The dust cloud trailing the Jeep glowed like a luminescent plume.
The Jeep rattled on the uneven road. The temperature gauge crept to the red line. Phaedra slumped against her lap belt. Her aura trembled like a weak flame.
I grasped Phaedra’s hand. The chill surprised and frightened me.
How could I save her? I was no doctor.
Something moved to my right. The zombie from the first quad bike I’d run over was still with us. He climbed across the right rear window for the roof, nimble as an orangutan. That’s because his lower torso had been ripped off.
I slammed on the brakes, hoping to catapult him loose. Instead he thumped against the roof.
I sped up. The idiot light for the coolant temperature came on. The Jeep bucked over the washboard road. The zombie bounced on the roof. Where the road smoothed, I accelerated and swerved side to side. The zombie thumped but wouldn’t let go.
I braked again, then sped up. He hung on for the ride no matter what I did.
What did the zombie want?
Of course, as long as he was with me, he would use his psychic connection as a beacon for the other zombies to follow.
I reached up and felt the zombie’s fingers where they hooked into the rain gutter. I braided my fingers into his and snapped the digits like breadsticks. I peeled the broken fingers from the rain gutter. “I know I shouldn’t litter.” I grabbed him by the wrist, jerked him loose, and pitched him like a bag of trash into the rocks.
The temp gauge was in the red zone. The engine was about to seize.
We passed the first houses where the residents rested like sleeping cows, oblivious to the plague of the undead spreading around them.
We reached the cemetery and the paved road. The engine lights came on and the engine squealed its death cry. I stepped on the clutch and kept us rolling. The Jeep’s tires hummed on the smooth asphalt. I wanted Phaedra to acknowledge that we were safe. I clasped her wrist. Her pulse was as faint as her aura.
The Jeep lost momentum near the outcropping where I’d hidden my clothes before my transmutation. I pulled off the road and let us stop as close to the rocks as I could.
“We’re okay,” I told her.
But she couldn’t hear me. Her aura flickered, becoming fainter and fainter.
CHAPTER 49
I pulled Phaedra close. I smoothed her hair. It was moist with perspiration and cool, too cool.
“Don’t die, sweetheart. Not after all that. Please.”
Her aura flickered again, like a loose wire had moved into place. Her eyes struggled to open and a weak breath pulled through her nostrils.
I set her back into the seat. “Good. We’re safe.” I glanced south to make sure.
Her aura remained weak and her breathing shallow. What could I do to keep her from dying? I ran through the scenarios. Stop a police car and ask for help? Say, Mister Cop, I’ve got this underage girl here and we were attacked by zombies.
Fatigue weighed upon me. My body felt weak.
Phaedra drew a breath and it caught in her throat as if her body didn’t want the air. Her aura brightened—not by much, going from dim to less dim. Limp tendrils grew from her penumbra, waving like soggy reeds in a sluggish current.
I cupped her neck and stroked her hair. “Stay with me.”
The tendrils from her aura trailed into smoky wisps and disappeared.
I clenched my fists in anger and desperation. Not her.
A familiar panic and dread returned. I found myself spiraling down a funnel of despair. As a young boy, I couldn’t help my mother in her struggles with my alcoholic father and the abuse of the in-laws who blamed her for the family troubles. He wasn’t an alcoholic before he married you. I couldn’t help her when we were evicted and lived like vagabonds on the charity of our cousins. When we studied about the homeless in school, I realized we were talking about my family.
I fooled myself into thinking that as a man I’d never again lose control of my life. Then in Iraq, despite all the might and money of the United States of America, my men and I found ourselves alone in the havoc of urban combat.
We fought in the chaos, mindful of the one misstep or the instant of hesitation that could mean going home upright and whole or on our backs in body bags. One terrible night I led my squad in an ambush and we didn’t hesitate to annihilate the enemy. When the firing stopped, we had instead massacred a family of Iraqi civilians.
I went insane with despair and ran into the lair of an Iraqi vampire who, as punishment for my sins, turned me into one of the undead, a vampire.
Then as a supernatural I learned that it was my nature to fight injustice.
Now, once more, I was bound by conscience to rescue Phaedra.
The last bit of her aura danced from her head to a spot over her heart.
I had to save her. I couldn’t let her go. I would do the one thing I swore not to.
My fangs sprouted and I drew close to her throat.
Phaedra wouldn’t die but she wouldn’t live either, not as a human.
I opened my mouth and let my fangs probe for the choicest spot to penetrate. Biting quickly, I guided my fangs through the skin and deep into her vein.
My nose sifted through the many smells: sweat, dust
, and the fragrances of her blood, adrenaline, the rich cocktail of a young woman’s potent estrogen, and the bitterness of her medications.
Blood gushed into my mouth. A liquid banquet of pleasure flooded across my tongue, down my throat, and to every crevasse in my body. My belly felt the heft of the blood and my limbs flushed with viscous warmth.
I pumped recuperative enzymes into Phaedra, hoping that the sudden healing of her flesh would pull her from the brink.
I pulled my mouth away. Thick drops of blood clung to my lips and teeth.
Phaedra’s aura returned, the penumbra glowing cherry red.
Now to cheat death.
“Phaedra,” I whispered as if we were lovers sharing a pillow. “Open your mouth.”
Those young pale lips parted and her fingers hunted for my face.
Phaedra was my first human that I would turn. We were both virgins at this.
I wanted to deny the arousal but I couldn’t, no more than I could deny how much I relished savoring her succulent blood.
Lust pounded through me in a drumbeat of sexual conquest. I wanted to rip Phaedra’s blouse and bra apart and press my body against hers.
My hands fumbled for her belt and I had the image of me spreading her legs and thrusting into her while blood streamed from her throat, between her breasts, and over her belly.
I gripped the upholstery and my talons tore into the fabric.
No.
I would only turn Phaedra, no more.
My hands trembled from the struggle. I clasped the back of Phaedra’s neck and brought my mouth to hers.
I sealed our lips together. I pushed her blood back into her mouth and licked her teeth.
A fountain of energy rose from deep inside. The fountain gathered force, as if propelled upward by an explosion.
The energy flowed from my mouth into Phaedra’s. Our heads fused as one and a current of psychic force surged from me directly into her.
The current was a lightning bolt fixed between us. The energy crackled in my head.
Slowly, the crackling weakened. The lightning bolt dimmed, turned into a weak spark, and disappeared.
Jailbait Zombie Page 20