The Down Home Zombie Blues

by Linnea Sinclair

  He glanced at Stavros. His uncle was wiping one hand over his broad face. “I’ll get you all the help you need,” his uncle said. “If it takes every dime I have. It doesn’t matter. You know Tootie and I love you.”

  “I love you too,” Theo said, leaning forward and pulling his cell phone from his back pocket. He flipped it open and hit a number on speed dial. “Yassou, amigo. Listen, Uncle Stavros is about to Baker-Act me. Will you talk to him? Thanks.” He handed the cell phone to Stavros. “It’s Zeke.”

  His uncle took the cell phone gingerly, as if it might bite him. “Zeke? What kind of skata is my boy…Okay.” Silence. Longer silence. “What?” he bellowed. “Mou espasas ta arheedia!”

  Theo knew from experience that when he heard Stavros accuse someone of busting his balls, Stavros was not quite convinced but getting close.

  Evidently, so did Tootie. “Stavros! Watch your language, please!” came from the kitchen.

  Finally Stavros nodded, wished Zeke and Suzanne a Merry Christmas, and handed the phone back to Theo. “Tis Panagias ta matia!”

  Now it was the Virgin Mary’s eyes being invoked. “Yeah, I know,” Theo said.

  “If you’re playing a game on the old man—”

  “I’m not. We’re not.” He filled his uncle in on the rest of the details, including the problem with Jorie’s lieutenant and the unknown status of the rest of her team and her ship. He could tell some of it simply didn’t register with the old man. He’d seen too many Signal 20s in his day. But there had been those UFO sightings he’d been tight-lipped about for decades. Theo asked about them again now.

  Stavros shook his head. “The one with your father and you wasn’t the first, not by any means. But I’d stopped talking to anyone about them by that point. No one believes you, and you get a reputation—I had Tootie to think about. And you.”

  “You ever get taken on board, like I was?”

  “Skata, it was enough just seeing these things zipping around the sky at night. If one grabbed me, I’d probably start shooting.”

  “That was my initial reaction too. But then you start thinking about where you are and who could get hurt, all the while telling yourself this is not really happening.”

  “But it did.” His uncle studied him. He wasn’t one hundred percent convinced. But Theo was family. “What do you need me to do?” Stavros asked.

  Stavros Petrakos had been one damned fine shot in his day, but he was seventy-eight now. A robust seventy-eight who mowed his own lawn and trimmed his own fruit trees, but seventy-eight. “We’re putting a task force together. But this is strictly under the radar. If anything should…happen, what the news media gets and what actually went down might be two different things. I just wanted you to know the truth.”

  Stavros’s gaze didn’t waver. “I still hope this is some kind of a joke.”

  “Wish it was too.”

  “When?”

  “By New Year’s, I’m thinking.”

  Stavros nodded. “The chief knows?”

  “I’m trying to keep the brass and the news reporters out of it right now. I don’t think they’ll be able to move quickly enough. And I don’t want to make a media spectacle out of Jorie.”

  “Poor kid. She’s basically all alone in this.”

  Theo patted his uncle on the shoulder, then stood. “She’s not alone. She has me.”

  He wandered back into the kitchen, which was empty, then, hearing a familiar tinkling sound, followed that to the spare bedroom in the back of the house, where his aunt kept her music-box collection. A thoroughly enthralled Jorie was holding a miniature palm tree in her hand as it played a tinny rendition of the Beach Boys’ tune “Kokomo.”

  Yeah, that’s what he needed to do. Run away with her to the Keys and a little place called Kokomo.

  “Bliss!” she said when he stepped into the room.

  He smiled. “Time to go.”

  “So soon?” Tootie plucked a music box in the shape of two intertwined cats from one of the shelves that ringed the small room. “Jorie’s never seen these before. I guess there’s not a lot of use for them in those Eskimo villages.” She shook her head.

  Theo took the palm tree from Jorie and put it back on the shelf where it belonged. He knew where each one belonged. He’d helped his uncle build the shelves as his aunt’s collection grew over the years. “You know I’m working, Thia.”

  “I know, I know. But if I didn’t make a fuss, I wouldn’t be a good aunt.” She shooed him and Jorie toward the living room, where Stavros was waiting. “Maybe around New Year’s or after, you’ll come for dinner, yes?”

  His uncle’s face didn’t betray a thing. Man was a damned good cop.

  “Sure.” He hugged his uncle, then his aunt.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Tootie whispered in his ear.

  He bussed her cheek. “Told you so.”

  Stavros was holding Jorie’s hand and patting it. Tootie pulled her away and gave her a hug, then put a bag of leftovers in Jorie’s hand as they went through the kitchen. “Something to nibble on later,” Tootie said.

  Nothing like homemade Greek cooking to fuel a fight against zombies.

  The bright moonlight and the glow of the porch light bathed Theo’s back steps in a white glow. But Jorie let Theo handle the physical inspection of a structure he was more familiar with than she was. She studied her scanner. Residence shields were intact, with no attempted instrusions. Still, both she and Theo entered the back door with weapons out—and she kicked off her sandals as she came across the kitchen threshold. There was no way she could run in those things.

  Only after they cleared the residence did Theo go back out into the warm night air to retrieve the bag with her clothes and Tootie’s offerings from the vehicle’s rear seat. Theo had a lovely family, Jorie realized as she leaned against the kitchen counter and slipped her sandals back on. It made her miss Galin all the more.

  “Somebody left this on the back porch steps.” Theo came though the kitchen door, bags and Tootie’s containers bundled in his arms. And something else.

  Jorie automatically reinstated the residence’s rear shields as she stepped toward him. He put the food containers on the small table, the clothing bag on a chair, and turned as she approached, a squat silver cylinder in his hand.

  Jorie froze, her throat closing, a tremor shaking her body so severely she almost dropped her scanner.

  “This was tucked to the side, I almost missed—Jorie?”

  “Where did you get that?” Her voice was a hard rasp.

  “This?” He angled the metal cuplike object away from him. “It was on the steps.”

  Jorie sucked in a harsh breath and inched back.

  “Babe, what’s the matter? It’s just some kind of capped soup mug with a built-in spoon thing—”

  “A feeder. It’s a feeder.” She could make out the markings engraved on its side now: Detention Compound 3 Ovzil. Her heart pounded and she felt light-headed. She let the scanner slide from her hand to the tabletop, then gripped the back of the closest chair.

  “A feeder?”

  Vekran, English words fled. She had to close her eyes for a moment and focus, seeking the explanation in Alarsh, then in Vekran.

  Theo’s fingers curled around her arm. “Honey?”

  The…thing was inches from her body, still in his hand. With a strangled cry she struck out at it, hard. It flew from his grasp and clattered to the floor, rolling back and forth a few times before it wobbled to a halt.

  She watched in sick fascination. How many times had she thrown hers against the cell wall?

  “Jorie!” Both hands were on her shoulders, and Theo’s breath was warm on her cheek.

  “A feeder.” Her voice was rough. She raised her face to his. “It holds a liquid-and-powder protein mix. You slide the spoon down to stir,” she pushed her thumb against nothing, yet she could feel the cold metal feeder in her hand, “then take a scoop and swivel it to eat. It’s the only thing you get to eat when you’
re a prisoner of the Tresh.” Foul-tasting. Even now, she wanted to gag.

  “Fuck.” Theo’s face blanked, then hardened. “Shields are up?”

  She knew they were. But she grabbed the scanner off the table, because her whole world suddenly tilted to one side. She nodded.

  “You’re sure that’s what it is?”

  Her gaze found the feeder on the floor. “Don’t you see…?” But Theo couldn’t read Supi, the Tresh language. “Those letters. Detention Compound 3 Ovzil.” Ovzil Rok Por. A prison compound run by the Devastators at the base of the Ovzil Neha mountain range. The wind never stopped there. She could still hear its shrill moan through the ventilation system of her cell.

  She shook her head, pushing away the memory. Theo released her shoulders and dug his weapon out from under his shirt.

  Her own hand shook as she studied the scanner again. “No sign of any shield breach. They—someone left it here, knowing I’d find it.” That someone had to be Prow. And he knew what finding it would do to her.

  “Was Compound Three where you were?”

  She swallowed. “Yes.”

  “With Prow?”

  “Yes.”

  “They’re playing mind games with you, Jorie. Psychological warfare. Because they can’t get to you directly.” He moved back to her, one large hand on her shoulder once again. Warm, reassuring, steady. “Don’t let them win.”

  Jorie slid the scanner back into the small bag and palmed her G-1, forcing down the bile that threatened to surge up her throat. Forcing the memories away. Forcing herself to remember she was a Guardian Force commander.

  By the time they’d checked every closet, every corner of the small residence, she was calmer. And Theo had spoken to Zeke Martinez. Nothing unusual there. Tamlynne was fine, the kitten sleeping in her lap. But they were alerted.

  Jorie sagged down into a kitchen chair and rested her forehead against her fingertips.

  There was the scrape of wood against tile, and Theo sat down next to her. “Why would Prow keep that feeder after all these years?”

  “I doubt it’s mine.” The thing was still on the floor. Hers or not, she wouldn’t pick it up. Could barely look at it. “There’s likely a matter replicator on board his ship. Or ship’s supply has some feeders and engraved it with the prison compound’s name.”

  He pulled her hands away from her face and held them in his. “We can take it out in the backyard and fry it with your Hazer, if that will make you feel better.”

  Star’s end, but he had a very good face and an even better heart. “No. You’re right. The vomit-brained bastard is playing games. He can’t win unless I let him. I’m not going to let him.” She drew a long breath. “He wants me to remember. I will remember. And I’ll make him pay because I will not forget.”

  Jorie pulled her hands out of Theo’s, strode to where the feeder lay on its side, and snatched it off the tile floor. Her stomach spasmed as her fingers touched the cool, slick metal, but she didn’t drop it. Instead, she marched to Theo’s bedroom and placed the feeder on the corner of his wooden dresser.

  She would not forget.

  Then cross-legged and teeth clenched, she went back to analyzing the reprogramming dart.

  22

  At some point during the late-evening hours, Theo dropped one of his light-green long-sleeved pullover shirts in her lap along with a pair of gray drawstring shorts, with the admonishment to “get comfortable.”

  And at some point even later that evening, Theo tugged her away from her screen and her worries and back into his arms—and his bed.

  “Last night,” she told him hesitantly as his hands slipped under the green shirt and massaged the aches along her spine, “we probably shouldn’t have—”

  His breath was soft in her ear. “Last night was wonderful. Perfect. Don’t change that. Not everything happens according to plan.”

  “My only plan is reprogramming the C-Prime. Beyond that, I cannot even begin to speculate.”

  “Then don’t speculate,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. “I told you. Take what’s here and now.”

  Jorie turned in his embrace and saw the undisguised heat in his gaze. She couldn’t remember Lorik ever looking at her like that. It thrilled her—and frightened her. There was so much at risk, so much at stake. So many unknowns.

  And then there was Theo. Infuriating, obstinate, intelligent, compassionate, loyal, brave Theo. So she sought the heat of his skin as she had the night before, focusing everything on this one man right now, knowing full well this one man would haunt her dreams forever.

  The next spate of bad news hit at about nine-fifteen local time the next morning. Significantly after sunwake and significantly after a morning meal of coffee—which Jorie was slowly acquiring a taste for when it was heavily sweetened—and peanut butter on toasted bread.

  The scanner riding her hip under Theo’s borrowed shirt screeched out a terrifying high–low warning that sent her careening out of the kitchen and into his bedroom. Structure shield failure. Her MOD-tech was gasping its last breath but still trying to run the calculations on the zombie reprogramming dart and still attempting to send signals to any Guardian ship that might be sweeping the sector.

  She now understood Theo’s panic at nakedness.

  They were naked, exposed, vulnerable. If the Tresh saw the structure’s energy pattern suddenly flattening, they were dead—and the terror the feeder cup symbolized would become real.

  She grabbed her Hazers from under Theo’s bed and tossed him the spare. “Hard-terminate!” She couldn’t take any chances. A team of Devastators or a dozen zombies could appear at any moment.

  “What happened?” Theo slung the strap over his shoulder, his projectile weapon already in hand.

  “Shields are gone,” she told him in English, then switched to Alarsh, forcing her MOD-tech units through a series of resets and reinstallations through commands given tersely into her mouth mike.

  “Tresh?”

  “My fault.” She kept watch on her scanner. Anything could happen. In a way, she almost wished for another attack by the Tresh. She wanted this damned thing settled! “Overloaded the system.”

  He started for the door.

  “Stay here. They’ll zero in on the tech. I can’t program and watch for them.”

  “I got your six, babe. Do your work.”

  She did, but there was no way she could resurrect full residence shields. Bliss luck it was daylight, the Tresh less likely to move easily then. But less likely hadn’t helped Tam, Kip, or Jacare. Of course, she was the instigator, tracking down the Tresh first that day.

  The zombies appeared in daylight or dark.

  She worked feverishly to get the shield program to resurrect, aware of Theo pacing behind her, aware of every other noise in the residence, every land vehicle passing on the street, waiting for that cold draft that preceded a PMaT transit—or the green glow of a zombie portal forming.

  None of her patches held. The unit was overtaxed. She was asking too much of it: shield the residence, design the zombie dart, parse the skies with a Guardian distress signal. Something had to go.

  She gritted her teeth and deleted the distress signal, her heart sinking as she did so. The one chance, the only chance she’d have of being found, of going home again, lay in that signal. Even a seeker ’droid on mapping duties would have seen and reported it.

  Now there was nothing.

  With the deletion of that program, tech resources restructured, energy usage leveled. She had something to work with. She might not get home, but she could protect where she was.

  She resurrected the roof shield first. “Overhead in place,” she told Theo. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him glance up, and if she hadn’t been so scared, aggravated, and under pressure, she might have grinned. So typical.

  But the next datastream gave her nothing to smile about. There was insufficient power to re-create the wall shields. A core processor must have burned out in the shutdown. Capacity
was under seventy percent of what she’d had last night. And she couldn’t reduce functions any more. She couldn’t stop the dart-program computations.

  “Ass-faced demon’s whore!” She hated no-choice situations.

  Only when she caught Theo’s raised eyebrow did she realize she’d sworm out loud and in Vekran. Alarsh epithets never translated well. “I can’t shield your entire structure anymore. My tech took damage. I don’t have time to chase down the problem, and even if I did, I’ve nothing to repair it with. So…” She keyed in changes to the shield program, shaking her head in frustration.

  “What can you shield?”

  “One room. This room, including your bathroom. That’s all.” She locked the shields in place, then flipped her oc-set over her right eye and glanced quickly around. Everything looked good. She pulled the band back down around her neck. “Perimeter secure. But anytime you go through that door, especially at night, you have to assume something you’re not going to want to meet might be out there.”

  “You’re sure the Tresh didn’t cause this?”

  “I checked once and am running a secondary check now.” Best she could, with her tech’s reduced capacity. “But I don’t think so. It’s just a basic overload on a unit that was never meant to do as much as it’s been doing.”

  “I thought it was maintaining the shields and designing the zombie dart. Your scanners track the zombies and the Tresh, right?”

  She’d never told him about the wide-beam distress signal. She’d convinced herself it was because there hadn’t been time to discuss such things, but she knew it was really because of what she felt and what had happened the past two nights. Hesitantly, she told him now and saw the fleeting expression of disappointment on his face. Then it was gone, his features relaxing. She remembered his ability to subvert his emotions when they were in the cabin assigned to him on the Sakanah.

  “We should be able to make a move on that C-Prime in a couple of days. Once that’s done, you can put all your tech into contacting another Guardian ship.” He reached down and tugged on a lock of her hair. “I know you want to go home, Jorie.”