The Down Home Zombie Blues

by Linnea Sinclair

  “The lab tells me this is made of an unknown alloy,” Sanders said without preamble, his deep voice laced with a Southern drawl. “Martinez tells me you can explain how we came into possession of it.”

  For a moment, Theo was shocked into silence. It never occurred to him that the laptoplike T-MOD would be analyzed for anything other than its data. He’d almost forgotten about the unit, what with zombies climbing out of green glowing portals and Tresh Devastators popping in and out surrounded by magic shields. Had Jorie’s cover been blown by the firefight with the juvenile zombies in the park or after the encounter with the Tresh safe house in Gulfview, that would have made sense.

  But the T-MOD…

  “I can explain, sir,” he told Sanders. “But I can’t guarantee you’ll believe everything I tell you.”

  “We might,” Brantley said, pulling off his wire-rimmed glasses and buffing one lens with a cloth he pulled from his pants pocket. “We just came from Suzanne Martinez’s veterinary clinic.”

  “Suzanne was busy with an emergency,” Zeke said. “I had to get Baby out of cold storage myself.”

  No wonder Zeke looked a little green around the gills. Theo almost felt sorry for the man, but he still was disturbed by what he saw as a defection. Why did Zeke bring Sanders and Brantley into this? He knew how much Theo was opposed to any outside resources being brought in at this point—until he was sure Jorie was safe.

  He no longer had a chance to do that, he realized grimly. While Brantley’s involvement could result in a more effective attack on the C-Prime, it almost certainly guaranteed that Jorie—and Tam and Rordan—would become property of the media and the feds shortly thereafter.

  “How much did Detective Martinez tell you about the zombie?” Theo asked Brantley.

  It was Sanders who answered. “We limited his recounting to what he had experienced himself. He told us about Baby’s appearance here.” Sanders motioned to the wall behind him that separated the living room and kitchen. “But I understand you’ve had other encounters, not only with these creatures but with people who claim they’re hunting them.”

  So Zeke had told them everything. His last small hope that he could keep Jorie out of this shivered and died.

  “The biggest part of their proof—their ship—is gone,” Theo told him. “It’s a lot of hearsay at this point, a lot that will have to be taken on faith.”

  Chief Brantley leaned his hands on the back of the kitchen chair, his shoulders hunching as if he was tired or annoyed. “Sergeant Petrakos, understand very clearly that the only reason we don’t have FDLE here right now—not to mention Homeland Security—is because Detective Martinez insisted we have faith in you. I personally think what we have here is something far beyond our department’s abilities. Far beyond even FDLE’s. But Martinez refused to tell us anything more unless we first promised to give you a fair hearing.” Brantley straightened and glanced at his watch. “You have forty-five minutes, Sergeant. Start talking. Or I’m getting on the phone to the governor’s office and the Homeland Security task force.”

  Jamont Sanders had big hands for a cop who was also a forensic scientist, with fingers like brown sausages. But he was well known for his deft, sure handling of even the smallest bioswab or entomology needle probe. Sanders poked the air in front of him with that same controlled delicacy. “Force field, eh? Shit!” He jumped back as the invisible shield sizzled and a corresponding alarm erupted from Jorie’s MOD-tech on the bedroom floor. “Feels like a damned Taser!”

  “It could feel worse,” Theo told him. “That’s the low setting.”

  Brantley was silent, watching.

  Next came the G-1 and the Hazer, both demonstrated in the backyard by an obviously condescending Rordan, who clearly didn’t care that Brantley was chief of police in Bahia Vista. Theo could almost see NIL tattooed on all their foreheads.

  Then the scanner, which of the three alien items was the least convincing. Any twelve-year-old whiz kid could probably rig something like that, at least visually.

  Sanders picked up the Hazer again, examining the touch pads on the stock closely. Rordan sauntered over and—with exaggerated motions, as if showing a child—went through the weapon’s settings.

  Theo knew language was a problem with Rordan, but not that big of one. He’d certainly made his intentions about Jorie clear enough.

  He glanced at her standing on the bottom step of his back porch, hands locked loosely behind her back. They’d had little time to speak since Zeke’s phone call and no time at all for anything private, other than a squeeze of her hand along with her reassurance that she’d recovered from her brief nightmare. He didn’t tell her he was still worried—he wondered if the Guardians had something like posttraumatic stress syndrome.

  Her gaze darted to him as if she felt his eyes on her. A corner of her mouth quirked briefly in a small smile, then faded. She was nervous, but whether it was because she was still drained from her nightmare or was picking up on his unease, Theo couldn’t tell.

  And couldn’t ask. Not with Brantley next to him. Not with Rordan within earshot.

  Minutes later they filed back into his kitchen. Sanders grabbed a chair and motioned Rordan, Jorie, and Theo to sit. The chief declined the offered chair and leaned against the counter, watching again. Zeke Martinez stood by the refrigerator, arms folded, looking decidedly anxious.

  Theo was no longer immensely pissed at Zeke. He had somewhat figured out the scenario in his mind—the lab bringing their odd findings to Sanders, who then cornered Zeke as primary on the Wayne case. And Zeke had no answers other than the truth, as bizarre as it was.

  All he had was Baby, back in Suzanne’s clinic. Any twelve-year-old might be able to fabricate an “alien scanner” and maybe even come up with some kind of Taser-like force field. But no twelve-year-old whiz kid could concoct Baby.

  “So these zombies,” Sanders was asking Jorie, “progressed beyond their original programming? And spread?”

  She nodded. “They were designed to be defensive but obedient. When the Mastermind Code was lost, we could no longer control them or prevent the adaptations from occurring. All we can do now is terminate them as we find them.”

  “Killer bees,” Sanders said softly.

  Theo saw Jorie frown, not understanding the analogy: a hybrid honeybee that was accidentally released in the late 1950s and became known for its vicious and defensive behavior. It was never bred for that—the bees were bred for better honey production. But once in the wild, they became a force—and a legend—all their own.

  “Why do they mummify the people or animals they kill?” Sanders asked.

  “Again, a perversion of their original function. They were constructed to take bodily fluid samples from sentients they detained for analysis as protection against the spread of disease. They’d then secrete a chemical to seal the area where the sample was taken—putting the probed area in isolation. Stasis.” She looked at Sanders for confirmation that he understood her explanation.

  He nodded. “Now they suck the entire body dry and then seal it.”

  Gave a whole new meaning to overkill, Theo noted silently.

  “It wasn’t always so,” Jorie said. “The first attacks, a sentient might lose an arm, a leg. But now,” and she shook her head, “it becomes worse as time passes. Worse with each new generation. The original program that initiated their testing function now goes out of control when stimulated by certain frequencies and the presence of a sentient. It’s no longer sample and seal. It’s drain, absorb, and kill—and crave more in a frenzied function to eradicate anything the zombie sees as capable of carrying an infection. Which is any warm-blooded living creature. That’s why we call that their craving.”

  “Up until now you’ve stopped them.” Brantley finally spoke.

  “The zombies respond to frequencies emitted by tech,” Jorie said. “That means they seek out—up until now—a ship, world, or station sufficiently advanced that we, that the Guardians, have no problems integr
ating with them. Or a low-tech world where the Guardians have established a small research colony or defensive outpost so that there are already resources in place we can use.

  “Your world is different.” Jorie waved one hand toward the porch door. “You don’t house a Guardian outpost. And your tech is not yet at the level where the zombies would be drawn here—which is why we ignored you, for the most part. But the Tresh didn’t. I think the Tresh brought them here because they believed they could use your world and be undetected. It was happenstance that we found you. But because you are what you are—a low-tech world not capable of star travel, with no experience with other star systems—we’re handicapped in solving the problem.

  “Now, with my ship no longer here, we are handicapped even more. But, yes, up until now we have stopped the zombies. And, yes,” Jorie said, raising her chin and meeting Brantley’s skeptical gaze clearly, “even now I will try.”

  And that, Theo knew with a sinking heart, was why he cared so very deeply about her. It was something he’d seen in her from the very beginning: a sense of honor. Not blind duty. But a sense of honor because the lives she saved meant something to her.

  It was a sense of honor—considering the odds—that could also get her killed.

  Chief Brantley pushed himself away from the counter. “Sanders?”

  “Sir?”

  “I need to speak privately with you.”

  “Sir.” Sanders stood, glancing around. “Sergeant, may we use your back porch?”

  Theo doubted they were interested in his landscaping by zombie. “Please.” He motioned toward the porch door. “We’ll stay here.” And sweat in the air-conditioning.

  Sanders followed Brantley out. Zeke hesitated for a moment, then came and took Sanders’s seat at the head of the table, opposite Theo, with Jorie and Rordan flanking him. Rordan was poking at his scanner, ignoring the conversation.

  “You still want to kick my ass, amigo?” Zeke asked quietly.

  “Not as much as before. I can see where they had you—”

  “By the cojones?” Zeke blew out an exasperated breath. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “I’m wondering if Brantley believes.”

  “You should have seen his face when I showed him Baby.”

  “I take it he’s been tight-lipped about what he wants to do.”

  Zeke nodded. “You know Brantley.”

  “I do not,” Jorie put in, fisting one hand on the tabletop. “Will he be a hindrance or a help?”

  That brought a comment in Alarsh from Rordan, which received a quick, narrow-eyed look from Jorie. He decided Rordan wanted an argument. And Theo had no intention of giving Rordan anything he wanted.

  “Chief Brantley could isolate the beach area, give us additional shooters, and pretty much insure innocents don’t get hurt. That would be a help,” Theo admitted. “But that help might come at a price.” One that Theo didn’t want to pay but one he couldn’t refuse—unless he was willing to walk away from the job. An inconceivable thought two weeks ago. At the moment, this hour, with Jorie across from him and the memory of holding her while she shivered and cried in his arms still very real, it was no longer quite as inconceivable.

  And that shocked him. Not Officer Theo Petrakos who became Detective Theo Petrakos who was now Sergeant Theo Petrakos. Nephew of Stavros Petrakos, a thirty-year vet of the same job.

  It was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do: be a cop. And he swore he’d never let a woman come between him and his career. Yet here he was with that possibility raising its ugly head.

  And here he was—with Rordan’s challenges echoing in his mind—capable of asking Jorie to do the same thing. What would he do if a Guardian ship returned?

  An earsplitting sound halted his answer and doubled his heart rate.

  Jorie was on her feet, lunging for the Hazer on the table. “Zombie!”

  Rordan answered with a series of short commands in Alarsh that Theo ignored as he shoved away from the table. He grabbed his gun from under his shirt and was on Jorie’s heels as she bolted through the porch door.

  Theo was immediately aware of two things: Sanders and the chief rearing back and reaching for guns secured on their hip holsters as he and Jorie charged onto the porch, and—slightly to the left of the two men and about twenty feet behind them—a pale green glow starting to solidify into a circular shape.

  Panagia mou!

  “Behind you!” he shouted, praying both men trusted him enough to turn around and not perceive Jorie and himself—both armed—as the enemy.

  Rordan bumped past Theo, laser pistol out, as Sanders glanced over his shoulder. “What in hell?”

  The high whine of the Hazer punctuated Sanders’s question. Jorie fired, the head and upper arms of the zombie already in full view. This was no juvenile. It slithered through the portal, twisting as laser fire sizzled against the energyworms writhing frantically over its body.

  Jorie’s shouted exclamation drew Theo’s attention. The zombie’s lower arms slashed out in a wide arc. Jorie dropped to the ground as Theo flew down the porch steps toward her.

  Eyes, he remembered. Opticals. Then go for the heart. He squared off, fired. Missed. Fuck.

  The arms swung back. Theo dropped, rolled, came up again, and saw Rordan sprinting off to his left, trying to get behind the zombie. “Crossfire!” he called out. “Watch crossfire!” He didn’t know if Rordan understood.

  But there was no time. Razor-clawed arms were moving, reaching, grabbing, coming far too close to Jorie, who was—Theo realized with a surge of fear and anger—too close to this zombie.

  Damn her!

  The head dipped as he tried for the eyes again. Then one of Rordan’s laser shots caught the zombie in the neck, and for a split second it reared back. Theo took aim with his Glock. Fired.

  Pow-pang! An eye exploded with a hard crack, the impact from his bullet sending a chunk of zombie cheek flying in its wake.

  The creature’s head dipped, and when it raised it, Theo was ready. Pow-pang! Another eye. One more—

  The zombie lunged as Jorie darted forward, Hazer raised, her concentration on the white heart and not on the clawed arm coming swiftly toward her. Theo damned the fact that he was in love with a woman who was constantly intent on bucking the odds.

  “Jorie!” He jogged toward her, firing on a joint in the arm in an attempt to sever it. More zombie chunks flew, but the arm kept coming. “Jorie! Down!”

  A stream of energy burst from her Hazer just as Theo reached her. There was a blinding green-white flash. He grabbed the waistband of her jeans, yanking her to the ground. She landed on her butt with a yelp and a sharp exclamation, cursing him, for all he knew. He didn’t care. He threw himself on top of her as a rush of wind across his arms told him just how close they’d come to getting shredded like the roof of his car.

  “Theo,” she said into his neck as he was breathing in big gulps of grass and Jorie-scented air. “The zombie’s gone.”

  He rolled off her, raising his gun as he did so. Everything was eerily quiet. And empty. Except for Rordan trotting toward them at a rapid clip, looking none too pleased at Theo’s arms around Jorie. And Sanders, Brantley, and Martinez standing stiffly on his back porch.

  The zombie was gone. Jorie must have hit its heart.

  Theo shoved his gun back in his holster. Then he drew her to her feet and didn’t let go of her hand, even though Rordan was a few steps to their left and Brantley and Sanders were now bearing down on them from their right.

  “I thought I felt its arm swinging—”

  “You felt the portal collapsing.” She cocked her head at him, and it was all he could do not to plant a kiss on her smudgy, grass-streaked face. “Next time, retreat a few maxmeters from a portal before pushing me to the ground. Yes?”

  “I’d like there to be no more next times,” he murmured, because Rordan was approaching, spouting a stream of unintelligible Alarsh. “What now?” Theo added. He was tired of being left in the
dark where Rordan was concerned. This was, damn it all, his planet. His chief was on the scene. Rordan needed to learn to speak English or—

  “How many of those creatures did you say are here?” That was from Chief Brantley, his mouth set in a grim, determined line. Sanders, striding behind him, looked equally disturbed.

  “About three hundred,” he told Brantley, already seeing National Guard trucks rolling down Central Avenue. Followed by the media, of course. “But they’re not all that big. Many are smaller, like Baby. And we really only need to deal with the main one, the C-Prime.”

  “Three hundred.” Brantley gestured to where the zombie no longer stood. “Of those.”

  Now it was the black sedans with their darkened windows Theo could see in his mind. FBI. CIA. NASA. Some alphabet-soup agency that would take Jorie away from him.

  As if sensing his fears, she pulled her hand from his and turned to Rordan.

  Jorie said something low and short in Alarsh. Rordan was silent a moment, then answered.

  Feeling lost in more ways than one, Theo turned back to the chief. “I don’t think this has to be a big operation, sir. I already have some volunteers. A smaller group would keep any wild rumors from causing problems.”

  “That’s not your decision to make, Petrakos.” The chief pulled out his cell phone and glanced up at Sanders. “I’m contacting Secretary Warren at the Homeland Security Task Force. And unless she has a better idea, the next call I’m making is to the governor.”

  Theo’s gut clenched at Brantley’s words. He didn’t dare argue with the chief. But he had to. “Sir—”

  “I hear you on the rumors, Sergeant. I know the problems we could face if the television stations got hold of this. But DHS is very experienced in dealing with exactly those kinds of situations. Let’s let the experts do their jobs.

  “In the meantime, I expect you and Commander Mikkalah to make yourselves available to anyone from DHS the minute they ask.” He pinned Theo with a hard stare through his wire-rimmed glasses. “Your vacation is officially over.” And with that, Brantley turned away and, cell phone to one ear, headed down Theo’s driveway, Sanders in tow.