Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter (Book 1): Lizzie Borden, Zombie Hunter

by Verstraete, C. A.

  With no time to think, she pointed the gun. BLAM! This time the shot went true, hitting the hideous ghoul dead-center in its forehead. She stared at the bloody hole and felt nothing. Maybe surprise has its merits after all, Lizzie thought. I must be getting jaded.

  More shots and shouting filled the air. Lizzie did a quick count. Realizing she only had two bullets left, she rushed to the carriage. “Emma, quick, untie it! Hurry, get in!”

  The two of them jumped in, with Lizzie taking the reins. “We need to get the horse further down the road. Keep that poker ready. I only have two shots left.”

  To her relief, all fell silent. She turned at the sound of footsteps. “John?”

  “It’s over.” He walked up to the carriage and took the gun back from her, signs of the fight evident in the streaks of blood across his cheeks and the smears on his clothing. He sighed and rubbed a hand across his weary face.

  “We got all the creatures. Actually, not as many as we thought got out. Most of them are still chained inside. The ones that escaped are truly dead now, may they rest in peace.”

  His accounting made Lizzie grimace. “This is horrible. How many would you say got out?”

  He shrugged and exhaled in relief. “I would say twenty-five, thirty?”

  “Emma, stay here would you?” Lizzie asked and stepped out of the carriage. “I want to take a look. Or would you rather come along?”

  Her sister made a sour face and shook her head. “No, I’ll stay. I’m certainly not going anywhere else.”

  Lizzie turned and walked beside John down the path, the carnage increasingly evident. The decayed remains of body after body covered the hard ground. Even worse, now that the bodies were no longer reanimated, the decay seemed to accelerate. Already pieces of limbs had dropped off and lay next to the lifeless forms. The rotten flesh sloughed off like lizard skin. A mass of insects skittered off. She tried to block the disgusting images and analogies from her mind. It didn’t work.

  She coughed and covered her nose with a handkerchief John handed her. “Oh, the smell. It’s truly revolting. Whatever are you going to do with them?”

  Her question went unanswered for a moment as John directed a couple of men with heavy masks, shovels, and bags to begin the clean-up. He turned and took her elbow, leading her to the warehouse entrance.

  “I’m very sorry, Liz, it’s a beast of a job. The men will take all the remains to the county crematory. The medical examiner is a friend of ours.”

  A man dressed in a police uniform arrived and went to talk with the other fighters in John’s group. Seeing him, Lizzie tried to keep her face hidden. She grasped at John’s sleeve with crab-like fingers as she suddenly became lightheaded. “I-I can’t breathe.”

  He leaned down and whispered to her, “Liz, relax. Take a deep breath. No need to panic, everything is fine. He’s a friend of ours.”

  To her relief, he snaked an arm around her shoulders as she waited for the weakness to pass. It finally did. “Thank you. This is so unlike me. I’ve never been the frail, hothouse flower type.”

  “Never mind, no need to worry. I’m pretty worn down myself. I’d better unlock the door so the men can clear out the inside of the warehouse, then…” He paused in front of the worn, wooden door, his face confused. “Liz, look at this.”

  She stared at the lock he held in his hand—or rather pieces of the lock. “What in the world? It looks like it’s been broken!”

  “Indeed, it does,” he muttered, his expression serious. “It looks fine, except the hasp appears to have been sawed through. Which I suspect is part of the reason for how the creatures got out.”

  Lizzie noted the steely look and growing anger on his handsome face. She couldn’t blame him and felt much the same. “And the other reason?”

  He shook his head.

  She followed him in, listening to the creak of metal as he turned the valve on one of the kerosene lamps hanging on an iron hook jutting from the weathered brick wall. The scene of body after mangled body piled atop one another in a grisly tableau pulled straight from Dante’s Inferno took on a ghastlier tone under the lamp’s yellowish glow.

  John took a few steps closer to the edge of the pile and covered his nose with his arm. He inspected the long link of old, rusty chains which kept one creature attached to the other. The end of the chain hooked to a crude wooden wheel in the center. Lizzie eyed the contraption, suspecting that somehow the creatures couldn’t stand still, thus making the wheel turn while it kept its captives in a ghoulish merry-go-round of motion. Sadness filled her. Oh, Father, what were you up to?

  John’s face reflected her mood. Letting out a deep sigh, he wiped his hands and motioned her outside. She waited while he talked quietly with several of the men shoveling the remains out in front. The whole scene bothered her. How can they keep doing this? She sighed, almost overwhelmed with it all. She wondered what other surprises could occur.

  True to form, the first came at her fast. John paused and held her hand. “Liz, I apologize. I have to take you and Emma home. I’m afraid there’s much more going on here than I expected. I have to meet with the Society members to do some quick planning.”

  He grimaced and swore under his breath. “Not only was the door lock cut, but somebody sawed part of the chains keeping the creatures fixed to that wheel. That’s the other reason, I fear. Those were no accidents. Someone definitely wanted to harm your father.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The theories which were advanced by those who have been closely connected with the case agree on one thing, and that is that the murderer knew his ground and carried out his bloodthirsty plan with a speed and surety that indicated a well matured plot…

  —The Fall River Herald, August 5, 1892

  H

  is words couldn’t have startled her more.

  Lizzie did feel a bit disappointed about going home with Emma instead of spending time alone with John, but that seemed trivial at the moment. She felt worse thinking her father might have done something to prompt someone to hate him so, thus endangering his wife and family. That completely boggled her mind.

  “Then his being attacked, his getting infected, wasn’t an accident.” She pondered the thought as they reached the carriage. John helped Emma in and then her.

  Emma’s face went pale. “You—you mean Father?”

  Lizzie nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  John shook his head. “I’m sorry, Liz, Emma, I suspect not. The men will let me know more of the details once they’ve cleaned up and can better examine the warehouse, but it looks like someone planned this. Whatever your father was involved in, it seems to have been a nasty business all around.”

  Lizzie mulled over the situation as she handed John his driving gloves for the ride home. It would have taken some doing, some serious manipulating, she reasoned, for anyone to pull off such a thing. The person—or persons—responsible needed to not only know the infected were being kept here, but they had to know how to deal with them to avoid attack. And somehow, they had to fix it so the others wouldn’t escape. An idea formulated in the back of her mind.

  “I think we should go back in the warehouse,” she suggested. “I want to look around Father’s office. We might find something that can explain some of this.”

  “Good idea,” John agreed and jumped to the ground, enthusiasm in his step. “I’ll help you look so we can get out of here as soon as possible. Emma, are you coming?”

  Her sister’s hesitation before shaking her head no filled Lizzie with sadness. She hoped Emma hadn’t lost all her nerve, but she decided to let her be for now. They’d have to talk about it, though.

  She and John hurried inside. The stench alone was enough to make them move faster. The staleness and sour smells in the air also made her cough. She pressed a handkerchief over her mouth and nose as John walked ahead past the main workroom.

  They headed down the narrow corridor and up the stairs leading to the back office. The small room, probably once
a storeroom, took up the far end of the upper floor. Father must’ve liked this, she guessed, since the location allowed him to step outside and see what was going on by peering over the railing at the work area below. Lizzie pictured him standing there, a stern, unforgiving look on his face as he watched this whole eerie mechanism in use. A shiver hit her. It felt horribly, terribly wrong.

  She was deep in thought when John whispered a warning.

  “Liz, look at this.” He pointed out the broken lock hanging from the heavy weathered door. “Don’t move.” He pulled the gun from inside his coat, crept forward, and carefully pushed in the door, which gave a low creak as it swung further open.

  As he waited, Lizzie decided there was no way she would let him leave her all alone. She picked up an old metal pole left lying on the worn wooden floor—possibly part of what the town night watchman had used to extinguish the candle lamps on the street before they switched to kerosene—thinking it might be of good use.

  Creeping forward, she tiptoed behind John, who suddenly jumped back. “Liz, look out!”

  “YAAA!” She yelled and stumbled backward, nearly hitting her head on the brick wall. To her shock, an aged but still spry male creature, skin a dark gray hue and mottled with disease, its head spotted with gouges and a few scraggly tufts of graying hair, sprang from inside the office. The air immediately became polluted with the distinctive odor of rotten eggs, bad meat, and other unmentionable smells. It lunged at John, who raised the gun but held his fire.

  “Can’t hit him, the angle’s wrong,” John yelled. “Liz, swing—move him back. Hurry!”

  She took a breath and made a weak jab. It staggered the creature, at least getting his attention. The monster gazed at her with yellow eyes oozing streams of pus. It hissed like a snake, revealing a mouthful of rotted, black teeth. No one needed to tell her how namby-pamby her jab was, but it worked. It got the thing to back away from John. The way the ghoul hissed and dragged itself in John’s direction, one rotted, decayed foot sliding after the other, made Lizzie forget everything else. She scurried away from it as fast as she could.

  “Liz, get down—duck!”

  She did. John aimed and fired, sending a bloody shower of brains, bone, and skin cascading down the brick wall and across the floorboards. The thing hit the floor with a thump. Lizzie gagged, and hearing no other noises, rushed into the office.

  Stack after stack of discarded papers met her eyes, souring her mood even more. She glanced at all of it, overcome, and exhausted. “I don’t know how much we’ll find. We’d better get out of here. I know I’ve had enough for one day.”

  “Make that two of us.” He headed for the tall wooden cabinet overflowing with papers near the back brick wall. “I’ll look into this pile.”

  She set the pole against the wall, sighed, and gazed at the other scattered stacks of debris, including worn leather straps, horse reins, and assorted supplies. It looked to have been here for at least a few years if not more. A thinner layer of dust covering the boxes on the desk made her think these might have been added to more recently. It looked like a good place to start.

  The first two boxes held nothing but yellowed receipts and papers from a long-defunct wagon company. Another box held papers with her father’s name and a business involving different kinds of carriage parts, also new to her. The discovery might have shocked her before, but not anymore.

  She flung open one drawer, and then another, sending up a shower of dust which set her to sneezing. Achoo! She rubbed her fingers, trying to wipe off some of the dust, but only succeeded in making it worse. It was awful.

  Papers. Sneeze. More paper. Sneeze. Receipts. Double sneeze.

  “Lizzie, I hate to ask how you’re managing over there?”

  “I’m”—Achoo!—“fine. Ugh, this is… Oh.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea. The drawer is stuffed full of more paper.”

  She pulled the center drawer open further, dug inside, and held up a handful. Hmm, it looks like someone was doing a lot of figuring. She sifted through the papers. Her eyes widened as a pattern emerged. John came up next to her and peered over her shoulder.

  “It’s some sort of running tally, I think, like an order and price list.” She flipped through several pages. “See? A three and a two hundred. Here’s a one and a half—does that mean a time maybe?”

  “Yes, I see. What else did you find?”

  A small, black leather notebook taken from the bottom of the pile came next. She flipped through it. “Oh, my… It could be prices and I think purchases. It says one hundred and marked with a three. What was this for? There are names, too. Well, only initials. Do you see that?”

  John shook his head and swore under his breath. “I suppose you can trace your father’s business acquaintances from those.”

  “Perhaps, but if they live out of town we’ll never know who they are.”

  A couple of faded pages fell to the floor from the back of the book. Lizzie bent down to pick them up, her eyes widening as she saw the contents. “Wait, the names… Harold S., James St. H. It appears several are partially spelled out.”

  She glanced at the other sheet before passing it to John. “It looks like some sort of insurance policy. It says, ‘full value of one serviceable good owned by an AB.’ You read the rest.”

  He scanned the page. “Hmm, uh-huh. Oh.”

  “What?”

  He showed her what he’d found, pointing to the page with his grimy finger. “It clearly states that what he calls the ‘serviceable goods’—and it specifies the gender and supposed age—are the owner’s property, and it gives their estimated values.”

  The idea of what was going on here became disgustingly clearer. “It sounds like he was hiring those creatures out.” She paused. “Like—like slaves.”

  Her thoughts whirled. As horrid as the undead appeared now, they’d once been people—someone’s mother, father, sister, brother, friend. The Congregationalist Church teachings that she’d heard since childhood about respecting others made her indignant. This is so wrong! She gazed at the paper again and gasped. The initials A.B. again.

  “Oh, Father,” she whispered, voicing what was becoming an all-too-familiar refrain. “What have you done?”

  John pointed out a line on one of the sheets. “Here, this has the initials of the persons who paid the fee. Two of the most frequently mentioned initials, and what could be the names, are written at the bottom of the page.”

  She stared at the blacked-out names, wondering how long it would take to decipher the writing—or if they even could. No matter what, she knew they had to try.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Fall River’s Mystery - Clewes Followed Only to Come to Naught. Emma and Lizzie Borden Prostrated.

  The daughters of the murdered Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Borden are beginning to realize the awfulness of the suspicion resting upon Miss Lizzie.

  —Headlines, The Bethlehem Times, August 8, 1892

  August 8-9, 1892

  T

  he latest news had each of them in their own thoughts on the way back home. Lizzie checked the small watch pinned on her bodice. It was already after midnight as John stopped the horse a few steps away from their front door. He climbed down and helped Emma out of the carriage before accompanying her to the front door.

  “Well, goodnight then,” she said.

  He tipped his hat. “Always a pleasure, Miss Emma.”

  A minute later, a lamp glowed in the front parlor window. John stood at the side of the carriage and offered his hand to Lizzie, who shook her head. “I’d rather not go in just yet. I simply can’t get that warehouse out of my mind.”

  He went to the driver’s side and climbed back into his seat. “It does bring up a lot of questions. I’ll talk to the Society members about it more. Maybe they have some insight or have heard something I haven’t.”

  “Maybe.” Lizzie nodded, wondering if she dared make a more personal suggestion.

  He
cleared his throat. “It might not be a good idea for us to sit out here too long. Someone may notice.”

  “Can we take a drive? I’m really not tired.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “All right. Liz, you are a hard one to resist. I fear I’m taking advantage.”

  She gave him a saucy smile. “No more than I let you.”

  The horse’s hooves made a rhythmic clip-clop, clip-clop through the empty streets. Lizzie’s mood improved despite the discovery of some of her father’s hidden activities. She knew more news was likely forthcoming. Like her looming troubles, she wanted to keep it as far in the future as possible. There was no reason to sulk and belabor her fate every moment. And truth be told, as wanton as it sounded, these stolen moments with John intrigued her much more.

  The carriage pulled into the courtyard of his handsome brick house just in time for them to see someone at the side door.

  “Stop!” John yelled. “Who’s there, what do you want?”

  A man dressed in a dark colored coat and pants turned and darted past, making the horse snort and stomp its feet. John jumped from the carriage and lunged at the intruder, but the man was too fast. John ended up lying in an awkward and embarrassing jumble on the street while the stranger ran off and disappeared.

  Lizzie slid out of her seat and hurried to see if he needed help. “Are you hurt?”

  He shook his head and stood. “No, only my pride. Whoever it was, someone younger and more agile I might add, he had the leap on me from the start.” He rubbed his knee and took a quick look around before going over to unhook the horse from the carriage. “We’d better get inside before we attract more attention. Wait here. I might have to wake the groom to get the horse brushed and settled in.”

  She tried to keep out of view by the wall as John led the horse into the barn through one of the double doors. The air felt heavy. Each passing second made her more nervous. Minutes passed. What was taking so long?

  Her fears became harder to dismiss when a distinct, unforgettable bad odor wafted her way. She turned in time to see the side barn door slowly creak open. Heart pounding, Lizzie retreated in the direction of the carriage. “John?”