Zombie Moon

by Lori Devoti

  The mention of clothing made Caleb remember that his passenger didn’t have any—at least none that wasn’t on her back. A sign she wasn’t who she said she was? His gaze on the road, he kept his voice neutral and asked, “How about you? If we’re driving to Texas, do you need to stop somewhere to get anything?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Oh. I completely forgot.” She laughed. “I had a bag with me when I left Tennessee, but it got stolen—not long after I got here. Right after I bought this coat, actually.”

  “Really?” He tapped his finger against the steering wheel. “Well, at least you have that. And money…?”

  She fiddled with her belt again, ran it through her fingers. “Money…yes, I have money. How else would I pay you?” She licked her lips.

  He forced himself not to stare as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips. “I don’t know. I’m sure we could come up with some kind of…trade.”

  Her gaze jumped to him. She stiffened.

  Still thinking of the many ways she could repay him, he smiled, but he covered his thoughts with words. “You did handle my gun well.”

  A bit of air left her lungs. She relaxed again. “My father,” she said. “I grew up with firearms. They don’t scare me.”

  He wanted to ask her what did, but he suspected she didn’t completely know the answer to that herself. Most people didn’t, not until they had to stare that fear right in the eyeball. Instead, he changed the subject.

  “So, Waco.” He only knew one thing about Waco: that it had been home to the Branch Davidians. Probably after that mess, a quiet research institute wouldn’t raise many eyebrows in the area. It added weight to her tale, but, of course, if the video was a fake, its producer would have created a good story to go with it, one designed with him and his probable suspicions in mind.

  “Open the glove box,” he instructed.

  She looked at him questioningly, but did as he asked. Inside were two stiletto knives and a PDA. “You ever dissect a frog in high school biology?” he asked.

  She stared at the glove box’s contents, but didn’t reach inside.

  “Take one of the knives and keep it on you. A zombie gets close to you, pith him, just like that frog.”

  “And if I can’t?” she asked.

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to stare back at her. “Then jam it through your heart.”

  Her hand shaking, she reached for one of the blades. He waited for her to make her selection, then added in a softer voice, “Just get him first.” Because if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have to worry about turning the knife on herself. Caleb would do it for her.

  After she slipped the blade into her coat pocket, he told her to take out the PDA, too. “It has Internet. While I drive you might as well look for attacks. The sites are bookmarked.” He talked her through maneuvering his PDA. Then while she clicked and typed, they rode in silence for a few minutes.

  After a while, she looked up. “I found some. What now?”

  “Write down anything in Texas. We’ll drive a little then we’ll stop and chart it.” Charting was one of his methods of sorting the real from the fake. Where there was one zombie sighting there tended to be more. Clusters of attacks or sightings always took top priority. If the video was real, odds were there would be sightings around the place. Charted properly with the right software, which he owned, he might even be able to pin the place down within a thirty-mile radius or so.

  He pulled a stenographer’s pad from under his seat. There was a pencil jammed into its wire coil. While she scribbled, he drove. For now he was just heading south. Once she had some data, they would stop, he’d enter it into his computer and they’d see what popped out. Then he’d plug the area into the GPS he kept in his laptop bag when he wasn’t using it and they’d settle in for the drive.

  And along the way, he’d watch for any sign they were being followed or that she was recording him. He glanced at her. He’d focused on the possibility of a video being made of them, but perhaps he was thinking too high-tech. She could also just be planning an article or a blog piece on him.

  Of course, that would be a lot easier to fake. Why waste the time it was going to take riding around with him? Unless of course she was a blogger with morals. He snorted.

  She glanced at him, but he just made a dismissive motion with his hand and she went back to reading. A comfortable silence fell between them. It was nice, he realized, to have someone in the car with him, even if they weren’t talking. Maybe because they weren’t talking.

  Fighting zombies was lonely. Not only because of the killing itself, but because he couldn’t share what he did with anyone. He had to eke out an existence just beneath the radar. And loner though he was, every now and then it would be a relief to tell someone what he’d seen that day, to know someone else understood. So, he sank against his seat and enjoyed riding in silence, but not alone.

  It was an hour before Samantha looked up again. She had written down three promising sightings in the past three months.

  One a month. That was a lot—unless one person was responsible for faking them, or some town was trying to pull in the tourists. But that happened more in the ghost arena. Some overmortgaged inn owner would get the bright idea to seed the Internet with sightings of a pair of dead lovers. It happened with almost all paranormal phenomena, but not quite as much with zombies as ghosts. The heyday of zombies was fifty years past; ghosts were the new supernatural black.

  So, Caleb’s interest was definitely piqued by the data. He started watching for an exit.

  Ten minutes later they were parked in front of a truck stop with a sign out front that bragged of wireless. He grabbed his laptop bag and they strolled inside. Two truckers turned to look at them. Samantha’s coat flapped open as they came through the door and the pair’s gazes lingered on her revealing tight outfit a little longer than Caleb liked.

  He slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her to his side. She moved as if to break away. He leaned closer, so he could whisper in her ear. “You might want to pick up some new clothes, after all.”

  She glanced at him from the corner of her eye, then following his gaze, looked at the truckers. One of them, a bearded man wearing suspenders over his double-wide gut, took a sip of coffee and tipped his cap.

  She stepped closer to Caleb. His hand cupped her hip as if the two had been molded to fit together. He moved his fingers, swirled them over the smooth, stretchy material of her pants. She jumped, but under the trucker’s watchful gaze quickly settled back down.

  Caleb turned his attention to the two men, stared at them until they fidgeted in their seats and dropped their eyes.

  Once he was sure they had gotten the message, he gestured to a booth in the back and pulled Samantha along with him. His gaze still on the truckers, he waited for her to slide in.

  A full sixty seconds later he realized she hadn’t moved and scowled at her.

  She pointed at a Restroom sign. There was an arrow under it that pointed down a hallway nowhere near the truckers.

  He grunted and slid into the booth without her. He watched to make sure she turned down the hallway, even considered following her for a second, but he couldn’t follow her inside the restroom, not without upsetting a few bystanders and alerting Samantha that he was watching her a little more carefully than she might like. So, he made do with watching her disappear in the right direction and then focused on doing what he did best—hunting zombies.

  Within seconds he’d powered up his computer and was lost in the world of online zombies. He’d never worked with anyone before. So, while in the car he’d asked her to make the list, he couldn’t leave it to her judgment alone. He had to check the sites himself, too. Plus, if she wasn’t what she said she was, her sighting would most likely be fake, too, or all posted at the same site.

  And that was exactly what he discovered. All three of the sightings she had listed came from BrainHungry.com BrainHungry was a fairly new blog that had already developed a rather passi
onate if misguided following. Flame wars frequently broke out in the comments, arguments over everything from the best way to kill a zombie to whether they preferred brains from a certain ethnic or age group.

  Caleb didn’t bother dropping into the fight to educate the uneducated masses. It wasn’t his job. Besides, if they were busy fighting amongst themselves they weren’t getting in his way—or so he had thought.

  He glanced back at the hallway where Samantha had disappeared. Could she be working with the owners of BrainHungry? He would have to research the site a bit, see what he could learn about the owners. But not now. Now he needed to see if there were any other hits she had missed.

  He had just discovered an entry claiming two zombies in hospital gowns had been spotted staggering through a Wisconsin mall parking lot, less than twenty miles from where he had met Samantha, when someone cleared his throat.

  Caleb looked up to see the suspender-wearing trucker staring down at him.

  “Take it you’re fond of that girl?” He waggled a hairy eyebrow. Caleb lifted his lip in response. Fondness didn’t matter. She’d come in with him; if the guy had thoughts she might not leave with him, too, he had some hurting in his future.

  The man held up his hands and took a step back. “Hey, just trying to help. Thought you’d want to know…” He shook his head and turned as if to leave.

  Unease crept over Caleb. He grabbed the man by his fleshy upper arm. “I’d want to know what?”

  The man ran his tongue over his teeth, like he was picking part of his lunch out of them. “Nothing much. Just that she left without you.” He shoved his hands into his front pockets, pushing his pants a little lower under his stomach, and jerked his head toward the front windows.

  Through the dingy glass, Caleb caught a flash of Samantha’s silver coat disappearing behind a full-size van with blacked-out windows.

  He shoved his laptop into the trucker’s hands. “Anything happens to this I’ll kill you.”

  The trucker opened his mouth, but Caleb pulled a knife from his bag and poked the tip of the blade into the man’s gut. “Do you believe me?”

  The man’s eyes shifted to the side. Caleb poked him again. “I don’t have time for you to act brave, or think about calling for help. Just know if when I come back, my laptop isn’t safe or there’s some other unpleasant surprise waiting for me, I’ll track you down and leave you in such little bits even the zombies won’t bother with you.” Then he slipped the knife into his sleeve and sprinted from the restaurant.

  The van was parked two rows back, fifty feet from the door Caleb had exited. Black smoke chugged out of its exhaust pipe as it coughed to life. A man carrying a six-pack of beer stepped in front of him. The van was already moving, was going to pass where Caleb stood any second. He ripped the cans out of the man’s hand and hurled them one after the other at the vehicle.

  The first hit the windshield, the second the passenger window. Glass cracked and beer exploded onto the van. Caleb jogged toward it, tossing cans as he went.

  As one smashed into the side of the vehicle, the van stopped. Caleb rushed forward and jerked open the driver’s door. An older man in a round-brimmed hat adorned with fishing flies shrank against the seat. He glanced to the passenger seat where a woman wearing a visor and wraparound sunglasses clung to her door. “Run,” he yelled at her. “There ain’t nothing here worth dying over.”

  The woman threw open the door and tumbled out of the van. Caleb grabbed the driver by the front of the shirt. “Where is she?”

  The man stared and sputtered, then jerked his keys from the ignition and tried to shove them into Caleb’s hand. Caleb leaned past him and stared into the back of the vehicle. Then he cursed. It was empty. He sniffed. The van smelled of peanuts and beef jerky. Not a single hint of Samantha’s fresh jasmine scent—nor of decaying zombie flesh.

  He dropped the remaining can of beer into the man’s lap and whirled around. Two men wearing tight T-shirts that bunched up on their biceps to reveal barbed wire tattoos strode toward him. Their arms folded over their chests, they stepped into his space.

  “What’s happening here, friend?” one asked.

  Caleb let the knife he’d shown the trucker slip into his hand, while still keeping it hidden from their view. “My wife was abducted. I saw the van—” he gestured to the blacked-out windows “—and jumped to conclusions.”

  The men glanced at each other. “Abducted? Here?”

  From behind the building there came a scream. Caleb barreled past the two men, sending both staggering in circles.

  A car pulled into the lot, heading straight for him, not bothering to slow or dash to the side. He jumped, landed on the front bumper and then ran up the hood, over the roof and back down the trunk. Then he leaped and kept running.

  Knife in hand now, he turned the corner.

  Her legs braced wide, Samantha stood on top of a rolling Dumpster. The stiletto blade he’d given her was in her hand and the tip was inches from her heart. Below her on the ground, arms reaching toward her was a zombie. A fresh one. It smelled of death, but the decay was still slight.

  “Samantha,” Caleb yelled.

  Her gaze shot to him; it looked hollow and haunted but still alive. She hadn’t been bitten, not yet.

  The zombie turned, too. It was a man, or had been. He was wearing a polo shirt and shorts, like he’d been on his way to the golf course, but it wasn’t his clothing that drew Caleb’s attention. It was the collar clamped around his neck. Texas.

  Wishing he had his thermos of brains, Caleb waved his hands and yelled again. “Come and get me, you brain-hungry bastard.”

  The zombie wavered, leaned on his right foot as if preparing to do as Caleb said and then jerked and looked back at Samantha.

  Caleb yelled again, but the zombie didn’t react. Apparently, whoever was controlling the monster had too strong of a hold, or had imprinted his assignment too completely into the undead creature’s head.

  Caleb stared up at Samantha. “Remember what I told you. We’ll only get one shot.” He held up his blade, telling her to be ready with hers. Then he charged.

  Hitting the zombie was easy. Holding the creature pinned against the Dumpster on which Samantha stood was much harder.

  Caleb believed with his werewolf-altered blood he was immune to a zombie’s bite, but he had never actually tested the theory. Even immune, getting bitten was something to be avoided at all cost—except perhaps the cost of saving someone else from the bite. Samantha. With that in mind, he put all of his preternatural strength into holding the zombie’s arms pinned against its sides and shoving its back against the Dumpster.

  As the monster lurched forward with its head, trying to make contact with Caleb’s face or neck, Caleb yelled, “Now!”

  He didn’t have to worry about Samantha’s response. She scuttled to the edge of the Dumpster, the knife held ready in her hand. Then when she was barely less than an arm’s length away, she thrust down, driving the blade into the indented space at the base of the zombie’s skull and pithing the creature just like Caleb had instructed.

  He had never been more proud or relieved.

  The false life drained from the zombie. Caleb let the creature crumple onto the ground, then he held up his arms and waited for Samantha to fall down against him.

  Samantha placed her hands on Caleb’s shoulders and slid off the Dumpster, letting her body slide down his as she did. Then she stood pressed against him, feeling his heartbeat, feeling her own, and knowing while it was wrong to allow herself to be this close to someone she barely knew, to trust someone she barely knew, there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about. Caleb was warm, strong and alive.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She leaned her forehead against his chest and breathed for a second. He smelled good, like licorice. The scent, or maybe it was his warmth, calmed her, or she thought it did until she stared at her hands. They were shaking. Then she remembered what she had done with them…and what sh
e had been about to do.

  Caleb reached up and stroked her hair, whispered in her ear, “You did good. Really good.” He glanced to the side, where the zombie had fallen.

  The sounds of horns honking and people yelling echoed from the front of the building. He caught her fingers in his hands. “We need to get moving, but first…” He jerked the stiletto blade from the back of the zombie’s skull and dropped it onto the ground. Then he grabbed the corpse under the arms and slung it into the Dumpster.

  Samantha stepped back, shaken by the ease with which he’d moved, as if the zombie’s body weighed no more than a good-size bag of mulch.

  Unaware of her surprise, Caleb wiped the stiletto clean on a rag and slipped the blade into his boot. After throwing the rag into the Dumpster, too, he looked up. Catching her stare, he angled his head.

  Realizing her nerves were showing, she laughed. “Sorry. It’s just…” She gestured to the Dumpster. “This… I… It’s hard to take it all in.”

  He grabbed her by the arm and tugged her back around the building, so they would come around the front from the opposite side she had left. “Yeah, well, hopefully you won’t have to get used to it.”

  Stumbling over her own feet to keep up, Samantha swallowed the lump that had been lodged in her throat since she’d realized what had grabbed her. She had never agreed with anything anyone had said quite as much as she agreed with Caleb right then.

  But if as she suspected this wasn’t destined to be her last encounter with a zombie, she had to do better. She had to be stronger. There was no sugarcoating what had happened. She had chickened out.

  The zombie had almost had her. It would have had her if Caleb hadn’t appeared. She’d been standing on that Dumpster telling herself she could do it, that she could drive the blade into her own heart. But it had been a lie. She couldn’t.