I laughed as I stopped at the door. “Doc, you of all people know that I’ve got more issues than you’ll ever clear up in a lifetime.”
And with that, I rushed out of the building.
Chapter 2
I took the stairs two at a time as I rushed down to the main floor. I had to get out of there before Dr. Vernon came after me. It wasn’t likely that she would, but why chance it? It was a certainty that she’d note on my record that we hadn’t finished our session. The Directors would give me crap about that, no doubt.
“Lydia,” I said as I pushed out the main door, “you’re a genius.”
“I know, darlin’.”
“No, I mean you’re seriously a genius.” I flipped open the door to my red Aston Martin Rapide S and climbed inside. The engine purred to life, reminding me why I’d purchased it in the first place. “Helping me get out of there by using a zombie reference? Classic!”
“Sweetie,” she said in a calmer voice, “I wasn’t making that up. There actually are reports of people digging themselves out of their graves.”
I laughed at that as I pulled out of my parking spot. “Great stuff.”
Anyone who knew me was aware that I loved a good gag. Pulling one over on Dr. Vernon was great. I couldn’t help but picture the good doctor sitting in her high-backed, leather chair right now while frowning at the door and wondering what the heck had just happened. Knowing her, she’d just write yet another note in my file about how I was unfit to be a public servant. Unfortunately for her, nobody on my crew was fit to be a public servant, which is precisely what made us so damn good at our jobs.
“Ian, you there?” It was the voice of my partner, Rachel Cress.
“Hey, Rachel, did you hear the gem that Lydia came up with to get me out of the psych eval? It was brilliant.” I cackled again. “She said that there are zombies climbing out of their graves. Zombies!”
“There are,” Rachel replied, deadpan, causing me to laugh again. “Ian, Lydia wasn’t making that up. It’s actually happening.”
At this point it was all I could do to maintain my composure.
Zombies.
Hilarious.
My guess was that they were both playing off the fact that I loved zombie movies. All kinds, too. The old ones, the new ones, the silly ones…it didn’t matter. They were all fun to me.
“We’re not joking, Ian,” Rachel said tightly.
“We really aren’t, honey bubbles,” agreed Lydia.
“Honey bubbles?” Rachel had said it in a disgusted tone of voice. “What the hell does that even mean?”
Lydia’s voice returned to being pedantic. “They are bubbles made of honey, Ms. Cress.”
“Ugh.”
A little voice in my head noted something odd, which I wouldn’t have noticed if Lydia hadn’t called me “honey bubbles” and Rachel hadn’t grumbled about it.
In order for the zombie thing to be a joke, Rachel and Lydia would have needed to be colluding. That was fishy because Rachel and Lydia didn’t get along.
On top of that, Lydia had never lied to me before.
Maybe there’d been an upgrade to her software? That would be good, actually. It’d be fantastic to work with a flirty A.I. who also had a great sense of humor. Plus, if she’d learned to work more cordially with the rest of my team, that’d be a win. Not that it was her fault, of course. My crew, especially Rachel, tended to treat Lydia like she was nothing but a machine. While technically that was true, she did have a personality, and now and then she expressed emotion in such a way as to make her seem almost human.
So a software upgrade had to be it.
There must have been complaints put in about our friendly neighborhood A.I., most of them likely coming from Rachel. Fortunately, they hadn’t removed her ability to flirt with me. I kind of liked that, especially since I had a self-imposed restriction from flirting with anyone else on the force.
“Ian?” pressed Rachel.
“Hmmm?” I said, jolting back out of my thoughts. “Oh, yeah, right. We’ve got zombies on our hands.” Classic prank, but I’d play along. “Where should I meet you to see these creatures of the grave, Rachel?”
“King David Cemetery,” she replied without inflection. “I’ve got the rest of the crew on the way.”
“Oh, most definitely.” I rolled my eyes. “We’ll need everyone on this case.”
I cruised down East Sunset to South Eastern, making my way over to the cemetery. There was no point in rushing, so I took my time and let the wind blow through my hair.
If nothing else, it was a nice night for a zombie invasion. Of course it was almost always nice in Las Vegas, at least during the evenings, which happened to be when the Paranormal Police Department was primarily on duty.
I spotted the Don Tortaco Mexican Grill on my right and my stomach grumbled. A burrito sounded good right about now. I’d have to make a stop there on my way back from this practical joke my team was playing on me.
I grinned again.
Zombies was usually a joke played on new recruits, according to the notes I read from the previous chief of the PPD. It was done to make a person feel like they were part of the team. Apparently, though, a few recruits got pretty pissed off about it and so the previous chief had stopped the practice. This had all happened before I was born, though, so my team probably didn’t know I was aware of all this.
From my perspective, the thought of them setting me up like this was sweet. It wasn’t even my birthday or anything. Maybe it was boss-appreciation week? Is there even such a thing?
“The rest of the team is here, Ian,” Rachel said. “Just waiting on you.”
“I’m sure you are,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’m about a minute away.”
Taking a left on Eldorado Lane, I noticed a few people walking around in the graveyard. That was kind of odd, being that it was late at night, but some people worked days so visitation was done when it could be done. Of course, they could also have been actors.
Yeah, actors!
My crew was really laying this joke on thick.
I chuckled.
Finally, I turned right into the King David Cemetery, stopped my car, got out, brushed down my suit, and checked my shoes.
Then I walked up to the rest of the gang.
And that’s when my blood froze.
Chapter 3
This was either the most extravagant practical joke ever played, or there really were zombies clomping around. My brain was having trouble accepting this, though, as it simply wasn’t possible. People died and that was that. They didn’t come back up out of the ground. That stuff just happened in the movies.
“Okay,” I said, feeling that I knew the impending answer to the question I was about to pose, “if this isn’t a prank, maybe it’s a flashmob thing?”
Rachel frowned at me while keeping her arms crossed. “In the middle of the night at a graveyard this far off the strip?”
“They could be practicing.”
I looked from face to face, seeing the same expression on each of them.
Rachel, Jasmine, and Felicia were leaning back against Felicia’s blue ’68 Camaro SS, looking like a Charlie’s Angels poster. That brought back memories that were ill-fitting with being in a cemetery. Rachel was a mage with blond hair and sapphire eyes; Jasmine was also a mage, but she had black hair and emerald eyes, and her skin was starkly ivory; and Felicia’s flawless dark-skin housed deep brown eyes that glowed red when she moved from her normal state into her werewolf one.
On the other side of me were Chuck and Griff, partners in the force and in life. How long they’d been dating, I didn’t know, but I’d found out about it during a recent visit to the supernatural morgue when we were trying to stop demons from taking over the place.
Griff wore leathers like Rachel and Jasmine—it was a thing with mages—but his were more refined and less revealing. He was a clean cut guy who you’d never mistake as being a magic user. He was just too prim and proper. If
anything, he looked like he belonged on a yacht in some Caribbean island while being served caviar by his butler.
Chuck was a tall vampire who wore a black overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat. It was almost as if the costume crew for Indiana Jones and The Matrix had gotten together and set up an ensemble for Chuck. He also had a bit of a goatee going on, which I had to admit looked kind of cool whenever his fangs came out.
“Maybe there’s a movie being filmed?” I asked, but then looked around and answered my own question. “Nope, no cameras.”
“I know this sounds dumb,” said Chuck, “but is there such a thing as an apocalypse training exercise?”
The look that Griff gave him made me think they’d be having words later. “Even if there were such a thing, Charles, would those participating in such an event elect to be reanimated corpses?”
“Someone has to play that part, right?” Chuck countered.
“I have no response to that,” said Griff slowly.
I pulled out Boomy, my 50-caliber Desert Eagle, checked the magazine, and pointed it at the head of the nearest supposed-zombie. I still wasn’t 100% certain that my team was being on the up and up about this, but there was one way to find out.
“Right, then,” I said, knowing they’d put an end to things before I fired my weapon at some poor actor, “may as well just blow this guy away, right?”
“Do you think that’ll work?” asked Felicia.
“And should we do it anyway?” said Chuck. “It’s not like these guys are hurting anyone. They’re just walking around.”
So they were playing me. I grinned.
“True, but you know how it is with zombies, eventually they’ll start getting angry. It’s what they do.”
Jasmine turned to look at me. “Seriously?”
“Sure,” I replied as I cracked my neck from side to side, pretending to be preparing to fire. “Don’t you ever watch any movies on the subject?”
“I’ve seen quite a few,” she answered. “I’ve also read numerous books on them, mostly fiction.”
It was my turn to look at her. “You mean there are nonfiction books about them?”
Just then one of the creatures made a gurgling sound. It was pretty convincing. Whoever my team had gotten to play these roles were good. Real good. The choppy walking, the crazy outfits, the partially dug up graves, the smell, the sounds…. It was all top-notch.
Then, in unison, every one of the zombies froze.
My eye twitched. “Uh…what just happened?”
“I don’t know, Ian,” said Rachel, “but I have a bad feeling about this.”
Enough was enough. I could take a joke just as well as anyone, but this was starting to lose its funny. Unless, of course, all the zombies were all about to dance to a rendition of Thriller. That would have been the cherry on top, for sure.
I waited.
No music.
I waited some more.
Still no music.
“Okay, guys,” I said finally, staring to weary of this charade. “Tell me this is an elaborate joke and let’s get on with it. You got me. Ha ha. Well-played. I’ve been bested. Etcetera, etcetera.”
“No joke,” said Chuck.
“Come on.” The hairs on the back of my neck were sticking straight out. “Quit messing around. This has gone far enough.”
“Ian,” Griff whispered, “we are as perplexed about this as you are. There is no tomfoolery afoot.”
I gulped and glanced around at the bodies standing like statues in the cemetery. There were about twenty of them, at least that I could see from here. The place wasn’t exactly tiny, after all.
As an amalgamite, I had the ability to see quite well in dark situations, and I could lightly zoom my vision, too. Not like a pair of binoculars or anything, but much better than merely squinting.
I focused in on the nearest “zombie” and saw no animation at all. No breathing. No movement. Nothing. It was as still as stone. I zoomed in on the next one, and the next. None of them were moving. Not even slightly. They were literally dead still.
“Oh shit,” I said after a hard swallow, “those things are fucking real!”
As if validating my statement, the entire collection of reanimated corpses turned toward us.
Chapter 4
The air was still and my senses were on overdrive. I was so jacked up that I could hear a gnat fart from a mile away.
“Something tells me the shit is about to hit the fan,” Felicia said while slowly pulling out her Eagle.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I said as my mouth ran dry. “Zombies aren’t supposed to exist.”
“Neither are werewolves, vampires, fae, mages…” Rachel said as her hands began to glow. “Shall I go on?”
My brain was struggling with this. We were standing in the middle of a graveyard off the beaten path of downtown Vegas staring down a mass of dead people who were all focused intently on us. This was no joke, no flashmob, no movie set, and more than likely not an apocalyptic preparation rally.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Jasmine, head?”
“What? Here?”
“I don’t mean that,” I hissed. And I’m supposed to be the dirty one? “You’ve watched the movies and read the books. So have I. Do you agree that we should shoot them in the head?”
The zombie closest to us screeched something fierce, causing me to nearly crap my pants. Without thought, I pulled the trigger and let a breaker blow the damn thing’s head in two.
It collapsed to the ground, unmoving.
“Yep,” Jasmine said with a nod. “Definitely aim for the head.”
We formed a semi-circle and began firing like mad as the things ran at us. The mages were laying down energy pulses and casting flaming pain wherever possible. They were just trying to slow the dead down long enough for the rest of us to blow their heads off. It worked on most of the creatures, but a few were getting through.
Chuck, Felicia, and I dropped down so we were under the stream of magical mayhem. There was no sense in getting caught in the crossfire, after all. We kept our breaker bullets streaming at them like there was no tomorrow. Of course, if this was an actual zombie apocalypse, maybe there would be no tomorrow. I shuddered at the thought.
My original guesstimate of twenty was clearly way off since the damn things kept coming. If they were digging out of the entire graveyard, we were going to lose this war. And I could only hope that this was the only graveyard affected right now.
“Griff,” I called out, “can you cast a light over the area?”
He did.
Just as I expected, bodies were actively pushing up out of the dirt.
Griff moved the light around and we saw that not all of the graves were opening. The people I had seen when I’d turned on to Eldorado must have actually been visitors. Hopefully they weren’t seeing what was happening here, or if they were, they had enough sense to get the hell out of the cemetery.
“I’m assuming you see…”
“I do,” answered Griff. “Charles, I’ll need you to cover me as I seek the source of this reckoning.”
“Cover you?” I said after tagging a zombie through the neck with enough of an upward angle to blow out the back of his head. “Where the hell are you going?”
Griff continued scanning the grounds. “If I can locate the base of the power, I can shut it off. Much like one would do with a faucet.”
“Or an overflowing toilet?” suggested Chuck.
“I’d prefer my less vulgar description, but that’s the right of it.”
Seeing that most of the dead were coming at us from a single angle, I saw no point in sending out two of my officers alone. We were all better off working together than splitting apart.
“We move as a team,” I stated. Then I nodded at Griff. “You direct us, but we all move as one.”
We crept along, keeping careful to unleash bullets at anything that came close. I couldn’t imagine any non-dead individuals would be dumb enough to run
toward us at this point, especially at night in a graveyard.
“Look out!” shouted Rachel as one of the creatures reached for Jasmine out of the shadows.
I jumped forward and dropkicked it so hard that my shoe came off, sticking in its chest cavity. It wasn’t easy keeping your shoes nice in this line of work.
Felicia stepped over and dropped a bullet in the thing’s skull.
She then reached down and pulled my shoe out of its chest and went to hand it to me.
“Uh, no thanks,” I said, wincing. “I have another pair in the car.”
“Why do you have an extra pair of shoes in the car?” Felicia asked, dropping the shoe.
“Because I like having options.”
Again, she said, “Why?”
“Here,” Griff interrupted. I looked over to see him kneeling while pointing at a very dim multicolored light that was running along the ground. “It’s slowly moving across the cemetery. As it crosses over a grave, it reanimates the life inside.”
“That’s creepy,” noted Chuck.
We were all nodding in agreement, mesmerized by the light until we realized that another batch of the bastards were on us.
“Fire!”
Heads were blown apart as the carnage piled up until Griff successfully tempered the source of the disturbance. Once the rainbowesque light ceased, so did the deceased…in a manner of speaking. At least the ones who had not fully made it out of their graves. Those just sank back into the dirt from where they were coming.
The ones above ground were eradicated within a couple of minutes.
That’s when the world silenced again.
We all took a collective breath while trying to come to terms with what we’d just seen. I was even considering heading back to Dr. Vernon’s office to unburden my thoughts about this one. She’d never believe it.
“What just happened?” I said, not expecting an answer.
Griff provided one anyway.
“Necromancy,” he said as Chuck helped him to a nearby tombstone. He looked beat. “I’ve not seen this in a very long time.”
The Ian Dex Supernatural Thriller Series: Books 1 - 4 (Las Vegas Paranormal Police Department Box Sets) Page 14