Sweat dripped from my forehead. My mouth went dry, and my freaking knees shook like a pair of maracas.
Rico joined me onstage and covered the mic with his hand. “What’s wrong? You don’t look so good.”
“Apparently, I hate public speaking. Who knew?” I said from behind gritted teeth. “Thanks, anyway. Bye-bye now.”
I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm and leaned in toward the mic. “How about a warm welcome for our guest lecturer, Ms. Allie Nighthawk, better known as the Corpse Whisperer.”
Random claps drifted through the room like tumbleweeds through the desert.
Rico smiled at the sea of cops. “I know it’s a mandatory lecture, but let’s give Ms. Nighthawk our undivided attention.”
Mandatory lecture. Yay. They hated me already, and I hadn’t even started.
Rico took a parting shot as he walked to his seat. “Suck it up, buttercup. You’re on.”
Douche-waffle.
If I could raise the dead and take down zombies, I could do this, damn it. Mind over matter.
I cleared my throat and started again. “As I was saying, this is Hannibal. I found him wandering around Liberty Street, near the abandoned subway entrance. You’ll find deadheads there, and most anywhere else you find society’s throwaways. If you look close enough, you might even recognize a few of them from the streets. Indigents are a small segment of the population and may not be your top priority, but they’re perfect MREs for biters.”
I raised my bandaged wrist. “I collared Hannibal here with one good hand. Zombie wrangling isn’t magic. It’s technique. That’s what I’m going to teach you today. Now, some of you might think it’s cold, making an example out of Hannibal. He was human once. He had a name. It probably wasn’t Hannibal, but he had a name. But the minute you start thinking of these biters as human, the minute you hesitate to pull the trigger because they used to be somebody, you’re dead meat. Never, ever forget that.”
I paused, searching the crowd for signs of life. It was too late. The bastards had flat-lined. I was dying up there. The thought of diving out an open window crossed my mind, but that’s not my style. A train wreck, with my name on it, awaited me, so I pulled up my big girl panties, embraced the suck, and carried on.
“People ask me why, since I can raise the dead, I can’t just wave my hand and lay them back to rest. The answer’s simple. This gift doesn’t come with a reverse gear, folks. If it did, I wouldn’t have to train my butt off to fight like Xena: Warrior Princess. The only thing that will take a biter down is physical destruction of its brain or brain stem.
“The next thing we’re going to discuss today is zombie physiology. The medical term for the disease is Carovescitis. There are only two ways to become a zombie—being raised from the dead by someone like me—or being bitten by a raised zombie, if you have a specific genetic marker that predisposes you to the disease.
“Raised corpses show immediate symptomology, whereas bite victims can begin to manifest symptoms in as little as fifteen minutes, with a massive delivery of toxin, to months later, if they’re treated with a newly developed medication, Nacarotoxin. Currently, there’s no vaccine for Carovescitis.”
A long, loud snore broke my train of thought, followed by another, a few seconds later. Found him. Row three, aisle seat, on the left. I clipped on the lavalier mic and moved out into the audience, smacking Rip Van Winkle up the side of his head with my elbow.
He jumped and almost fell off his chair. Snickers rolled through the room.
“Shall we continue?” I asked. “There are actually four stages of infection. First, you have latents, bite victims who’ve contracted the disease, but use medication to delay their symptoms. That’s the honeymoon phase. It doesn’t last. Sooner or later, even with the meds, they turn into deadheads.
“Second, you have freshies, victims who were either raised within seven days of death, or who are genetically predisposed, were bitten less than seven days earlier, and are not taking meds to delay their symptoms. Once turned, they need to eat within twelve hours. It doesn’t matter whether it’s road kill, roof shingles or license plates, they need to eat.”
I glanced at Rico, remembering Cephas and his potato chips at the cemetery. “They do show a marked preference for greasy junk food.”
Rico nodded and I turned back to the crowd.
“Scientists think the fat used in processed foods stimulates the development of the zombie’s appetite for flesh, which kicks in after the seventh day. Freshies are able to speak and answer questions, but do not retain the ability to problem-solve or lie. But, if they start twitching, lock and load, folks. Things are about to get real ugly.
“Next, you’ve got flesh-eaters, raised, or genetically predisposed and bitten between eight and sixty days earlier. They’ve got seventy-five percent of their reflexes and eat exclusively human or animal flesh and brains. They are still somewhat agile, highly unpredictable, and your worst nightmare.
“Last, but not least, you have corpsicles, raised or genetically predisposed and bitten more than sixty days earlier. You’ll smell them long before you see them. They’re slow, but if one gets the drop on you and takes a bite, you’d better hope you don’t have that marker.
“For those lucky ducks who don’t have the genetic marker, bite damage can run anywhere from a grossly infected wound, to an agonizing death, watching yourself being eaten alive. Any questions so far?”
Thwack, bang, crash, bwauk!
What the hell… I knew those sounds. I played that game every day. Angry Birds was squawking from a nearby phone. My, my, my. Someone had a death wish. But who?
I followed the commotion straight to its source, before he could silence his phone. The guy saw me approach and slunk into his seat, shoving the phone in his pocket and looking the other way.
Busted, dumbass.
My hands were already reaching out to shove that phone up his left nostril, when who showed up but that head-squatting bitch fairy, Little Allie, her panties in an uproar, lecturing me about restraint.
Restraint? Does she even know me?
She’s pretty ballsy for a voice in a head. Sometimes I wonder if her real name is Sybil. That might actually explain a few things.
So what if she’s never wrong? She sucks the joy out of life.
I wanted to hear birds squawking out of that guy’s nose. But in the end, I opted for a better plan. Maybe the bitch fairy’s counsel did have something to do with that, but hindsight being twenty-twenty, I doubt she wants the credit.
I flashed a full set of teeth at the guy.
He glanced around the room like he was searching for the nearest exit.
My fingers dug into his bicep, as I hauled him to his feet. “Hi, I’m Allie. What’s your name?”
“D-D-Donald,” he said, trying to sit back down.
No dice, Donald. I pulled him out into the aisle, and escorted him up the steps to the stage, toward Hannibal.
“This is some boring shit, isn’t it, D-D-Donald? Everyone knows you shoot zombies in the head. But what if you’re in a packed room…like this one? Or on a crowded street?” I glanced at his utility belt. “What if…you don’t have your gun?”
I held out my hand, waiting for him to give me his Glock. He balked. Of course, he did. A cop doesn’t just hand over his gun.
“It’s okay, Officer. I promise you. This is a training exercise. Please.”
Captain Dorsey glared at me, but then he turned and gave Donald the nod. Donald hesitated, like he was trying to find a way out of the jam he’d gotten himself into.
When he finally turned over his piece, little beads of sweat glistened on his upper lip.
I unlocked Hannibal’s chains, letting them fall. They clanged against the two-wheeler. Then, I stepped behind him, out of his line of sight, and took off his catcher’s mask.
The cops shifted in their seats, eyes snapped front and center. D-D-Donald swore under his breath. Hannibal stepped toward him.
“Obviously, you know how to handle this situation, Donald, or you would have been paying attention instead of playing games on your phone. Why don’t you show the group how to take down a biter without a gun?”
He darted his eyes around the room. “Wh...what am I supposed to use?”
“Your imagination. Think on your feet—and whatever you do, go for the head.”
Hannibal lurched forward across the plastic. His shriveling brain slid forward in his skull and pushed out through the hole in his forehead. He waddled with his arms outstretched, grasping at Donald, snapping his jaws up and down, grinding them bone-on-bone.
Donald’s feet got tangled and he stumbled backward onto his butt.
“Ewww. Rough start,” I mumbled into my mic.
Donald did a backwards crab walk across the stage, with Hannibal in pursuit. They worked their way across and off the plastic in no time.
That’s when I remembered that Hannibal was a corpsicle. Even one-handed, I’d planned on doing the demo myself. Since he was strapped into the dolly, I could slice into his brainstem, quick in, quick out, and take Hannibal down, right there on the plastic.
But then Donald decided to become an asshat.
Unfortunately, D-D-Donald shuffled backwards too far, and rolled down the steps to the floor, with Hannibal staggering after him.
“What the hell!” Donald screamed. “Call this thing off!”
“He’s all yours,” I said. “Don’t let him get close enough to bite you.”
“No shit, Nighthawk!”
Jesus, give me strength. “Use your damn baton, Donald!”
He followed my directions and beat the crap out of Hannibal, but in his panic, he threw all body blows.
Being a corpsicle, Hannibal was in an advanced state of decay. Thick chunks of flesh, bone and zombie goo sailed through the air.
It reminded me a little of the chum scene from Jaws.
The guys in the first few rows took direct hits. They turned their chairs upside down and used them as shields.
“The head!” I yelled. “Go for the head!”
Freaking moron.
Donald took his head out of his ass, backed up about ten feet, and then charged Hannibal, holding the baton high. But he skidded on the slick floor and went ass-over-elbows, dropping his baton and flying across the floor, like it was a slime-covered slip-n-slide. He ended up at Hannibal’s feet—with no weapon.
Talk about FUBAR.
I launched myself off the stage, onto Hannibal’s back, Ka-Bar knife in hand. Since my left wrist was still iffy, I used both hands to bury the knife straight into his brain stem, just as he was about to take a chunk out of D-D-Donald’s face.
You’d think the fact that I saved Donald’s life would have put a positive spin on the whole episode. And it might have, if Captain Dorsey hadn’t dived across the floor, on his stomach, to pull Donald out of Hannibal’s reach. My Ka-Bar attack sent brain matter and zombie sushi (better known as zushi) spraying every which way, but mostly into Cap’s face.
You could have heard a pin drop in that room. The only sound was Donald’s hyperventilating.
Rico moved out from behind his chair shield, rushed over to Cap and knelt on the floor beside him, wiping biter bits off his face with his sleeve. When he finished, Rico stood up and glanced around the room to check out the carnage.
“Would you look at that,” he said. “There isn’t one speck of biter on that drop cloth you brought. You sure nailed Cap, though.”
Way to have my six, partner.
I gotta say, I wasn’t liking this light-duty thing too much. I was supposed to get paid for this gig, but when Cap calmed down enough to speak, he told me I’d have to pay for the clean-up. I tried to explain that since this was my first training session, I was just trying to make a big splash. But it was still a little too fresh, so to speak. I’ll fight that battle another day.
Good thing I’ve got my own crime scene cleaners on speed-dial—a company named Splatz. I’m in tight with the owner, and I get their Diamond Club preferred customer discount.
If you ask me, the day wasn’t a complete disaster. The cops got their training and after a few…slight complications…D-D-Donald and the other officers learned how to take down a biter without using their guns. Mission accomplished.
Everything else was just zushi.
My homeowners association has never liked me much. To be fair, peculiar things have happened at my house that have had the neighbors peering out their windows, with binoculars, for years.
The night of the City Hall episode, I pulled my Harley into the driveway around dinner time and Nonnie Nussbaum, the widow-lady next door, flew outside to give me an earful.
“That monstrosity, it hurts my ears! Vroom, vroom. Always so loud when you come home. And that schmendrick bird of yours—I tend my garden on such a beautiful spring day as this, and what do I hear but that fakakta bird screaming at me through your windows. It stares at me from behind the glass. I think it wants to eat me.”
Nonnie’s a 5’2”, cranky, 200 lb., 70-year-old, gum-grinding busybody with short, bottle-blue helmet hair. Her eyes are glued on my house 24/7.
I waved at her as I walked inside. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Nussbaum. Kulu doesn’t keep kosher. You’re safe.”
Oy, vey.
In lieu of dinner, I'd grabbed a bag of Doritos and a Jack Daniel’s slushie when Jade Chen’s face loomed back at me from my fifty-two-inch Sony.
“A police training session at city hall today, led by noted zombie wrangler Allie Nighthawk, results in chaos and a biohazard clean-up. Details at six.”
Perfect.
The phone rang, right on cue.
It was Rico, calling to yank my chain. “Think you’ll ever be allowed back in city hall?”
“Let them bar me out. See if I care. They might change their minds if a corpsicle shows up for a council meeting, someday.”
Rico snickered. “You can stop pouting. The doctor sent your full-duty release for Monday.”
“Thank you, God,” I sighed. “I’ll be in at nine.”
“No. You’ll be at the range by eight. The doctor might have released you, but I want to see you shoot with that hand before I sign off on your return.”
“You’re killing me, De Palma,” I sighed. “Fine. But I’m bringing my custom targets.”
I’d designed them myself: Jade Chen’s head photoshopped onto a corpsicle’s body. What better way to celebrate my first day back to work, than doing what I do best—hunting zombies.
4
Slicing the Pie
There’s a certain zen at Brasshole’s Firing Range in the early morning hours. Later in the day, there are too many yahoos breathing my air. But when the sun comes up, the range’s dingy, pockmarked walls and chaw-stained floors tell the story of an old boys’ club.
Somehow, that works for me.
Once I start shooting, the smell of burnt gun powder and the plink of shell casings zinging off the ceiling, puts me in the zone. It’s quiet at that hour for a firing range, just me and a couple other guys settling in, getting lost in the rhythm, honing the skills that make shooting more about instinct and less about aim.
Poor Hawk hadn’t tasted brass in two weeks. He was starved, so I filled the mag pouch on my shoulder holster and slid Baby, my backup Glock model 26, into my ankle holster. She’s a semi-auto, but smaller than Hawk, and she gets a little jealous when I don’t show her some love once in a while.
One by one, each mag would disappear before the day was through, because practice makes perfect. Right? Rico would be arriving at Brasshole’s any minute to sign off on my release. I knew I’d pass. It wasn’t about that. For some reason, I wanted to impress him.
By the time he arrived, I’d burned through two mags. He got a load of my custom Jade Chen zombie targets and laughed so hard, he snorted. That was the first time I saw him laugh. It was genuine and straight from the belly. Even his brooding brown eyes joined in.
The laugh suited
him, and though I tried not to notice, he’s as hot as they come. Not that it mattered. A guy like him would never be interested in me.
He clipped his target to the T-rail, sent it out fifteen yards, slammed a mag into his Glock 34 Safe Action Long Slide, and grinned. “Show me what you got, cadaver diver.”
Damn. That was just plain mean.
After we emptied our mags, Rico had seventeen center-mass hits. Impressive. All of mine hit slightly above and to the sides of center-mass, carving Jade’s Double-D’s down to mosquito bites, with room to spare for band-aids over her nipples.
Booyah, baby. Bullseye.
Rico smirked. “I’m guessing you hit what you were aiming at, but there’s one more test. Cap’s orders. I’m supposed to take you for a walk down Main Street.”
I laid down my gun and gave him my sharpest Allie eye.
He didn’t even blink. “I know you’re not a cop, but you’re going to be out on the streets with us, carrying. Cap wants to know you can protect yourself, and that you’re not going to accidentally take out some civilian.”
“It’s not the same. Zombies don’t shoot back,” I said.
“Neither do the pop-ups.”
Behind Brasshole’s is a tiny shell of a village, named Perptown. It’s a private SWAT training facility, owned by the city, with pop-up targets consisting of civilians, officers and bad guys. I’d heard of it, but I never had the chance to walk the gauntlet. It sounded like fun. On the other hand, for the first time ever, I was being asked to qualify.
What was I going to do? Shoot the wrong corpse running loose in a cemetery?
I know. I know. It’s not that simple. But the little brain bitch didn’t even give me a minute to process this new development before blowing a gasket, preaching at me about not getting my ass in a pucker.
Let’s face it, people. This is my ass we’re talking about. And it was born puckered.
We walked behind Brasshole’s to Perptown and stopped at the entrance, the intersection of Main Street and Watch-Your-Six.
The Corpse Whisperer Page 3