Authors: A.J. Aalto
“Is this who I think it is?” He took in the smoking clump of fur.
“If you think it's a zombie dentist in a chimp suit, then yes.”
“Why didn't you call me?” he demanded, and his tone said that no answer was going to please him. Nothing I could say here was going to wipe that rage off his face, and there was no point in trying. He was just going to have to settle down and get over it.
Golden must have come to the same conclusion. “The CDC has everything under control. It would be prudent to clean up, now, because of the plague and all,” she announced. “Soap and water and bleach and such. Lots of bubbles. Excuse us.”
She wheeled me away by the elbow toward the mudroom door. When we were a safe distance away, she cast two quick glances behind us. “Agent Batten looks like he wants to murder something.”
“As long as it's not my vagina, I don't care.”
“Should I maybe not have put the sudsy cat-fight image in his head?” She had a naughty grin on her face that I found myself giving right back to her.
Batten barked across the lawn, “You'll be explaining this later!”
I started to swoon at his manly command, thought better of it, and texted
OMFGSWOONZ
to Golden's cell.
Golden glanced at her phone and burst out laughing as we hurried into the shelter of the cabin.
C
HAPTER
52
IT WASN'T UNTIL LATER IN
the afternoon on my splendid Tuesday off that I realized I'm an idiot.
Following a thirty-minute shower and a cold compress to my forehead, during which I obsessed over where Roger Kelly's wandering zombie had been and what damage he'd caused, I checked on the dead guys, all three of them. Viktor sat in the corner of Harry's bedroom guarding a sweaty, unconscious Chapel, unblinking as a stone gargoyle hanging over the streets of Paris, completely still and yet utterly aware. Harry had tucked himself into his casket, and Wesley was a small grey
-
brown smudge of hair nestled in the white satin pillows of his own.
Having assured myself they were well and I was going to get some time alone, I'd gone up to my office and stripped down to tank top and G-string with a happy green frog motif. My fever was ramping up again, and the weather wasn't helping: more unbearable heat. Judging by the dull ache in my temples, there was almost certainly another storm brewing, but the air was heavy and unmoving, stubborn in its squatters’ rights. I pulled on matching green leather gloves, and plopped into my chair to hang my head back, stare at the ceiling, and pant.
The pink cobweb in the corner said I'd had the solution to tracking Roger Kelly's movements all along: tweak the web-coloring spell to track around Shaw's Fist, to see if his zombie had caused any damage. How hard was that? Shouldn't be hard at all, since I'd done it to webs by accident a few days ago. If I could figure out how to alter the spell, I could use it in the future, whenever I needed to track something.
All I would need to do is adjust the focus of the spell to reflect the flavor of this particular strain of UnDeath, via the Vodou. However,
that would require dipping into some grey areas again. I scratched absently at the rash on my stomach and it responded with a hot, radiating rush, as if there were fire ants crawling under my skin and I'd kicked over their nest. I winced and tried not to writhe around too much, because while the pain flared, even the brush of my tank top was irritating.
I had to consider the nitty-gritty aspects of the Vodou Spicer had unleashed, so that I could trace Roger's steps with my color spell. With a certain white unicorn Furry on my mind, I plopped myself at the desk, spread out some books, got out my yellow highlighter, and forced myself to face the ugly.
Taking
the ti bon ange
or spirit of a fresh corpse required making preparations and invocations before the
coup de poudre
, the powder strike. If I used similar ingredients in my spell, it would be easier to focus on Zombie Roger. I ran my finger down the list of ingredients in said powder, determined I had none of them except…
Bone dust. My eyes slid in the direction of the kitchen, where on top of my fridge in a Kermit the Frog cookie jar, Gregori Nazaire's ashes rested.
With a thoughtful noise, I considered the implications of using what I considered a sentimental keepsake of Gregori Nazaire to track a different type of UnDeath. What would happen if I used his bone dust? Nothing? Anything? Something horrible?
I checked the second step. Datura or nightshade, used as a dissociative drug, which causes delirium in the living and undead, and extracts of pufferfish containing tetrodotoxins as paralytics. I knew I could get Datura from Declan's doctor bag, but he'd gone back to the fish camp with Golden and the CDC team, post-dentist-explosion, presumably taking his doctor's bag with him. I wasn't going to mess with tetrodotoxins; with my luck, I'd accidentally paralyze myself just in time for another zombie attack and end up loose and limp on the floor, a perfectly powerless snack.
Maybe the bone dust would be enough of an agent for focus. I went to the fridge, hoisted the Kermit jar, and crooned, “See? Everyone else thought I was silly to keep you. Well, who's silly now?” I made smooch baby-talk nonsense noises at him affectionately.
I set Kermit on the desk and took the lid off, setting his head at a safe distance away on the other side of the desk. I examined the Vodou sketches in the books, focused on the visions I had in my head: Zombie Roger's gaping mouth, bashed-in head, the pink spider webs I'd colored, the spider webbing in the shed, the zombie spider. I peeled off my gloves and set them aside. As before, I pricked my thumb, this time with my letter opener; when the blood beaded, I dipped it into Gregori's ashes.
“
By the filth of your crimes / by your own designs / I see your travels / seven times
.” I focused deeply into the color of the ashes and intoned, “
As I will it, shall it be / Bright your rotten steps I see.”
Like Vesuvius erupting, a great cloud of dust puffed from Kermit's headless green body. The ash spiraled up to the ceiling like an inverted tornado, took a sharp left, and flowed from the room, dropping dust in its wake.
I followed, and when it slipped through the keyhole of the front door, I only paused to grab my raincoat to throw on over my lack of clothing (
a little foresight, please, Marnie?
), running barefoot to keep up with the ash plume as it wafted pointedly across the front lawn and down the road.
When the ash funnel stopped two doors down, at a mint green cottage with cedar shingles, and then darted into that driveway, my stomach dropped. The lawn was pitted with mounds of dog turd; the Labradoodles. I stayed on the stone drive despite my bare feet, picking my way with a quiet litany of, “
Ooh, ah, fuck, ow, shit
.”
The ash fled under the screen door of the porch with a dry pulling sound, and then, like someone had pulled the plug on its energy, sprinkled flat to make a line leading into the house itself.
“There should be no zombie in here. The CDC evacuated everyone,” I told the universe, but it did not respond. I thought about what help was near to hand. – Harry was resting, Viktor was Viktor, Wes was a bat, Chapel was pox-ridden. I pulled out my phone and tried the door. “Please be locked so I can go home and put more clothes on before calling Batten for help,” I whispered. It swung open.
Ratballs
.
That smell again, a scent that normal humans wouldn't have noticed, but my sense of smell had been — fortunately and unfortunately, considering my line of work — steadily improving for the past decade
thanks to Harry. Riding over the smell of dog, the fragrance was distinct: citrus, fish, and the black licorice scent of anise.
This cabin was smaller than mine, lacking the office, and the front door opened directly into the kitchen. The décor was slightly shabbier than my own, but only by a sliver. Dog hair tumbleweeds lingered under a goldenrod variant of my Formica kitchen table. I didn't know the lady who lived here except by sight, but I had enough social grace to know I shouldn't be barging into her house uninvited and judging her un-swept floor.
Sweeple skills
.
I realized I was standing there in my tank top, froggy G-string, and rubber raincoat, listening for breathing, which was pretty stupid all around, but
really
stupid when hunting monsters that don't breathe. A thread of ash had trickled along the kitchen floor and off to the right. If the cottage was laid out like mine, that would be the first floor bedroom. I tiptoed in, noting two empty dog food bowls near the kitchen sink. Staying as close to the bedroom door as possible, I lowered one gloved hand to the floor and eased down into a half-crouch to peek in, tense and ready to bolt if I had to. I didn't have to get very low before it came into sight.
There was rotten flesh and mangy black fur under the dog lady's unmade bed: a paw, to be exact. That's rarely a good thing. I was pretty sure it was attached to more of the same. I shot back up to my feet, pressed my bare thighs together so as to not pee, and waited for it to attack me.
Nothing happened.
Maybe it's just a nice dead animal
, I prayed.
And how many bad decisions have I made if that's the best I can hope for?
I bent at the waist to make sure I'd really seen it. Rotten paw. Long, broken, black claws, skin the color of spoiled ham, raw ruby and foaming around the matted clumps of fur that had been shed or torn off. I straightened, shot a glance towards the bathroom, and shifted sideways one experimental step. Nothing moved. I tiptoed a couple more steps that direction.
The dog made no move to come out. It just laid there as I eased the bathroom door shut with a soft click and locked it. I looked at the toilet, shrugged, and used it before I wet myself like the absolute opposite of a badass, wondering as I did what the hell I should do next. Finishing my business, I flushed without thinking.
There was a muted, gurgling growl from somewhere beyond the door. I didn't want to look, but I had to know.
I am such an idiot for doing this. I deserve to get my face eaten by a zombie pooch.
Gently opening the door, I peered towards the bedroom.
It had moved. The limp paw laid pads-up now, toes softly curled, like it was asking for spare change. I crouched again to peek, prepared to bar myself in the bathroom if it so much as twitched. This time I got a much better look at the shadowy lump of what seemed to be a fully intact zombie Labradoodle just lying there.
Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Maybe it wasn't quite dead. Or undead. Turning? I smelled rot, but this thing wasn't attacking. Maybe the dog wasn't what I smelled. Had the lady been evacuated without her dogs, or was she still here? And if she was, had she been zombified or maybe keeled over from a heart attack and was just a partly-eaten corpse?
In five minutes, I've gone from hoping for dead animals to hoping for dead people. Definitely questioning my decision-making skills today
.
I made little clucking noises at the dog with my tongue. It responded by thumping the floor with its tired tail, which made my heart heavy: sick and badly injured, it had crawled under the bed to die, but wasn't gone yet. Thinking of the two bowls in the kitchen, I wondered where the other dog was.
Shuffling noises from the kitchen, and a long sputtering noise that might have been an eruption of gas from putrefaction. Never had a fart been so terrifying. The plastic sound of slippers on linoleum. My veins responded by going cold. The owner? I held my breath and listened. A plastic
schlip-schlip-schlip
came from the kitchen. I hadn't seen anyone in there, but maybe she had emerged from her mudroom.
I retreated into the bathroom, locked the door, and considered calling Batten. I ran through how I could deal with things myself. Scanning for weapons, I came up blank: unless I could kill someone with a book of matches, a decades-old tube of pink lipstick, a bottle of Mylanta, or a can of hairspray, I was weaponless in the bathroom. I was considering making a run back to the cabin to see if Batten had returned my modified Taser when there was a knock at the bathroom door.
Zombies don't knock. What the fuck?
I sang, “Who
is
it?”
“
Euuurgggh
” was the sloppy reply. Another powerful knock.
Thud.
“I'm on the can, come back later!”
Silence. Then:
thud.
“You're out of toilet paper. Run and get more.” I heard the shrillness in my voice and backed away from the door. Terror zinged through my veins, filling them with greasy currents.
Thud.
Thud-thud.
I held my breath for what seemed an eternity while my heart hammered madly, then with a shaking thumb, dialed Batten on speed dial; he picked up on the first ring.
Dropping my voice, I told him, “I need you.”
“Fiercely?” I heard the smug smile in his voice. Despite the zombie whumping against the door at my back, my libido responded anyways.
Jerk
.
“Not like that. I'm trapped in the bathroom by a nearly-undead Labradoodle and its very-undead owner.”
“For fuck's sake—”
“Hey, you should be glad I found her before she killed anyone!” I whispered hoarsely. “She might have eaten her other dog.” After a pause, “Is my flame-Taser in the mudroom?”
“No,” he grumbled. “I have it. I'll be right there.”
Thud!
“Wanna hurry? She's gonna break the door. Mint house, two doors over from mine. The dogshit yard.”
I leaned up against the door like I had in the boathouse, my sunshine-yellow raincoat bunching, and wished I had Golden with me; Golden would probably have formed some zombie-beheading garrote from the hand towels. The door's flimsy lock rattled warningly as the zombie shoved. I propped it shut, bare feet gripping the tile floor. I was going to die in my underpants, dressed like the world's lamest flasher.
It wasn't going to be enough.
Type C zombie
, my brain warned,
super-strength, super-speed, you are fucked.
I wished the little doorknob lock good luck, praying it would give me an extra second. Scrambling up onto the toilet, I thumbed the slide-lock on the frosted bathroom window, wrenched the window open, and pushed the screen out of its flimsy frame. It was so high up that I had little hope of getting my ass up to it, but it was my only way out.