Hellifax (15 page)

Fear gave his mind and heart a squeeze.

The same gimp continued to follow.

Fighting down his swelling panic, he turned and shambled off, slowly veering back on his original path. Gritting his teeth, he realized he was moving too fast and forced himself to slow down. After another fifteen meters, he looked over his shoulder once more. The zombie pursued him still. Worse, it mirrored his movements and cut the distance. Black gore covered the leathery face of the thing, frozen around empty eye sockets.

Well, shit!
Doubt stabbed his mind. Had his disguise somehow failed him? Focusing on the road and the zombies ahead, Scott increased his speed just a little and hoped to God the next time he checked, his tail would be gone.

He limped over Robie Street by mid-morning, straining hard to remain in character, but a part of his mind, the evil part, excreted foul images of how things would go down. He saw the zombie behind him attracting the attention of other gimps, following him until he broke or they simply jumped him. Even now, he believed his follower was attracting the attention of others, and a long, strung-out herd was forming behind him.

A fallen sign welcoming people to the Lion’s Head Tavern lay on his right, and Scott felt the overwhelming need to get off the road and out of sight. He stopped once again, half-turned in the street, and almost shit himself a second time in as many months when he saw that the zombie had not only
continued
stalking him, but had gained even more ground to come within a dozen strides of him. The empty caves of its eye sockets locked onto him.

What’s going on
? He couldn’t shake the deadhead.

A white metro bus came into view, and he walked along its body until he got close to the driver’s side mirror. Some other zombies slowed his pursuer, and it reached the rear of the bus as he moved past it. Scott kept his head fixed straight as he shifted his eyes and studied the sides of the street, wanting to find a place to lure his hunter. Somewhere secret so he could take care of business with one quick and quiet shot.

Skeletal hedges went by, and he spotted the huge sign of Oland Brewery on the side of one building up the street. The beer maker looked to have exploded from some massive unknown attack, leaving a devastated shell that spilled debris onto the street. To his right, another brown two-story house came into view, with limited windows and a front door that opened almost directly onto the sidewalk. The door was ajar, and Scott made a beeline for it. The zombies had ripped down the front fence, and Scott felt it rattle when he stepped on it. He nudged the door open with a shoulder and went inside.

The stairs to the second floor faced him, alongside a short hallway to a kitchen area. An open living room and dining area lay to the right. Even though the door was open, the smell of some unknown rotting material clung to the air. Once inside, Scott dispensed with his zombie gait and pulled himself halfway up the steps before turning around and waiting. He pointed the Ruger at the front door, wanting the zombie to be well inside so that once he shot it, the dead thing wouldn’t block the entry and he could seal the house. Scott intended to go through the place afterward and do a cleaning, but first…

The form of his hunter bobbed into sight through the small circular window set in the door’s surface. It drew closer, until a hand pushed it open. Scott straightened his arm and took aim where he expected the head to appear. The gimp shrugged past the door and its face came up in a snarl.

Scott started to squeeze.

“Oh, Jesus,
wait!
” a woman’s voice squawked.

Scott gasped and jerked the gun toward the ceiling. The fright of those three words sent electric waves of what
almost
happened through his core. He collapsed on the stairs and stared at the thing in dumbfounded fascination.

“Oh, shit,” the zombie said, before glancing behind her—at least, it sounded like a woman. She moved inside and closed the door. “I think they’re coming.”

The lips of the hideous face didn’t move.

“Huh?” Scott blurted, utterly confused by what he was seeing.

“Listen, you idiot, we don’t have the time. Just come on. We’ll find the back door. There has to be one. Just pray to God it isn’t blocked or anything is in our way.”

With that, the gimp––who had followed him for almost half a kilometer––rushed to the kitchen in a totally lifelike manner.

“Holy shit.” Scott got up and bounded over the steps, landing heavily in his excitement. He scrambled after the stranger. “Hey, wait!”

“Go fuck yourself!” she called back. “You were the one hauling ass up the goddamn street for the last fifteen minutes!”

“Huh?” Scott paused in the threshold to the kitchen. The zombie was pressed up against the back door, her hand on the knob.

“Listen.” She raised a hand, her lips still paralyzed. “You follow me from now on, got it?”

Scott could only nod.

The zombie turned back to the door and opened it. She peered out and eased through. Scott followed. Outside, in cloud-muted daylight, the talking gimp, still looking as if it had the living shit kicked out of it, but in possession of a female voice, reverted back to a gunshot stagger. The sudden change left Scott standing and staring in amazement for all of three seconds. A crashing from the front of the house got him moving, and he left the door swinging as he followed the woman.

Back in the street, Scott didn’t let her out of sight. He noticed two short handles sticking up from her back, which made her easy to distinguish from the surrounding gimps. She led him down the road toward Oland Brewery. Crashing wood echoed somewhere behind them. Zombies in the street paused and considered the direction of the sound, while Scott and his mysterious talking gimp slowly moved against the tide, forcing through it like wooden prows through Arctic ice. Two gimps jostled the woman, but she didn’t cry out; she simply absorbed the hits, staggering for effect. She righted herself, staying in character, and pressed on. Deadheads wobbled by and Scott stayed three strides behind her, keeping in her wake. They came upon a row of independently owned shops. Across from them, bulldozers and cranes rested on an open construction site never to be finished.

She shuffled toward one of the shops, taking her time and moving through the walking corpses without drawing attention. She stopped at the glass door of a furniture shop and pushed it open, disappearing inside. Scott followed and, once he was inside, he saw her stop in an aisle surrounded by dusty-looking sofas. She looked to her left.

Scott saw the three deadheads a second later, lurking in parts of the shop, oblivious to them both.

She turned toward him and, with those mangled lips that didn’t move, said, “Lock the door.”

Scott complied, finding bolts at the top and bottom. The furniture shop contained beds of all sizes and colors, kitchen table sets, ovens, living room sets, and even washers and dryers. Funny, he hadn’t really considered them as furniture in his previous life.

“Don’t use the shotgun.”

“How do you know about the shotgun?”

The dead face turned toward him. “You’re kidding, right? How do you think I picked up on you? The thing’s hanging off your back. The poncho doesn’t hide it well, just makes you look like a walking pitched tent from behind. And I saw you come out of that place this morning. You closed the door behind yourself.”

“Oh.”

“Oh,” the face mocked him in a husky voice. “Just don’t use the shotgun.”

As she said it, her hands went up behind her head. She extracted two nightsticks that were almost two feet long. Holding one in each hand, she moved down the aisle, approaching the zombies from their flank. Scott raised the Ruger. He followed her until he had a clear shot, then took aim.

She glanced back at him just as he pulled the trigger. A zombie’s head snapped back before dropping to the floor in front of a beige sofa set with matching recliner. Gore speckled the upholstery.

“I think that was the shop manager,” he reported.

“Don’t waste your ammo, man.”

The two remaining deadheads hissed, opening mouths ringed with black skin tags. They moved unsteadily through the gaps between furniture. The talking zombie with the nightsticks went to meet them. Scott shoved his Ruger into his right boot and lifted the bat. Lazy hisses came from the two zombies, but they did not move to attack.

Once she got close enough, the woman dropped the gimp façade. The nightsticks crashed over the first zombie’s skull with enough power to make Scott cringe and glance fearfully to the store’s front. She drove the gimp to its knees and laid the second nightstick upside its skull, breaking it open and staining another set of sofa chairs with brain matter. The second zombie turned at the noise, but had no time for anything else as she hit the thing,
one-two-three-four
, crumpling its brainpan. It collapsed in an aisle. She continued pummeling the dead thing, striking it long after it had stopped moving, increasing the power of her blows until Scott felt a chill slink up his back.

Eventually, with a mighty expulsion of breath, she straightened up and regarded him.

He stood with his bat in hand, feeling awkward and more than a little wary.

“There might be more. Let’s search the place, okay? And meet over there in a minute.” She pointed a nightstick toward an open window set into a wall, which was probably the administration office. She left him without waiting for an answer, stalking off in search of other undead prey. Scott watched her go in stunned amazement. With a jolt, he remembered his task, and he went about doing it.

The place was empty.

They met back at the office a few minutes later, entering from a side door that locked from the inside. The window gave a clear view of the storefront while shielding them from any zombies beyond. Light from the open window offered just enough to see. Two large chestnut desks filled the square room, facing each other, while a sizeable leather sofa with some duct tape bandaging an arm rest lined the north wall.

Scott plopped down on the sofa, pulling off his undead-scented poncho, hood, and removing his motorcycle helmet and ninja mask underneath. The air was cold against his sweating flesh, and he took a deep breath of stale air. The woman stood by one desk and placed her clubs on its surface.

Then her hands went to her scalp and she pulled off her face.

The mask came off with a
slurp
. She wore a hood underneath that covered her face, and that came off next. Eyeing him, she tousled her flattened hair as if trying to resuscitate it and took a deep breath. Blue eyes narrowed in his direction before she pulled off her own poncho and let it drop in a heap onto the floor. A black backpack came off next. She wore a dark snowmobile suit and plastic elbow and knee pads. She reached up to her neckline and unzipped her suit a startling four inches, revealing white skin underneath. Making a face, she kicked the pile of dead clothing out the door and motioned for him to do the same. When he had, she closed it and went back to the desk.

“Man,” she said without looking at him. “I hate wearing that. Stinks. What were you doing out there?”

“Huh?” Scott asked as he sat back down.

She locked eyes with him, not bothering to repeat herself.

“Ah, well.” Scott leaned back on the sofa. “I was looking for someone.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Scott didn’t want to tell her just yet. “A man. That’s all I want to say right now.”

She leaned against the desk and stared at him. Scott noted that the nightsticks were within easy grasp. She didn’t trust him, and he didn’t blame her.

“A man, eh? You’re looking for a dude.”

“Yeah.”

“He’s a friend of yours?”

Scott blinked. “You’re asking a lot of questions.”

“Guess I am,” she said, breaking eye contact for a moment and squinting through the window, checking on the storefront. “What’s your name?”

“Scott.”

“I’m Amy.”

He nodded. Neither offered to shake hands. She had a raspy voice, as if she had screamed herself hoarse at one time and never fully recovered.

“Spotted you first thing when you came out of the house this morning.” Amy sized him up. “Not too many zombies take the time to close a door behind them.”

Scott felt the color drain out of his face and Amy nodded, eyes widening again for emphasis. “Yeah, a little thing like that gave you away. Lucky for you, though, that Moe doesn’t have the capacity to catch on to those little things.”

“Moe?”

“Yeah, zombies.”

Scott forced a little smile. “Nice.”

“Nice?” The skin between Amy’s eyes and forehead wrinkled. “Moe’s nice, eh? I’ll keep that in mind. What do you call them?”

“Gimps. Deadheads. Dees. Dead fuckers.”

Amy snorted, momentarily cracking her otherwise fierce demeanor. “I like that one.”

“It’s popular.”

“Yeah? With who?”

Scott realized it was just him and Gus.

Amy filled in the sudden quiet. “I’m sure whoever’s still alive at this stage has a pet name for them. We call them Moes, on account they moan. And zombies, of course. Or just the dead. The boys might take to dead fuckers.”

Scott didn’t ask who “the boys” were. He felt it was best to just stay quiet.

“Where’re you from?” Amy asked.

“Saint John. New Brunswick.”

“Never been,” Amy said curtly. She considered the desk behind her and hoisted herself up. “You’re a long way from home.”

“Came over here with some people I knew.”

“Where are they?”

“Dead.”

Amy didn’t offer condolences, but rather kept on gauging him with her dusky blue eyes.

“You?” Scott asked.

“I’m from Halifax.” She stopped from saying any more, and Scott realized she was a careful woman. “You’re smarter than most.”

“I am?” That was a surprise. “Why?”

“You figured out Moe can’t tell us apart once we get all stinky.”

“Oh, that. That only happened yesterday.”

“Better late than never. Especially here.”

“I guess.”

“Well,” Amy announced, as if deciding something. “You wanna come along with me, then? Meet the gang?”