Best New Zombie Tales (Vol. 2) Read online

  As he slipped a second needle into the woman’s right arm, her finger twitched.

  “Jesus!” Bobby said, jumping back from the table. His feet slipped and he nearly went down.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “She moved.”

  “Fuck off.” Damon rubbed himself with a towel and zipped up. “Where?”

  “Her finger.”

  “Oh oh oh, do me baby!” Damon sang in a falsetto voice as he slid across the room on his socks. “Do the humpty hump…”

  “Shut up,” Bobby said.

  “Tell me the truth. You on drugs again? You know what happened the last time. Man, I’ll never forget the way you looked—cheek like raw hamburger. That was some fucked up shit.”

  Bobby touched a hand to the nasty purple scar that ran across his left cheekbone, over his lips and underneath his jaw, a self-conscious gesture that had long ago become a habit. The dog had chewed on him for a while before losing interest. He’d been so high he hadn’t felt a thing, and when he woke up and tried to light a cigarette he was shocked to discover his mouth wouldn’t hold onto it properly. He’d looked at himself in the mirror and found his lower lip hanging by a thread of skin.

  It wasn’t until almost ten minutes later that he’d noticed Emma lying dead on the kitchen tile.

  “No, dickhead, I’m not using.” He shivered. He’d been clean ever since, almost three years now. Never again. Not that he didn’t want it; not that he didn’t crave it, every single day. He just knew that to start up again would mean death, that he would not be able to stop, no matter what happened to him, and that sooner or later he would end up on one of these tables, with someone else sticking the line into his veins to drain him dry.

  Like Emma…

  “Just look at the finger, okay?”

  “Which hand?”

  Bobby pointed to the woman’s offending digit and swallowed, feeling the click of his dry throat. Dry as a bone. Like her pussy. Damon had squirted on the lube before he entered her, or even that baby carrot dick wouldn’t have had a chance of getting up in there.

  Damon leaned in close. He sniffed the finger and licked it. “Mmmm, chicken.”

  “You are a major asshole, you know that?”

  “Reflex, Bobby-G. She’s dead as a doornail. Don’t you want a piece? You gonna stay all high and mighty forever?”

  Bobby shook his head. He didn’t want to go anywhere near that thing. Reflex, my ass. She’d been dead at least twenty-four hours. He told Damon so.

  “Okay, wait. You put that line in there. That’s your answer. Must have missed the vein and pumped her muscle.”

  “I didn’t miss shit.”

  “Sure you did.” Damon was nodding. “See, right here––”

  A noise from beyond the closed doors made them both turn. A man in a black leather jacket walked in. He was the size of a pro linebacker, and Bobby thought he’d probably played ball at one time, or maybe it was boxing, judging from his flattened, crooked nose. Hair shaved close to the scalp, ice-colored eyes. Looked sort of like Rutger Hauer on ’roids.

  Had to be J.D.’s guy, but he was way too early and Bobby had never seen him before. He obviously didn’t know the drill. Knock twice, come in like you’re the janitor, clean out the trash basket by the door and leave the payment under the fresh bag at the bottom. Everything neat and simple. They’d been running this system for a long time, and Damon never caught on, which was good, because they all knew that first he would have demanded a piece of the action, and then he would have screwed things up somehow, most likely by opening his big fat mouth to the wrong person. J.D. knew Damon from way back (they’d grown up together, in fact), and he wouldn’t trust him as far as he could spit. Bobby would trust him about two feet less than that.

  “Who the fuck’re you?” Damon said. Surprise made him look like a mental defective, and it took him a moment to recover. “You can’t come in here.”

  “He’s a friend of mine,” Bobby said quickly. “Name’s Sam.”

  “It’s Rocko,” the man said. “Fucking douchebag.” He walked over to Damon’s scraggly, chicken-winged form and put a hand the size of a dinner plate on his face, palming his skull. He gave a shove.

  Damon flew backward into a rack of surgical equipment, which clattered to the floor. He sat up and skittered backward on his palms and feet until he reached the wall, little patch of hair on his chin quivering. A few strands of his dirty blond hair had come loose from the ponytail he kept tight against the back of his neck. “You—you can’t do that shit!” he said. “What the fuck? I’m calling the cops! You hear me shithead? I’m calling––”

  Rocko took a step in his direction and Damon put his hands up. “Hey, easy, listen, I’m kidding with you, man, understand? Just fucking around. No harm done, okay?” He swiped at a thin line of blood that trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Look, I’m fine, I’m cool.”

  Rocko nodded in the direction of Damon’s groin. “Zip up your fuckin’ pants,” he said. Then he turned to Bobby. “Where is it?” he said.

  “Where’s what?” Damon said from the corner. “We’ve got nothing of yours. I swear!”

  Rocko stared at Bobby and sighed. His eyes were as lifeless as the corpse of the woman that lay next to him on the table. He hadn’t looked once at her.

  “Does he always run his mouth this fuckin’ much?” Rocko said.

  “Only after he’s gotten laid,” Bobby said. “Pillow talk, you know.”

  Rocko nodded, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to say at that moment. He slid a hand into his jacket pocket. “J.D.’s changing his approach. Seems to think you might be taking some off the top. I’m here to find out if that’s true.”

  “You got it all wrong, man. Tell J.D. there’s nothing like that going on.”

  “I wanna take a look myself. So. You gonna make me ask you for it again?”

  Bobby shook his head. A bead of sweat slid from his temple and ran down his cheek. He didn’t want to look rattled. “I’d prefer to talk outside,” he said.

  It was then that the woman on the table sat up.

  * * *

  “mmmmmph,” the dead woman said. “plmmmnnnahhhhhh-blrrrrrm.” Her neck cracked as she turned to stare at them. Her dead eyes rolled, purple skin across her cheeks shiny-tight with bloat. She lifted a hand, fingers plump and gray as uncooked sausages, and reached out, as if in pain.

  Emma. She looks like my Emma dead on the kitchen floor—

  “Holy fucking shit!” Damon jumped up, stumbled against the equipment scattered at his feet and pressed his back against the wall. “Sit the fuck down, you crazy bitch!” He picked up a stainless steel bowl and threw it at her. The bowl struck the woman in the shoulder and clattered to the floor.

  Slowly, very slowly, she turned her head and looked at him.

  “Bobby, what the fuck is this! Huh? What the fuck?”

  “Shut up, Damon,” Bobby said slowly. Something was very wrong here, but his brain just couldn’t seem to process things properly. Somehow he and Rocko had ended up against the other wall near the refrigerator unit door, although for the life of him he could not remember moving away from the thing on the table.

  His voice hadn’t seemed to work at first either; now his eyes were on Rocko, who had pulled a very large gun from his jacket. The gun barrel went from the woman, to Damon, to Bobby and back again.

  I must be losing my fucking mind.

  Bobby tried to make his brain start moving again, but everything seemed to be coated in a thick fog. This could not be happening, of course. Somehow he had fallen asleep, or Damon had slipped him something in that Pepsi they’d shared earlier. Damon was having a good laugh on him.

  Bobby could see Rocko’s finger tightening on the trigger. The room seemed to sharpen at once and snap back into place. He showed Rocko both palms. “Take it easy,” he said. He looked at Damon. “Go check on her,” he said.

  “Are you fucking crazy? I’m not going anywhere nea
r that nightmare.” Damon shook his head and blood from his split lip spattered on the wall.

  The woman moaned, as if in answer.

  “Look,” Bobby said. “Obviously she’s not dead. We gotta help her.”

  “You drained her, man.” Damon pointed to the needle and line that still ran from the woman to a half-full bag of dark fluid. Purple livor mortis marks leered like old tattoos sketched across her right side. “You gotta be high if you think she’s anything but worm food. She’s been dead since yesterday, you said it yourself.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on, okay?” Bobby said. “Maybe some kind of coma? Just get over there and check her pulse. Just do it.”

  “Oh, man.” Damon shook his head again, took a step and then skittered backward again, took another couple of steps, reaching out tentatively, licking his lips. “I gotta be nuts. They don’t pay me anywhere near enough for this shit. Okay. Okay.” He took another step, only a couple of feet away from the table now. “You okay lady? You hear me?”

  The woman just stared at him.

  A high keening noise escaped his mouth, sounding like air leaking from a balloon. He glanced back. “Bobby?”

  “Her name is Denise. Just check her. Then we’ll call 911.”

  “Hold on,” Rocko said. “Nobody’s calling no cops.” He leveled the gun at Bobby’s face. “Where’s my stuff?”

  Bobby moved his hand slowly, very slowly to his coat pocket. “Right here. No problem. Just take it easy, okay?” He reached in and pulled out the baggie, but something was wrong. It shifted in his hands and he felt the contents draining away, and when he looked down he saw the zipper lock had come open and white powder was falling in a soft, slow drift to the tile floor, and in spite of himself even as his gut dropped to his shoes he licked his ruined lips, thinking of the feeling that powder would give him, if only he were able to use it. Such a terrible waste.

  Oh, shit.

  The package had drawn their attention away from the table, but two things happened at once to change things in a right goddamned hurry: Rocko cocked the gun, which sounded very loud in the sudden quiet of the room; and the naked woman on the table lunged forward with astonishing speed, grabbing Damon’s head with both hands and burying her teeth in his right cheek.

  Jesus, she…she bit him…like…just like a dog.

  Damon screamed and threw himself backward, pulling the woman off the table and into his arms. They tottered across the floor like two awkward dancers in a lover’s embrace, and the woman grunted and tore at his face with her mouth, then went lower, at his neck.

  Something popped in there, and Damon screamed again, beating at her back with both fists. Bright red blood spurted across the woman’s face and hair. She dropped to her knees and pulled Damon’s pants down with one savage yank, exposing his tiny, shriveled penis in its thatch of gray-blond hair. The dead woman grimaced, showing bloody teeth, or perhaps it was a smile.

  Then she leaned in and bit down hard.

  Damon let out a gurgling scream. The sound of gristle tearing and ripping could be heard clearly across the room as she jerked her head and came away with a morsel of flesh.

  A moment later her head came up and she turned on her knees, sniffing the air. She let go of Damon, who fell to the floor, legs kicking, blood still pumping from the gaping wound in his neck, flap of skin dangling from his cheek. His heels drummed on the tile.

  The woman sniffed again like a blind dog on a scent. She cocked her head at where Rocko and Bobby stood near the refrigerator door.

  Rocko’s gun barked and the woman’s head snapped back. A small, round hole appeared neatly between her eyes. She didn’t seem to care much, just stood up and began to shuffle forward, gaining speed quickly.

  If Rocko was surprised by this latest development, he didn’t show it. “Get the fuck in there, now,” he said quietly, motioning at the stainless steel door with the gun. Bobby nodded and swung it open, and the two of them ducked in, slamming the door shut and putting their backs against it a second before the woman hit it with a shuddering thump.

  “Did you see that? Did you see it?” Bobby shook with adrenaline, his stomach churning. “Bit him. Jesus Christ.” He still held the now half-empty baggie, and he stuck it back in his pocket, wiping his hand on his jeans. He shuddered.

  Then he threw up.

  Dear Lord, Bobby thought, retching again, the smell and taste of vomit thick in his throat, I know I’ve been a useless mess most of my life. I know I don’t deserve it. But if you get me out of here I swear I’ll turn it around. I’ll—

  “The fuck happened to your face, anyway?” Rocko said. The woman was still throwing herself at the door, thumps and bangs rattling their teeth.

  “My…” Bobby wiped puke from his mouth with the back of his hand, and touched his cheek again. “Who cares about my goddamned face? There’s a goddamn zombie in the other room. How about that, huh? How about we hash that one out before I tell you my life story?”

  “Just making conversation,” Rocko said. He checked the gun and snapped the clip back into the handle. “Thought it might be relevant, you know, to the situation. Give me an idea on whether you’re going to flip out on me. That bitch may be stupid, but she’s still dangerous. I gotta know who I’m dealing with in here.”

  “How do you know she’s stupid? What happens if she figures out how to open this door?”

  “She won’t.”

  “Says you. Who the fuck are you, anyway? Where’s J.D.’s regular guy?”

  “He’s dead,” Rocko said. “I killed him.”

  “You killed him? Why?”

  “It’s a long story.” Rocko seemed to look around the room for the first time. “Goddamn meat locker in here. What is this place?”

  Bobby looked up then, finally focusing on where they were, and what he saw chilled his blood more than the refrigerated air ever could. Three dead bodies lay under white sheets on rolling steel gurneys, and he knew that several more lurked behind the closed doors of the storage units. Latched, thank God for small favors.

  The Augusta morgue pulled bodies from no less than eight different small towns in the immediate area. There had been seven deaths during the past two days. An Edward Needleman from White Falls, Marlene Marcus and a John Doe from Augusta, a Jen Seigel from Wiscasset, and the lovely and talented Denise James (currently starring in Lifestyles of the Rich and Dead, right outside your door)—those were the names he remembered. There were others. Maybe more than seven in here, behind those locker doors, waiting patiently for their time on the slab.

  Or waiting for something else. For some reason his mind flashed to a scene he’d imagined many times over the past three years, his Emma, the love of his life, dead of an overdose that should have been his, lying silent and still inside a coffin buried six feet underground, her arms crossed on her chest, her body collapsing into itself, lips and eyes slowly melting away to nothing. Waiting.

  “It’s…where we store all the corpses,” Bobby said. He hesitated, staring at the nearest bare toes peeking out from under the sheets. Feminine toes, still painted pink. “You don’t think…”

  “Let me see your hands,” Rocko said. He stuck the gun in his pocket and pulled out a metal flask.

  “Why—”

  “Just do it.”

  Bobby stuck out his hands, palms up. Rocko unscrewed the flask and poured liquid over them. The smell of high-proof alcohol burned Bobby’s nostrils. Rocko rubbed it into his skin. “Everclear,” he said. “Gets rid of the residue. Where’s the baggie?”

  “In my pocket.” Bobby started to reach for it, and Rocko slapped his hand away.

  “Don’t touch it,” he said. “Did you reseal the bag?”

  “I think so. Why? What the hell’s going on?”

  Rocko didn’t look at Bobby, and at first it seemed it might be out of embarrassment, but then Bobby realized he was watching the corpses. “I’m not exactly J.D.’s best friend, you catch my drift. I knew what you guys were doing here.
Smuggling blow inside of dead bodies? Fucking genius, I said. But J.D. didn’t like me cutting in. I had to get creative.”

  “You killed him,” Bobby said.

  “No, I killed his partner, like I told you. That part was true. They were faggots, you know. J.D. drew down on me. I needed leverage.”

  “What kind of leverage did that get you? Why wouldn’t J.D. just kill you?”

  “Because he was in love with the guy, and I was the only one who could get the stuff that would bring him back.”

  Bring him…? Bobby shook his head. “You’re crazy,” he said. “Plain as vanilla, shit-house nuts.”

  “Oh yeah? What about Denise out there,” Rocko said. “She a figment of my crazy imagination?”

  “I…” and then he understood. “It’s the powder,” Bobby said. “That’s right, isn’t it? Some of it got into her, down there.”

  “Regular Shiloh Holmes,” Rocko said, and Bobby didn’t bother to correct him. It didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that the flask was back in the man’s pocket, and the gun was out again.

  And what was worse (much, much worse, in fact) was that said gun was pointing directly at Bobby’s face.

  A bullet between the eyes might not slow down Denise James, Bobby thought, but he was pretty damn sure it would put a real damper on his future plans.

  “Here’s the deal,” Rocko said in a low voice. “That woman’s been dead too long for her to do more than stumble through the dark. Her bulb’s burned out, you catch my drift? And they need a little more of that Gravedigger powder every few minutes to keep walking around. I haven’t heard a noise from the other room in a while now, which makes me wonder if maybe she just fell back down dead again.”

  He was right, Bobby realized; the thumping at the door had stopped.

  “What do you want from me?” he said.