“Wasting my time,” Vincent said under his breath.
“Then why you whispering?”
“How do you know something’s here?” Vincent snapped at him.
“Because I was here. With Junior. You know Junior? He’s upstairs with his girl, Dina. I was down here when I heard the noises, and I ran out.”
“Upstairs? How many people?”
“Three.”
“You just said Junior and Dina. What the fuck’s going on?”
“They got that video. You know the one. I told them not to watch it. I told them. Man, I heard it from downstairs.”
“Video? You gotta be real with me. How’d you get it?”
Suede looked away. “I ain’t no snitch.”
“How’d you get the video? I’m not asking a third time.”
“You know where we got it. The bone man sent it. But I didn’t trade for it. It was Junior’s idea.”
Vincent was getting more irritated by the second. The bone man was a name he heard too often now, and a part of him felt jealous; this strange man had invaded the neighborhood as a drug supplier, and Vincent hadn’t done a thing about it. He didn’t want to care.
But he should care. It wasn’t about turf; it was about protecting people who believed in him.
“So you come get me, and this all you got?” Vincent nodded at the gun in his hand.
“I thought you would have a plan or some shit. I thought we would roll in with a crew. I ain’t afraid of one of those mutherfuckers, but I know there might be more than one.”
Vincent shook his head. He snatched the flashlight from Suede’s hand. “Get out of here. Get another gun. Get Taylor and Bailey.”
Suede took off, and Vincent slowly made his way up the stairs, each step creaking beneath his feet. His fingers adjust to the grip on the gun. His lips tasted like sweat.
A door at the top of the stairs was slightly open, a faint glow inside throwing shadows onto the floor. It must have been a television, although Vincent hadn’t heard a generator outside. He thought he could hear slurping, as if someone was drinking broth from a bowl.
The darkness was spinning. Vincent was drunk, his thoughts muddled.
He violently pushed the door open and heard it slam against the wall. Time to get this over with.
There was a television in the room, and its screen was black, but there was just enough of an electronic glow for Vincent to see a shape sitting upright on the bed. He brought the flashlight up to the shape and saw the red-eyed face, mouth full of blood, wet hands covering its mouth. The creature slurped something into its mouth. Beside it lay Dina’s slaughtered body, the stomach a flat pool of liquid.
He needed to aim the gun, pull the trigger. Instead, he stood there, staring. The feasting zombie’s body was a sickly green, and its deliberate hands suggested the undead creature had intent; Vincent had known Junior and Dina, two mid-twenties survivors, but he couldn’t see anything in this creature that resembled Junior. Its skin reminded Vincent of a snail, wet and sickly. Not a single follicle of hair remained on the dead thing’s head. The eyes bulged from their sockets, and there were no eyelashes; eyelids did not blink. The foul thing did not have lips. It sat there, chewing and staring back at Vincent.
The television. Suede had mentioned a video.
The creature sitting on the bed was one of the rotted, one of those zombies created by the video. Vincent had never seen one of them before, but had heard they were different; they were faster, greedier, hungrier.
The zombie lowered its hands from its face, liquid slipping through its fingers; blood dripped onto the bed sheets, and Vincent looked into a hole that overflowed with gore. The zombie cupped its hands and threw them in the air, launching blood and meaty chunks across the room.
Vincent blinked his eyes as Dina’s blood was splashed into his face. Still, his limbs would not respond, and he did not know what to do. His brain completely shut off, locked out by overwhelming fear.
The rotted zombie stood upon the bed, and the putrid stench of an open sewer wafted into Vincent’s nose and caused his stomach to flip-flop, bile rising through his throat. He stifled the urge to vomit as the dead creature stepped off the bed, a black Miami Heat Lebron James jersey hanging from a thin, skeletal body; Junior had worn that jersey almost every day. The creature burped a gaseous moan, and its decrepit smell became more pungent.
On the bed, Dina sat up. Vincent took his eyes off Junior.
Somebody he hadn’t seen crashed into him.
A rush of fetid air filled his nostrils. Vincent twisted in the attacker’s arms and directed the body toward the door, pushing it onto the steps outside the door. He heard bones crack and snap as the body tumbled down the stairs. The attacker must have been the third person Suede mentioned; Vincent didn’t stop to look. He glanced back over his shoulder with the 9mm up, and he fired into the dark, bright splashes of light searing his retinas.
After three trigger pulls, a lumbering shape jettisoned through the black room, and Vincent again found himself in a tangle of limbs. His attacker was wet and slippery from blood and other liquids he could not identify, and it sudden shift in weight upon him forced him back against the banister which cracked; he hugged the zombie tightly to him to bring it crashing down with him into the living room. With a firm grip on its shoulder, he shoved his gun into its mouth just as space opened up beneath them. He fired a bullet into the dead fucker’s brainpan in that instant before they hit the couch below.
Vincent lay in a mess of blood and slime, intestine coiling around his legs like a rope that had been dipped in a swamp. He must have shot Dina; the corpse was fresh, not rotted like Junior.
Flashlight beams shot through the house’s windows; they had heard the gunshots and came running.
Horizons of light cut through the darkness, revealing a rotted corpse walking down the stairs, Lebron James jersey sagging from the weight of blood.
And then Vincent saw: maggots twisting in empty eye sockets, broken teeth in a fleshless jaw, an animated collection of hungry bones.
But he saw something else. In that instant, he was afraid like he had been afraid that first night, the night he world changed forever, the night his kingdom fell apart. He had been trapped in a church with a group of people who were all dead now, except for Traverse.
Vincent forgot about the gun in his hand. His head filled with images of violence and blood. He had spent his entire life making up the rules as he went along, and that life wasn’t coming back. A part of him might have believed that fighting alongside Vega would somehow bring it all back.
These bastards took it all. Griggs made a video with Mina, and that video started this. He knew the video was responsible, and Griggs was responsible. This creature was the detective’s vengeance against the world. A final joke.
The alcohol in his head muffled his roar; he didn’t hear himself cry out as he rushed toward the rotted zombie. Vincent shoved it through the open doorway with his bare hands and wrestled it onto the lawn. He straddled Junior’s chest and looked into the rotted face.
Memories jumbled through Vincent’s drunken mind. He remembered Derek. In the church, right after Traverse had chopped up Rhonda with an axe, Vincent put a bullet into Derek’s head to keep him from becoming a walking corpse. Traverse had shot Derek, and the dying man had begged Vincent to finish him off.
Derek’s blood was on his hands.
Derek had told him to get calm down, get his act together. There had been a little girl among them, and Derek was watching over her. Derek was supposed to be strongest of their little group.
Vincent pointed the 9mm gun into Junior’s rotted face and pulled the trigger. A part of the jaw shattered.
“You always right about shit, ain’t you?” Vincent asked the corpse.
He wanted to talk to Derek. He wanted to talk to everyone he had ever known and scream at them; his life was somehow their fault. His nightmare-existence was somehow everyone else’s curse upon him.
The zombie’s mouth opened, and it tried to sit up. Vincent fired a bullet that exited through the back of its head, missing the brain. As if he hadn’t shot it at all, the zombie continued to push itself up.
“You wanted me dead from the beginning,” Vincent said. “Yeah, you thought you were right. Thought I was in the way. But you were the one who tried to do too much. You tried to be a hero, and you ended up dead. If you weren’t dead maybe Shanna would still be here. Maybe things would have worked out different.”
The corpse stood in front of him.
“You were the better man. You were supposed to live, not me. You were going to save people. You were going to put your ass on the line to help people. You were supposed to survive. Not me. You were supposed to be standing here. You knew what to do.”
The corpse reached for him. It might have been Derek. It might have been anybody.
Vincent shot Junior in the forehead; the Lebron James jersey seemed to fold inward as the zombie crumpled. Blood was in Vincent’s eyes. Blood was on his lips.
He looked back at the door and saw the second attacker, the zombie that he had thrown down the steps, watching him.
The corpse in front of the door looked like Patrick Griggs.
“Come and get this shit,” Vincent said.
The zombie’s jaw clenched tightly until teeth cracked, popping out of the dead mouth like loose stones sliding down from a mountaintop.
“How many children are dead because of you?” Vincent asked. “That was your video. You said my guns killed children. Your movie killed EVERYBODY! You killed everybody! You did it. This is your fault. You did all of it.”
The corpse grabbed Vincent’s shoulders. That dreadful breath was in his face again.
“How many children have you killed, mutherfucker!”
Vincent stuck his gun inside its open mouth and angled the barrel upward.
“Answer my question. How many children have you killed?”
He squeezed the trigger, and the top of the rotted corpse’s head was jettisoned. Holding Vincent’s shoulders, it sank into the ground and nearly brought him down with it. But he kept his gun pointed at that familiar face. There weren’t enough bullets in the world. There weren’t enough bullets to kill every single one of these things. There weren’t enough guns.
Griggs had said Vincent’s guns were responsible for killing children.
Vincent shot it between the eyes. He shot its empty eye sockets. Then he just fired into the shape of its face. He fired until he heard the dry click. Then he dry-fired. Again and again. Click click click click.
The gun dropped from his shaking fingers.
Maybe he cried. His face was wet and he didn’t want to stand. He didn’t want to turn back and look at the people who stood there and watched him.
His hands were empty. His hands were empty, and he picked up the empty gun, but it seemed to weigh more than it should have, more than it could have. He dropped it again. Tried to pick it up, watched it slip out of his hand.
Those things he had said. He sounded ridiculous. Words that he never rehearsed, thoughts he never realized.
Now he couldn’t pick up the gun.
The smoking wreckage of a damaged face lay beneath him.
On his feet again, he turned to the crowd and walked away from the house. Where was Taylor? Bailey? What about Suede? A lot of people were watching him and he didn’t know who they were. They were all strangers. Everyone was a stranger, and they silently watched him walk away from the violent scene.
“Taylor,” he stopped in the middle of the street. He couldn’t see the old cop, but it didn’t matter, “you tell Sutter he knows where to find me if he wants something.” He spit on the ground and walked toward a slender figure that stood in the middle of the street.
Vega. He was supposed to have returned to her well before sunset, well before Taylor and Bailey shared stories and liquor with him. Her eyes were wide, not blinking. A blanket was wrapped over her shoulders even though it was impossibly humid.
He grabbed her by the waist and walked her back to their house. She did not say anything, nor did she touch him in return.
ROSE
Rose felt like she was spinning on a cheap amusement park ride.
There was laughter inside of her head, and it didn’t sound like her voice. The voice sounded like someone else’s, as if she were listening to loud music through headphones.
That madwoman, the redhead. It was her laughter, a childish cackling that filled the darkness. Rose just needed to wake up, open her eyes. Rose had watched the redhead eat a man and lick her lips afterward. The redhead, Mina, had wielded some kind of terrible power over the dead, and now Rose could hear her laughter.
Nausea tickled her stomach, and she saw Vega again, standing in front of her; Rose looked into Vega’s brown eyes. Vega’s eyes looked down, and Rose followed those eyes. She saw Vega’s hands on the handle of katana sword. The sword was inside of Rose’s stomach. The tip had slid through her back. Something moved inside of her stomach. Shifting. Blood poured over her own hands as she clutched the blade. Vega breathed into her face. Hundreds of people surrounded them.
The people who crowded around were not alive.
An airplane. She could hear the twin engines roar nearby.
Selfridge Air base.
Amparo Vega was killing her.
This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real. Time to wake up.
Get out of my head!
Whose voice was that?
It is so crowded in here. What-ever shall we do?
The demon’s voice. Yes, a demon. How did she know that a demon was talking to her?
When she sat up in the darkness, she tried to clear her head, listen to her own voice, but her thoughts weren’t clear.
Vega had killed her.
Rose remembered the pain. She grabbed at her stomach, looking for the wound, and found a long, horizontal scar. She was surrounded by darkness, yet she could see.
She knew there were other people inside of her head, and she was supposed to be dead. But anything was possible, wasn’t it? Jim had saved her. That was the only explanation, the only thing that made sense.
She had been close to Jim. He had planned to take her away on his airplane. He waited for her.
No. He wanted Mina. Jim had been dragging Mina toward the transport plane at Selfridge Air Base, dragging her through a horde of zombies on the runway.
That bitch.
Jealousy. No reason to be jealous, but she was. Jealousy was such a foolish way to feel. Embarrassing, undisciplined. If Jim knew, he would dismiss her, leave her. He had better things to do than play her emotional games. A man who predicated his existence on methodical self-control would not allow jealousy into his life.
Names popped into Rose’s head. Names, faces, places. Images flooded her brain. She tried to make sense of everything, as if she were trying to watch an action film that was moving forward at thirty times the speed. Noise accompanied the images, too much noise for anything to make sense.
Rose just wanted to open her eyes. To see. This was clearly all a nightmare, and she knew this. How could she know she was experience a bad dream and not wake up from it?
Please, I just want to die.
A fourth voice. Her name was Linda. How did Rose know?
Voices in her head.
Other people.
A demon. Mina. Linda.
Memory: Linda sitting with her back against a fountain in a shopping mall. Sitting, she watched as dead people pounded on the doors outside.
Zombies. The word seemed strange to Rose, unreal, but she knew it meant something.
The zombies pounded, pounded on the doors. The other survivors had thrown Linda out, left her in the lobby as bait. They were all going to try to leave, go out the front door after luring the dead inside. They had used her up. Her body had been used up by the men. Rose knew these things about Linda even though she had never seen her before this moment.
&nbs
p; “Turn around,” a voice said from behind her.
A dark-skinned woman. Not Vega. Exotic like her, but not her. A sniper rifle with laser optics resting in the crook of her elbow. The gun was nearly as tall as her.
Rose rubbed her eyes. Memories in her head. So many memories. Was she Rose? Was she alive again? How?
She didn’t know. She just didn’t know anything.
Mina wasn’t really in her head. Not anymore, at least. Mina might be dead now, swallowed by her own nightmares. Rose understood this idea but wasn’t sure how she knew.
You know because I’m telling you. We are together. We are friends now. Nothing can tear us apart. Take a look at yourself. How pretty you are. So pretty.
There should be a hole in her stomach.
There wasn’t a hole in her stomach.
Cold skin. Pale. Long hair.
Oh no.
Long, wavy hair. Red hair.
“No,” her voice croaked, only it wasn’t her voice.
Not possible.
“Mirror,” she said to the dark. “Mirror. Give me a mirror.”
She had to know for sure.
He wasn’t expecting this hahahahahahaha. Oh, the look on his face. Her body is forever, just like her mind. Look at her body. So pretty, so pretty. Don’t you know he fucked her in this body? Mina remembers.
“I’m not her!” Rose said.
Thin, knobby knees. Bone legs. Concave thighs. Her fingers danced down the length of her rib cage.
This was not Rose’s body.
“It’s true.”
Jim’s smooth voice. He was here, somewhere. But where was she?
“You’ve been in many bodies,” Jim said. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this happen before. I am… amused.”
Rose wasn’t breathing. This was nothing more than a surreal nightmare. She had to accept that this wasn’t happening, and she wasn’t trapped in Mina’s body, nor did she have all these memories that did not belong to her.
There had been a mission. She was supposed to find Jim in Detroit.
“I didn’t expect these results,” Jim said. “Perhaps this is your punishment, because it is certainly my delight.”
Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) Page 7
