Buffy turned around (though she kept walking backward) and saw the zombies shuffling across the street. Tires screeched and a car crashed into something nearby. Buffy tensed. All the zombies she saw were still coming toward her, but she had no idea if she was drawing them all away or—
Someone screamed. Gunshots were fired. There was a second car crash.
No, some zombies had definitely become distracted. Curses! Now she had to double back to make sure no one was being eaten.
She began to make an arc, but when she reached a pedestrian lane at the edge of the park leading back across the street, she stopped and let out a little cry of frustration.
And no wonder. Coming straight toward her was another zombie army, though this one was dressed more like the Spaniards from the early days of California history, complete with metal helmets and chest plates. Obviously they were going to be more difficult to stomp to death than the army of zombies already chasing her. It appeared checking up on whoever was in the automobiles would have to wait, perhaps indefinitely.
Currently on the same wavelength, the two sets of zombies simply flowed into one great stream; they still followed her just as relentlessly, just as mindlessly. They weren’t even fazed when one was struck by a bolt of lightning and turned into cinder.
Buffy kept about a hundred yards between herself and the zombies. She stayed in sight. She tried not to put too many barriers between herself and the shambling creatures because she wasn’t sure they possessed the smarts to navigate past them. When she ran through a tennis court she was sure she’d been right: some zombies went through the openings, but others tried climbing the wire-mesh fence rather than going around it. Most succeeded, incidentally, but a few fell all the way down and broke apart upon hitting the ground. The ones that still had legs and torso attached gathered themselves together as best as they could and straggled behind.
Three-quarters of the way through the park Buffy sighted the town gazebo in the middle of an open stretch of ground. According to legend, a brass band had played under the gazebo every Sunday until the advent of the Jazz Age, and the people of Sunnydale gathered on the grounds to listen and do all the other things people of small towns were supposed to have done during the glorious “Past.”
The notion of resting and getting out of the rain for five minutes was appealing. Indeed, with the way the zombies were advancing toward her, maybe she could take a catnap.
She was just bounding the stairs, however, when she realized that all of a sudden she wasn’t alone.
Of course, neither were the startled Cordelia and the second-string halfback she was making out with, the snotty Augie Duluth. “Buffy!” exclaimed Cordelia, as she broke away from Augie and tried to hide how disheveled her hair and clothing were. “Invade personal space much?”
“Getting out of the rain?”
“You can’t! I’m busy!” Cordelia replied, as an undeterred Augie pursed his lips, grabbed her, spun her back to him, and attempted to suck face with all the finesse girls usually expect from members of the football team.
Buffy’s stomach turned: she didn’t find Augie attractive in the slightest. Then, with a rear glance, she remembered why she’d come here in the first place. The zombies were nowhere to be seen—not yet—but their distinct growl was faintly audible, if one knew what to listen for. “Cordelia, I think it’s time you blew this gazebo!”
“I beg your pardon?” Cordelia exclaimed.
“All right! My little dew flower!” Augie exclaimed, just before he planted yet another big wet sloppy kiss on her.
Somebody better throw this dog a Milkbone, thought Buffy. “The police are coming!”
Cordelia jumped away from Augie as if he’d given her an electric shock. “What?”
“I’m sorry,” said Buffy sheepishly, “but I’ve gotten into trouble with the law. They’re on their way,” she added, pointing to the trees.
“Why should I go?” Cordelia asked. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Just think of the social black eye you’ll get if the word leaks that you were hanging with a known felon.”
“Don’t tell me you burnt down the Sunnydale gym too,” said Augie with a laugh.
“Only the boys’ locker room,” said Buffy. “All those smelly gym socks needed was one spark and . . . poof!”
“You said you’re in trouble with whom?” Cordelia asked. At last the full implication of what Buffy was saying had sunk in and she was genuinely shocked.
Buffy saw the first pair of zombie legs become visible beneath the distant foliage. “You’ll read about it in the papers tomorrow. Just trust me and go!”
“She’s right, babe,” said Augie. “See you around, my little jailbird,” he said to Buffy as he took Cordelia by the elbow and attempted to escort her down the steps.
But Cordelia was reluctant and she glared at Buffy. “You’re involved in more funny business, aren’t you?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Suddenly energized, Cordelia slapped a surprised Augie several times on the arm. “What’s keeping you? Let’s go!” She grabbed him by his varsity jacket and practically dragged him into the rain. “You’re so slow!”
“That’s not—”
“Shut up!” Cordelia hissed.
Buffy sighed with relief that they were finally going. She hated to admit it, but at the moment she envied Cordelia, who for all her faults was at least living a normal teenager’s life.
And then of course there were the zombies, who had already lived theirs. The army shuffled down the hill toward the gazebo. A few slipped and fell, knocking others over and breaking off more than a few limbs in the process. Their chorus of growls was not inspired by the self-inflicted carnage or by the carnage they hoped to inflict on Buffy—they just came out spontaneously.
“Oh Romeo, oh Romeo, about time you showed up.” Buffy had no idea if any of the zombies had enough brains left to be taunted, but she’d noticed a couple of them veering off in the direction Cordelia and Augie had taken. She needed them all to follow her, without exception, if her plan was to work.
The zombies did. Buffy leapt off the gazebo, landed on the first stone of a raised path and headed out the park past a baseball field and a deserted public building. Well, at least she hoped it was deserted. It certainly appeared closed for the night, which was good, because in a few minutes she wouldn’t be able to deal with any strays.
She crossed the street by now so drenched that she thought nothing of fording the water overflowing the gutters on either side.
Buffy reached the border of a well-groomed field that was off-limits to the public. Beyond the field was a well-lit building surrounded by an electrified fence covered with barbed wire. During the few seconds Buffy glanced that way, the building’s lightning rod attracted no less than three bolts.
Then, without trying to be too circumspect about it, she ducked into an underground tunnel. It was a two-way road, with each lane just large enough to handle a Mack truck. The parking lot it served was over two hundred yards away, below the other side of the well-groomed field. There were no doors, no emergency exits. The only way in or out was at either side.
Buffy hesitated, thought of something, then dashed back out into the street. Sure enough, the zombies showed every sign of missing her, of wandering by. She put two fingers to her lips and whistled loudly. She waved. “Hey! Adoring masses! This way!”
She went back into the tunnel, pausing until she saw that the zombies were following her this time. Then she ran. The zombie’s growls echoed eerily throughout the tunnel; they rang in her ears like curses. The farther she went into the tunnel, the narrower and darker it seemed. It was all Buffy could do to refrain from running full-tilt to put as much distance between her and the zombies as possible. When she saw the guard in the booth up ahead, she knew she had to slow down.
Slow down and try to think of a way to save him.
Perhaps the best approach, she thought, would be an honest one. “Hey,
mister!” she called out.
Uh-oh! The “mister” was a woman. A police-woman. She got out of the booth, where she’d been reading a paperback novel. On one side of her belt hung a nightstick, while on the other hung a holster heavy with the biggest sidearm Buffy had ever seen. The officer was in the process of pulling her gun from its holster when she saw that she had been startled by a teenager.
“Girl!” exclaimed the officer. “What are you doing out on a night like this?”
“I’m being followed. May I borrow that?” Without waiting for an answer, she freed the nightstick from the officer’s holster.
“Hey!” she cried at Buffy.
“Relax,” said Buffy, pointing the nightstick down the tunnel. “I just need to make a point.”
The zombies shuffled into view, their zombieness further distorted by the parking lot’s lights. The policewoman gasped in disbelief. Buffy got the balance of the nightstick and then threw it briskly, just like a butterknife, at the foremost zombie.
The stick went through its forehead like a hot blowtorch through a gallon of ice cream.
Still the zombie approached. The fact that most of its brains had been pushed out of its ears had no effect whatsoever on its overall performance.
The officer screamed, and Buffy didn’t blame her; most people went about their daily business unprepared for confrontations with formerly dead people dropping body parts. “Better run,” Buffy suggested. “I’ll be right behind you.”
They backed up into a heavily fenced parking lot.
Buffy quickly scoped out the situation. She stood at the border of the lot where the police and guards kept their civilian vehicles. Buffy knew the place would soon be swarming with cops, thanks to the officer’s continuous screaming.
Buffy smiled to herself. Life could be good, after all.
She turned to the approaching zombies—the one with the big hole in its forehead now brandished the nightstick awkwardly, but no less threateningly—and whistled at them again. “Hi, boys, new in town?” she called out. “My name’s Buffy and I know how to show you a real good time.”
The zombie with the hole in its forehead still had two good dead eyes. It growled so deeply parts of its neck fluttered out and hit the blacktop with a sickening plop!. Another zombie nearby scooped up the debris and stuffed it into its mouth, swallowing several of its own teeth in the process. Even though all the zombies weren’t out of the tunnel yet, their leaders—that is, the ones who happened to be at the front or close to it—advanced toward Buffy.
Buffy backed up some more. The idea was to lure the zombies as far as possible into the parking lot, an idea which, now that she thought about, was working better and faster than she’d ever anticipated. All the zombies were now inside, and she had no choice but to slow down, because the zombies were trying to maneuver her back against the wall.
Buffy tried to circle around using a couple of parked automobiles for interference, but while they couldn’t exactly taste flesh and blood, the zombies were becoming excited, in their own detached way, about the prospect of soon feasting on the meal that had thus far eluded them.
Buffy slammed back against a van. Zombies approached to the front of her. To the right of her. To the left. She looked down to see a blackened hand reaching out from beneath the van, groping for her. She ground her heel on the hand with all the might she could muster, turned, jumped, grabbed the luggage rack and swung onto the top of the van.
A zombie was already crawling up to greet her. She kicked it under the skin. The head lifted completely from the torso with a rip that echoed throughout the underground lot. She turned and kicked another zombie in the chest.
Oops! My fault!
This time when her foot went into a zombie’s chest, this one helped keep it there by grabbing her ankle with both hands and twisting it. Buffy had to twist her entire body to keep her leg from being broken. Her greatest fear at the moment was that she would fall off the van, but she managed to stay on the top, landing face-first with her outstretched palms absorbing most of the impact. She drew in both her knees, then kicked with both feet, sending the zombie flying into three zombies scrambling over one another in their efforts to get to the top.
The four zombies fell in a heap. At that moment Officer McCrumski entered the area ready for the night shift. He saw a young woman clinging to the top of his partner’s minivan. “Hey, what are you. . . .” He trailed off, his breakfast sandwich falling to the pavement. He fumbled for his gun.
The zombies didn’t care. Those who weren’t climbing up the van simply turned toward the thin blue line.
Uh-oh! Buffy rolled off the van, on the opposite side of the policeman, the moment he began firing. This gave her protection from the bullets but not from the zombies who happened to be on the other side. They caught her before she hit the ground and immediately tried to pull her apart or eat her, whichever was easiest.
Wonder if Prince Ashton predicted this, Buffy thought sardonically, as she kicked off the face of a zombie trying to bite her ankle. She twisted and jabbed her elbow into another one. It got stuck between the creature’s ribs. She hooked her elbow in deeper and then yanked with all her might; her fist struck another zombie on the sternum with such force that it pressed against the spine and all the organs in between squished out the other side.
Only to be caught and eaten by other zombies.
Buffy and the zombies holding her fell down in a heap. She fought herself free and grabbed a headless, legless torso and tried to use it as a shield against the other zombies. That part of the idea was good, but the fact that the arms were still attached and quite active made for a bad complication. The arms reached backward and tried to pull her hair out. Buffy wound up bumping the torso against attacking zombies as she tried to pull off the arms and hide behind the car parked next to the van.
Meanwhile, the zombies advancing on Officer McCrumski were literally cut into pieces by the bullets. One dropped a shoulder. One chest was hit hard enough that it split in half, right down the middle.
McCrumski emptied his revolver without thinking. Now he held a smoking gun against an invasion of . . . mutants, he thought. Probably rejects from a drug research program.
He took another look at the advancing perps, threw his empty gun at them and bolted for the stationhouse.
Buffy half-crawled, half-ran behind the line of parked cars, heading for the nearby access road to Route 13. She needed to lead them away from the station before anybody got a good look at them. Once she did that, she had to disappear herself. Without a quarry they should return to the cemetery. Brain-dead lemmings, she thought.
The manhole ahead presented some interesting possibilities.
With what felt like the last of her strength she whirled and threw the torso she’d been using for protection at a zombie who’d so far managed to gain on her. The zombie caught the torso and began nibbling at what was left of the neck. Meanwhile, Buffy summoned just enough energy to lift the manhole cover and push it away.
She crawled into pitch darkness, into the sewer. She closed the cover behind her.
The sewer tunnel was tall enough to permit her to stand as she walked. Since she couldn’t see anything, she simply picked a direction.
After a while her gag reflex kicked in to such a degree that she was afraid she would vomit everything she’d eaten since the age of six. Her only consolation was a sliver of light in the distance, an indication, perhaps, of another manhole leading out of this tunnel.
She hoped it was still raining. Right now she smelled worse than all those zombies put together, and getting drenched yet again would be a blessing.
CHAPTER 10
It was your average manhole cover. It filled in the hole leading to the sewer, and didn’t collapse whenever a car, truck or what-have-you ran over it. At the moment it lay there in the rain, doing its job, while not far away a steady barrage of gunfire testified to the ferocity of the zombie attack on the police force.
A couple of
fingers, whose nails desperately needed to be redone, poked through the holes in the manhole cover. They slipped back down the moment before they were run over by a passing automobile.
A few more moments passed, then the fingers poked through again, more gingerly this time. They pressed down, hard.
The manhole cover moved with a sudden jerk. It lay in the middle of the street while Buffy Summers stuck her head through the hole and made sure no more traffic was coming. Then she crawled out on her hands and knees and, with a weakness she found frightening, pushed the manhole cover back into place.
It lay there, once again doing its job, while Buffy dashed to the sidewalk and tried to ignore the fact that right now she was the only source of the incredible stench causing her to gag. She fell onto her knees, tried to catch her breath, and spent a few luxurious moments feeling the rain wash away the grease and grime from her clothing.
Well, she hoped no one at the police station had gotten hurt—no one who was still alive, anyway. And while it might have been bad-heroine form to desert the police, she really hadn’t been in much of a position to help. Her main concern was her mom and the prophecy. In that order.
Checking her pockets, she realized with despair that she’d lost every dollar bill she had (five, to be exact) in the sewer, if not before. Buffy rarely carried her pocketbook while on the hunt, but a certain amount of money was a necessity.
Then, relieved, she found one soggy dollar in her hip pocket. It was pressed flat; it must have gone through the washer/drier a couple of times. Buffy was afraid to unwrap it, but she clutched it like the life-saver it was. Time to phone home again.
Buffy had done a bunch of slaying at a nearby post office. It kept the doors to its lobby open twenty-four hours so innocent victims could get bitten by vampires and become part of the legions of the undead any time at night, all because they wanted some stamps. She headed there in the hope one of the change machines would break her soggy dollar.
Night of the Living Rerun Page 10
