Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown

by Stephen Bills

  Chapter Eight: Pack Mentality

  An angry knocking interrupted Quentin’s sleep and continued to do so until he thumped to the front door and threw it open. “Officer of the law!” he said. “This had better be important.”

  A thin figure brushed past him. “Officers of the law wear trousers.”

  Quentin knew that voice. He tied the ends of his bathrobe together and followed the blur to his sitting room. “Jim, I said I wasn’t coming in today.”

  “I know.” Jim’s voice was reedier than usual. “I’m just… hanging out. We’re mates, aren’t we? Best of friends, really, like peas in a pod or… pod people… or something.”

  Quentin lowered himself onto the couch and propped his head against his arm. “Jim, have you been drinking?” He couldn’t remember ever seeing Jim so pale, or messy-haired, or jittery, and there was something else… his long detective coat was missing. He looked lost without it, like he didn’t know where to put his hands.

  “Drinking?” Jim asked. “Not a drop. No, I’m sober as I’ve ever been, me… Ever…” He trailed off, staring into space, then found new energy. “But surely something’s going on with you, Quentin, some ridiculous love-triangle, or love-dodecagon. Good word, that… dodecagon.”

  Quentin waited until he was sure Jim had finished. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re speaking very quickly.”

  Jim play-punched him on the arm. Quentin couldn’t remember Jim ever messing about before. Or initiating physical contact. “That’s excitement,” he said. “Excitement to see you, Quent.”

  “James!” Quentin spoke loudly and slowly and clearly. “What’s going on?”

  For a moment, Jim’s mad stare failed, but then he spotted the kettle. “Tea! I’d love a cup of tea. Do you want one? It’s a bit strange, offering you your own tea, but it seemed rude if I didn’t.” Jim was in the kitchen now, one hand frozen on the kettle.

  Quentin was too tired for tea and far too tired for this nonsense. “Much as I appreciate the visit,” Quentin said, “I have to get back to bed.”

  Jim looked toward the bedroom and his eyebrows rose even higher, which was quite a feat. “Oh! I haven’t interrupted one of your… dodecagons, have I? I can go. Yeah, that’s best. I’ll just go.” He started backing away.

  “Jim! Stop!”

  Quentin closed his eyes a moment and tried to think like Jim: focussed, professional, obsessed with right and wrong, lonely. There was a reason for everything he did. He wouldn’t have come here to muck about. Something must have happened, something he needed help with, but didn’t know how to ask. But Jim was here, so it was something he needed Quentin’s help with.

  No. Jim never needed his help. Not with police work, anyway. His love life could use a bit of counselling, of course, but he’d never ask…

  “Lisa hasn’t left you, has she?” Quentin asked.

  For a moment Jim looked exposed, caught with one hand in the cookie jar; then he grinned far too wide. “Why d’you say that?”

  Quentin shrugged. “What else would get you in such a state?”

  This penetrated his cheerful barrier and Jim drooped against the counter. Quentin wandered to the kitchen door. “So what’s happened?”

  Jim stared at his reflection in the filthy kettle. “Lisa’s been lying to me.”

  That sounded like a Mainlander thing to do, but Jim didn’t need to hear that now, so Quentin just said, “About what?”

  “Maybe everything. She’s a werewolf.”

  “A what?”

  “Once a month she turns into a wolf. Last month she killed Betsy. Night before last she killed one of Thomas’s sheep.”

  Quentin looked for the hint of a smile, but he couldn’t find one.

  “Come on, Jim,” Quentin said. “What’s really up?”

  “I called Mainlanders,” Jim continued. “They arrived this morning to catch her.”

  Again Quentin expected some humour, but Jim simply stared at the kettle like he hated it. As the seconds shuffled past, Quentin realised he was serious.

  The how and why could wait; they had to do something. Lisa meant the world to Jim; if he lost her… perhaps the flicker of hope in Jim’s eyes over the last three weeks would get snuffed out forever.

  Quentin grabbed Jim’s arm and dragged him toward the front door. He needed to get Jim moving, get him thinking, taking charge, solving, making it right. That was what he liked doing; he just needed a jump-start. “Come on!” Quentin said. “We’ve got to hide her! How much do they know?”

  “Everything. I… delivered her.”

  Quentin stopped and Jim slammed into his back. When Quentin turned, Jim was staring vacantly at the wall. “You handed your girlfriend over to strangers?”

  “I don’t know what she is. She’s been lying this whole time.”

  “You can hardly blame her!”

  Jim stared at him, hard. Quentin wished he wouldn’t. Jim could be very… intense.

  “You gotta admit, you got a bit… obsessed. Always on about hunting it down. I mean, what would you have done if she had told you?”

  “Not believed her. Or…” Jim increased his half-frown to a full frown, seemingly confused by his own thoughts. “I think I’d have been all right with it. It is interesting…”

  They were getting somewhere: Jim had stopped staring into space. Another question or two and he’d realise he wanted Lisa back and they could get on with rescuing her.

  “Yeah, but Lisa killed Betsy,” Quentin said.

  “That’s not her fault. She must have been confused, terrified.”

  “Exactly,” Quentin said smugly. “So what are you upset about?”

  “I don’t know!” Jim ran fingers through his plume of brown hair. “That she didn’t trust me, that she kept it hidden, the lies.”

  “The lies kept you happy.”

  “That’s not good enough.” Jim opened his mouth to say more, but stopped. He probably didn’t know what to say, or even what he was mad at.

  This wasn’t working. If logic couldn’t get through to Jim, then things were really bad. Quentin decided to try shock therapy. He sighed elaborately and said, “Are you always like this after a break up? No wonder your girlfriends are such easy rebounds.”

  Jim blinked like he’d been slapped. “What?”

  “Yeah. A little consoling, a bit of ‘There there’, and Bob’s your uncle… well, how’s-your-father. And you’re saying Lisa’s availab—”

  Jim’s hands were pinning Quentin’s throat to the wall. He wasn’t quite sure how that had happened. Or when.

  “You don’t even like her!” he yelled.

  “But… you… do…” Quentin said. Suddenly he could breathe again, though now he seemed to be sitting on the ground. He coughed up something wet and horrible.

  Jim stared down at him from the opposite wall. “That was…?”

  Quentin rubbed his throat. “Now you know how you feel.”

  It was hard to tell if Jim was sorry or horrified. Both, maybe. “Are you okay?”

  “Skinny bloke like you? I’m fine,” Quentin lied, getting to his feet. “Now, what’re these Mainlanders doing?”

  “At the moment, examining Lisa to see if it’s real.”

  “Then what?”

  Jim ran his hands across his long, neatly-shaven face. “I don’t know.”

  “And the million-pound question: what do you want?”

  “I want… to see Lisa free, and safe, and warm. And I don’t think they’ll agree.”

  Quentin nodded. Jim had his serious-face on again. “So we overpower them.”

  “There’s eight of them,” Jim said.

  “It’s a challenge.”

  “All with rifles.”

  Wasn’t one Mainlander bad enough? Why had Jim invited an army? “You didn’t spit on the duke at dinner for added challenge, did you? Still, we’ll think of something.”

  Jim’s eyes found Quentin’s. They had their streng
th back: that arrogant gaze like the answers were right there but he was the only one who could see them, like the world was a puzzle specifically created for him to solve. “This is my mess,” he said. “And I need to find out what we’re dealing with… but thanks.”

  Quentin watched Jim go, then, job done, went back to bed and curled an arm around Denise’s shoulders.