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

by Stephen Bills

  * * *

  Today, Dominic was in his garage. Specifically, he was in an old MG, his legs sticking out from underneath it as he lay on a gurney. There was no music on, so he must have heard the approaching footsteps, but he didn’t roll out to see who it was.

  “Mind if I have a word?” Paddington asked.

  Dominic kicked against the ground, hoping to pass underneath the car and out the other side. Paddington stamped on the trolley between Dominic’s legs, which sent the other end – the end with his head – up into the car’s belly.

  “Ooh. That sounded painful,” Paddington said.

  Realising he was beaten, Dominic wheeled himself out, one hand on his forehead. It wasn’t bleeding, which was a good sign. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “A quiet word.” Paddington led Dominic into the office. It was a cramped affair, just big enough for the cheap desk, phone, two swivel chairs, and a filing cabinet. No names other than Dominic’s were written on the blackboard roster for today. Good. They should have some time alone.

  “Yeah, what do you want?” Dominic asked.

  Paddington double-checked that no one had walked into the garage, wiped his face, took a deep breath, and said, “I need you to bite me.”

  “You’re crazy, man!”

  Dominic stood. Paddington pulled his police-issue pistol from behind his back and Dominic dropped back down. “Whoa, okay, let’s both just calm down.”

  Paddington extended his left arm and pushed back the blood-stained sleeve to expose his wrist. “Do it,” he said.

  “No way,” Dominic said. “You’ll say I assaulted you or something.”

  Paddington brought the pistol closer to Dominic’s scraggly face. “You’re a werewolf, Dominic. I could present your corpse to my Mainland friends and not one of them would ask whether I could have brought you in alive. They’d say, ‘Job well done.’

  “Because it would be,” Paddington continued. “My job is to cooperate with operatives of the law – which they are – but since I’m feeling merciful, I’ll make you a deal, Dom. Bite me… and I won’t have you killed and dissected.”

  Dominic squirmed on the squeaking chair. “I’m not comfortable with this whole vibe, so maybe I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Call your friends?” Paddington waved the gun in Dominic’s face and watched his eyes follow it. Good. “How fast can you dial?”

  Trapped in his chair, Dominic frantically searched the office for some way out. There was none; Paddington would have noticed it.

  “I mean, if…” Dominic started.

  “Dom…”

  “Why don’t—”

  “Dom.”

  “Maybe y—”

  “Dom!”

  “It won’t—” Dominic stopped, but the damage was done.

  “It won’t what?” Paddington pounced on the ill-spoken words. “Won’t matter? Won’t work? So… it’s not biting.” The internet was wrong, again. What a shock. “Then what is it?”

  Beads of black sweat began to dribble down Dominic’s red forehead. “I can’t say.”

  Paddington didn’t have time for this! He grabbed Dominic with one hand and pressed the gun barrel against his jaw. His finger tightened on the trigger. “How?” he asked, breathless.

  “They’d kill me!” Dominic’s eyes flashed toward the window, then back to Paddington. “Slowly,” he added.

  The grubby office had one small four-paned window. Through the grime, Paddington spotted a figure on the other side of the street, leaning against a lamppost. He’d been there when Paddington had arrived as well.

  The other werewolves were watching Dominic.

  Paddington released him and stepped back. How close had he come to squeezing the trigger? What was he doing here? Intimidation? Threats? This wasn’t him.

  Paddington made up his mind to go straight home and leave his gun there. He couldn’t trust himself with it, even unloaded.

  “Please don’t come here again,” Dominic whispered.

  Paddington nodded. “I won’t.” He felt sick. “Have you… Is there a cure?”

  Dominic shook his head slowly, like what Paddington was suggesting was daft. “It’s not a disease. Not,” he added quickly, “that I know what you’re talking about.”

  Paddington tucked the pistol into the back of his trousers, under his long tan coat, and glanced at the window. “When they ask, I came to find out if you’d seen Lisa. You haven’t. Got it?”

  Dominic nodded and Paddington left, taking care not to look at the figure on the lamppost. Instead, he ran though the rest of his day: he had to fit in his normal duties, placate his mother, help the Team try to find Lisa, and maybe see if McGregor had made any more sense of the prophecy, all before dinner with the duke tonight.

  Strangely, he didn’t miss the boring old days at all.