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

by Stephen Bills

  * * *

  Truman spent the drive to headquarters silently considering what the werewolves might be doing to Paddington. On roofs and in trees, he spotted the familiar shapes of their night-time watchers, but now their presence felt malicious. The werewolf attack had proved the Team wasn’t safe and yet, watch was all they did. The van wasn’t stopped or fired upon, no one sliced their tyres or landed on the roof. As with the previous two nights, the figures merely watched them.

  When the Team entered the headquarters, Skylar waved her gun at them, but she was struggling to keep her eyes open. McGregor, on the other hand, buzzed. He flittered around the large front room, seemingly performing three tasks at once.

  Skylar nodded at him. “He found some herb in the garden and made a drink out of it.”

  McGregor scrawled something on one of the many pieces of paper that crowded every surface. He still hadn’t noticed his four teammates, so Mitchell blocked his way to the sideboard.

  McGregor bumped into him, looked up, and spoke at twice his usual brisk pace. “Hey Jerry excuse me!” McGregor plucked a mug from the sideboard. “Here, try this tea I made. Really peps you up!”

  Mitchell shoved the mug away. “Skylar. We’re going.”

  “Where?” McGregor asked.

  “To rescue or kill Harold Brown. I don’t care which.”

  “Through the zombies?” McGregor asked. “But they’re still alive.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Their condition might be manageable, even curable. This isn’t exactly leprosy or multiple sclerosis – the onset is too fast and the effects far too pronounced – but they’re perfect subjects to further medical knowledge. New vaccines, cures! Who knows what we could learn from them?”

  “Not me,” Mitchell admitted. “All I know is they’re between me and my goal.”

  “But they aren’t in their right minds!” McGregor’s hazel eyes were wide and searching for some compassion from the captain.

  Mitchell stepped closer. “Their wrong minds want to eat me, doctor, so they get no mercy. When something tries to kill me, I do kill it, and I expect you all to do the same.”

  Mitchell stared at McGregor until the shorter man nodded. They left him a single magazine of ammo for his L85 – as if the doctor actually knew how to use it – and took the rest.

  Truman was the last to leave. He didn’t have anything soothing to tell McGregor, but he laid a compassionate hand on the doctor’s shoulder to indicate that if they could just get through this, get off this island, everything would be all right.

  That was when he’d heard it: a small moan, almost lonely.

  McGregor froze. Truman stared at him. Why was their zombie still alive? McGregor had been ordered to kill it. Why hadn’t he? Because it was alive? That wouldn’t fly with Mitchell, not in his current mood, and neither would whatever medical reason McGregor came up with.

  If Truman had time and could have silenced the bullet, he would have spared McGregor dealing with the zombie… but he didn’t have the time and a gunshot would alert Mitchell.

  Truman lingered another moment. At the door, he gave McGregor a serious nod toward the zombie’s room: deal with it. It would be traumatic, but not half as traumatic as dealing with Mitchell.

  The drive south was silent. Truman tried to ready himself for the battle ahead, which would have been easier if he still thought of the zombies as mindless corpses. They were mindless, obviously, but they were also alive and McGregor was right: that made a difference.

  Mitchell stopped the van at an abandoned barricade. Four zombies were visible, spread out and ambling around the streets. Mitchell gunned them down before Truman had even checked his gear. If these were the front lines, then the zombies had taken another mile north and east while the Team had been trapped in the station.

  “What’s the plan, sir?” Skylar asked.

  “Quick extraction,” Mitchell said. “Out before the zombies notice. I don’t want to be swarmed by a thousand undead Archeeans.”

  “Hell,” Truman said. “There aren’t that many, are there?” The island housed nearly ten thousand people, according to Paddington. Would one-tenth of the population have fallen? More than a tenth of the land had been overrun, but surely the people had evacuated.

  “Let’s find out,” Mitchell said, walking off. Truman shared an uneasy glance with the others. Mitchell was usually determined, but today was different. As if something inside him had snapped and he thought killing everything in front of him was the cure.

  Still, he was doing something to stop the prophecy, so that was a step in the right direction.

  The Team took up positions behind Mitchell and rounded the corner. The market was overrun. Fifty zombies clambered at stalls that were now a hastily-constructed fort. What must it feel like inside? Surrounded by growls, unable to fight, knowing that eventually a zombie would break through and eat you alive.

  Mitchell fired single shots as he crossed the open space, blowing apart skull after skull. The zombies noticed the new food source and hobbled toward them, yelling. Skylar, Normson, and Clarkson dealt with them. Truman picked off those still attacking the fort.

  When the area was clear, the Team lowered their rifles. “We landed here,” Skylar said. She sounded hollow. “Two days ago…”

  “They tried to kill us then too,” Clarkson said. He walked over to the fort and banged on it. “You can come out. They’re gone.”

  “How do I know you’re not one of them?” someone asked from inside.

  Clarkson rolled his eyes. “You got me. I was hired by the zombies to lure you out of this impenetrable fortress you’ve built.” He called over his shoulder, “I don’t think they’re falling for it!”

  “Brains!” Normson yelled back. Skylar punched him in the stomach. Truman couldn’t even muster up that much emotion. This whole situation made him feel sick, empty.

  Clarkson turned to the fort. “They say you’re much smarter than the last group, who were delicious.”

  “You two! Stop pissing about!” Mitchell said.

  The fort opened with the clank and rattle of metal and half a dozen Archians emerged holding gardening implements and covered with blood. They stood with their shoulders curled inward and moved their heads in quick motions, like chickens. Their clothes were torn from battle; their faces and hands were scraped and bruised.

  The tubby constable – Appleby – was there, his uniform shabby and crinkled. Beside him was a stern old woman with dark brown hair tied in a tight bun and a sabre whose blade glistened in the moonlight like liquid rubies. Sergeant Paddington looked like she’d aged ten years in as many hours.

  “Thanks,” Appleby said. “We were, uh…”

  “Screwed?” Mitchell said. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew.”

  “It was even numbers when we started.” Appleby’s eyes were ringed with black, which made his podgy face look like a wide skull.

  “How many between here and the Bleeding Heck?” Mitchell asked.

  “A few hundred.”

  “Any of your people?”

  “Not any more,” Appleby said, glaring. “That was them trying to eat us.”

  If Mitchell cared, he hid it extremely well. “Get yourself a thick jacket.”

  “I’m not cold.”

  “It’ll stop the bites getting through,” Mitchell said. “While you’re at it, retrieve food, water, and weapons from any houses belonging to zombies.”

  “Any more advice for the stupid peasants?” Appleby asked.

  “Yes. Aim for the head.”

  Appleby pointed at one of Mitchell’s kills. The woman had a neat hole between her eyebrows. “I went to school with her!” Appleby said. “She was in the year above me!”

  “Then she’s lived a year longer than you’re likely to at this rate,” Mitchell said unflinchingly. “Start using your brain. Yours isn’t much of a meal, but it’s all you hav—”

  “Where’s my son?” the sergeant a
sked.

  This time, Mitchell didn’t snap back, he looked away. Eventually Skylar broke the tension by firing a single shot. “Sorry,” she said. “It was still moving.”

  “Werewolves attacked the station,” Mitchell said. “He was taken.”

  “I see.” Sergeant Paddington’s knuckles turned white on the sabre’s handle. “And you’re out here?”

  Mitchell stepped forward, forcing her to move the sabre aside or stab him. She surprised Truman by doing the former.

  “You’re not my mother, Missus Paddington,” Mitchell said, “so don’t tell me what to do. If you know how to locate a pack of werewolves, I’m all ears; otherwise we have your stupid backwards island to save. If you don’t mind.”