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

by Stephen Bills

  * * *

  James had trouble keeping up with what was happening in the battle, but decided not to let that distract him. So the zombies had brought cows? Fine. And they’d stopped trying to grab his fur and were now wrestling with – or being torn apart by – the Andrastes? Okay. That left his wolves free to thin the zombie horde or attack the distracted vampires, and it left him free to find the Browns. James ducked another severed arm, set his eyes on Richard, and charged. He was somewhat distracted, however, by the sight of his mother.

  “Mum!” he shouted. Shouting required a human mouth, however, which caused the rest of him to change back and, because his human arms weren’t as long as his wolf forelegs, Paddington tumbled headfirst into the dirt. Sticks and stones scraped his naked back and arms.

  James! Andrea said. What are you doing here? Where are your clothes?

  His mother was still in her filthy police uniform and her right hand still clutched the sabre that was a family heirloom on the Bretherton side. Paddington shook his head as he picked himself off the ground.

  Okay, right, his mother was definitely a zombie, but he didn’t have time to feel empty or alone or scared, so he pushed them from his mind and focussed on the task at hand.

  “Long story,” Paddington told her, “I’ll tell you later!”

  Now… to ensure there was a later.

  Clarkson sprinted past, shouting, “Shoo!” at the host of zombies following him.

  Paddington had seen Harold and Richard, but where was Thomas? Paddington dropped onto his hands and feet, then James leapt off four legs and tried to discern a single thread in the overbearing stink. Living corpses. Sweat. Blood. Cow. Moist night. Leaves. Vampires, almost scentless. Then something, like dust and old people. James homed in on it and found Thomas standing at the tree line, watching the heavily-distracted Team.

  And directly between Thomas and the Team were a few hundred zombies… and James. He leapt again.

  “Mum! Sword!”

  Thomas disappeared and a path cleared itself through the undead as something moved toward the Team faster than the human eye could see.

  Andrea spun her uncooperative arm in an arc. It broke off.

  Paddington grabbed it out of the air and held it horizontally with both hands as the cleared path raced toward him. There was a schlck as the sabre connected with flesh and bone and Paddington was knocked backward against the horde. When he looked down the newly-cleared path to its end, Paddington saw Thomas’s body. It took a final step, stopped, and toppled to the ground.

  His severed head, on the other hand, soared through the air, its expression outraged and confused, and fell somewhere in the crowd.