***
Back at the motel room, he lit the candle again, then carefully peeled wet papers apart and spread them across the bed.
An hour later, as the candle burned down low, he picked up one more piece of waterlogged paper.
A grim smile spread across his face as he read the words written there. “Got you, motherfucker.”
Alex slipped the paper into his bag and snuffed out the candle.
Chapter Eleven
Without a sound, Alex scaled the rain spout on the outer wall of the high school. He had the duffel slung over his shoulder and the gas tank held in one hand. He reached the top and crept across the roof in the dark.
A lighter flared, illuminating Rachael's face as she lowered her head to light a cigarette. “Hey, cowboy,” she said. She sat cross-legged on the roof of the school, leaning against one of the big air conditioning units. She had one of the school's stadium blankets draped over her shoulders, and she was sitting on another.
Alex froze, then relaxed and laughed quietly. “Hey, yourself.”
She looked him up and down once and smiled back. “Nice sword. What's with the John Wayne getup?”
He laughed again. “What, this old thing? Just tools of the trade.”
She raised one eyebrow. “For . . . vampire hunting.”
He nodded. “Come to find out, it works pretty good for zombies, too. Speaking of which, you lost your pistol out there today, right?” He pulled the Glock out of his waistband and held it out to her, grip first. “I got my weapons situation squared away. Why don't y'all take this.”
“Thanks.” Rachael accepted the pistol and set it down on the roof next to her leg. She took a slow drag off her cigarette. The cherry was a red dot in the dark, and she was little more than a silhouette against the starry sky. “So, you mind if I ask what were you doing out there?”
“Just takin' care of a little business. I always did work best alone.” He widened his stance and hooked his thumbs into his gun belt. “How about you? What brings you up here?”
“I just needed some alone time. Things are a little tense down below. It's sort of turning into a witch hunt. Which I guess I can understand, except they wanted me to be the witch.”
“Guess I can see why you wouldn't want to hang around for that.”
Rachael observed her cigarette for a moment. “So, when you were out there skulking around in the dark, did you figure anything out about this whole zombie situation?”
“Maybe,” said Alex. He pulled the sheathed sword from his belt and sat down next to her, leaning against the air conditioner. “I reckon I found a few interesting things.”
Rachael said, “I mean, these aren't normal, dumb-ass movie zombies. We're on the same page there, right? They were smart. They were coordinating. The way they caught us out when we were leaving Annie's, that wasn't luck. That was a flat-out ambush. They hid until we were in the middle of the street, and then they rushed us. They blocked off both doors and then tried to get us separated, to pick us off one by one.”
“I noticed that myself,” said Alex. “Not to mention the one that crawled in the window of the library and unlocked the door from the inside.”
“Exactly,” said Rachael. “So, either the walking dead are smarter than the movies would have us believe, or someone, or something, is controlling them.”
“Seems that way. And what's more, it's like they knew what we were doing before we even did it. Like, when we was getting' ready to leave the sheriff's station, them zombies didn't have no interest at all in the library. Then we spotted someone in there, and boom. Here come the zombies.”
“Yeah, that was a little weird.”
“And it happened again, there in the library. As soon as I start diggin' around in the librarian's records, here they come again like I poked a hornet's nest with a stick. What I figure is, we got too close to finding what we was looking for, so then all of a sudden we get a flaming kamikaze zombie attack. Somebody wanted us out of that building real bad.”
Rachael took a slow drag and then let out a plume of smoke. “The zombies know what we're doing before we do it. So, either they're psychic, or it's one of us that's controlling the zombies.”
“Seems that way.”
“Well, I don't want to point fingers, but I can't help noticing something. Those zombies, they had a chance to get Emily. They damn well had their chance. But they didn't. They didn't bite her. They tried to drag her away.”
“Ain't that interesting.”
“Yeah. And I can't help but also notice the way they homed in on her ex-boyfriend like a heat-seeking missile. And I know that Josh is stupid for the girl, and that Chet had been giving him wedgies for the last four years. There's got to be some rage floating around under the surface there. But somehow, I just can't see him doing this. He's a good kid.”
“Maybe it's you,” said Alex. “Maybe you thought you'd do the kid a favor and get rid of the competition for him.”
Rachael smiled and leaned back. “Well, it could be you, too, stranger.”
“It could at that.” Alex leaned in closer. “But it ain't. And it ain't you, neither.”
She laughed softly and raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”
“Sure enough.”
“You think you know who it is, don't you?”
“Reckon I might.”
“You want to share?”
“Reckon not. But I figure I better go downstairs and get this all sorted out in just a minute.”
She laughed again. “You reckon. You're something else, you know that? You're like a fucking cartoon of a cowboy. But somehow, it works for you. Isn't that weird?” She looked up at the crescent moon and the stars. “Well, it sounds like it'll get messy when you go down there and get things sorted out. So, if you want to keep your secrets, that's fine. I'm not in any hurry. It's such a nice night. Let's just enjoy it for a minute.”
They sat together in silence for a while.
“You got a girlfriend?” Rachael asked.
He regarded her for a second. “Nope. You got a boyfriend?”
She laughed. “Nnnnot really . . .”
He laughed back. “That was a qualified answer if ever I heard one.”
She said, “Well, if you want to split hairs, I'm married. But it's complicated.”
He shrugged. “It usually is.”
“Actually, it's not that complicated. I moved here a few years ago with my new husband because he thought Prosperity would be a great headquarters for his western-states biker gang meth empire.”
Alex cringed. “I think I see where this one is going.”
“Yeah, sadly predictable. Jim Harbaugh, as it turns out, is not the kind of sheriff you want to fuck around with.”
“I got that impression.”
“And you definitely don't sling crystal in his town. Thanks to Jim, my hubby is serving eight to ten years in High Desert State Prison.”
“Ouch.”
“Really, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Of course, everything we owned got seized, and the asshole still won't sign the divorce papers. I'm not worried, though.” She gave a bitter laugh. “By the time he's out, I'll be too old for him. He'll find some other young, stupid bimbo who'll swallow his bullshit.”
“Sounds rough. My sympathy.”
“I don't want your fucking sympathy.” She said it with a cheerful neutrality. Alex didn't respond, and a moment later Rachael continued. “So . . .” She flicked her cigarette butt over the edge of the roof. “I was wondering . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I was wondering . . .” she turned slightly, resting her knee on his leg. “Hypothetically, if you were, I don't know, in some kind of apocalypse, and you knew that the next day you might have to go out and get eaten by a bunch of walking corpses, what would you want to do tonight? Like, at this very moment?” She bit her lip and stared him down, running one finger up the denim of his jeans. “I know what I'd want to do.”
Alex grinned stupidly. He stammered, “Well, I mean, if you're sure . . .”
She put a finger to his lips. “Shh,” she said, as she straddled him, placing her hands on his shoulders.
“You know,” he said, “I sorta just got out of a relationship. Maybe you oughta know I ain't lookin' for . . .”
Rachael leaned in close, and he felt the warmth of her breath on his cheek. She took his hat off and set it on the roof next to him. “It's the end of the world, cowboy. Don't read too much into it. Just relax.”
“I don't think I'm relaxin'.”
“Yes.” Rachael smiled. “I can feel that.” She ground against him, leaned in, and kissed him slowly.
His hands ran up her belly, explored back down her thighs.
She leaned back and stripped off her T-shirt. A heart wrapped in barbed wire was tattooed above her left breast. She wore a black bra, the lacy edges just visible in the starlight, a hard contrast against her pale skin. Alex reached around to unhook the clasp, and the bra fell away. She tossed it to the side. “It's chilly out here,” she said. “Warm me up? That is, if you don't mind being my end-of-the-world fuck.”
He kissed her again on the mouth, then made his way down her neck to her collarbone as he ran a calloused hand over her breast. “I guess I can live with that,” he whispered.
She slipped the Hawaiian shirt off of his shoulders and pulled up his T-shirt. “If it helps any, you were in the cross hairs the minute you stepped into the diner. Not a lot of eligible men in this shithole of a town. I was going to be all over you like a cheap suit as soon as—oh.” She trailed off into a moan as he ran his hand lower.
She stood up and unbuttoned her jeans, wriggling as she slid them down over her hips. “Now we just need to figure out how we're going to do this on a gravel roof.”
“Darlin', we just survived a zombie apocalypse. I think we can figure this out.”
“Oh, how I love a capable man.”
On the street below, a crowd of zombies gathered, attracted by the strange cries and moans emanating from the rooftop.
***
Sitting around the embers of the campfire, Buck cocked his head. After a moment, he rolled his eyes and said to Billings, “Sounds like Rachael found a new victim. I think I'd rather listen to the zombies.”
Billings responded, “Am I detecting some bitterness?”
“You might say that.”
“Is this going to be a problem? I mean, between you and Alex,” asked Billings.
Buck laughed. “No. Alex Rains can have her, and I wish him good luck. He'll need it. I can't think of anybody I'd less want watching my back during a zombie apocalypse than her.”
“It seemed like things went south for you two pretty fast. One day you were an item, and the next day it was an ice storm.”
“Yeah, pretty much.” Buck was silent for a moment, staring at the embers of the fire. “My fault, really. I fucked it up. I did the one thing that she couldn't ever forgive. It all fell apart after that.”
“Oh?” said Billings. “What did you do? If you don't mind me asking.”
Buck laughed again. “I proposed to her.”
***
Tangled in the blankets, Rachael reached for her pants and grabbed her pack of cigarettes. “My last smoke,” she said. “Now that's terrifying.”
“Maybe you oughta save it.”
“Nah. I think this is a perfect time for it.” She lit the cigarette and leaned back against Alex's bare chest. “You think we're going to get out of this alive?”
“Yeah,” said Alex.
“Just yeah?”
“Yeah.”
After a moment's silence, Alex pointed up at the sky. “Hey,” he said, “look there.”
A jetliner flew overhead, blinking red then green, crawling silently through the night sky. They both watched it for a moment, until it slid out of sight over the horizon.
“So, I guess the real world is still out there, somewhere. That's comforting.”
“Sure enough.” Alex paused for a second. “And another thing, what did the sheriff say was the population of this place? Six hundred people? Well, we must have killed more'n a hundred zombies today, all told. So that's maybe five hundred left. That ain't so bad. We can all just be thankful there ain't any more of 'em.”
Chapter Twelve
The reanimated corpse of Gavin Johnson stumbled across the desert. He was still dressed in his blue scrubs, prosperity retirement village embroidered on the pocket. He'd lost a shoe somewhere along the way, and he left an uneven line of shallow footprints across the hard salt pan of the playa. One of his ears hung from a strip of flesh, his skull visible. His eyes were yellow and clouded. Crusted blood soaked his scrubs. He cradled a metal gas cylinder in both hands.
Ahead, a galaxy of lights shined in the desert. Black lights, white lights, strobe lights, lights in every color of the rainbow, lights that flashed and crawled and pulsed. The low, steady thump of an electronic drum beat grew louder with Gavin's every step. A huge sign made up of thousands of bulbs flashed one word: transcendence.
As he approached, people came into view. At first, it seemed to be a crawling mass, a giant creature with a thousand waving arms, holding glow sticks that bobbed and weaved like florescent fireflies. Gavin continued on, and the fleshy creature resolved into individuals, men and women dancing, grinding, moving to the relentless beat pouring from a wall of speakers.
It was a surreal scene, a carnival fever dream—acres of tents, bizarre art structures, fire dancers and jugglers and people riding unicycles, row after row of parked RVs, purring generators, people dressed in outlandish costumes or no clothes at all. A bearded man wearing nothing but a Chinese rice farmer's hat rode past on a bicycle wired up with blinking Christmas lights.
Gavin didn't notice any of it. He moaned hungrily and shuffled toward the sea of writhing humanity on the dance floor, focusing on the voice in his head, that voice like a nail driven into his brain.
Jessica Treefriend saw him first.
She was a willowy college sophomore, wearing a bikini top and a paisley skirt. A peace sign, perfectly centered on her navel and painted in black-light-reactive paint, glowed on her slim belly. She danced with drug-laced abandon, long blond hair hanging free, her henna-tattooed arms in the air, glow sticks laced between her fingers. She closed her eyes and smiled blissfully as she let the music move her. Thousands of bodies moved in time to the music all around her.
Jessica glanced out toward the desert for a moment and thought she saw someone there. She stopped dancing and stood still, peering into the dark as the crowd continued to gyrate around her. She brushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes and looked again.
Gavin stumbled closer still, into the light. Jessica could make out details now—the missing shoe, the head wound, the tank he held in his arms.
“Oh my God, dude, are you alright?” She walked toward him. “Oh my God.”
A few others noticed him. They, too, stopped dancing and walked toward the strange man coming out of the desert.
“Holy shit, man,” said one party-goer. “What happened to you? Maybe you should lie down.”
Gavin growled, and the man backed off. “Fuck, dude. Chillax.”
“He's in shock,” said another girl.
“. . . plane crash . . .”
“. . . government conspiracy . . .”
Gavin concentrated to the best of his ability, trying to ignore the hunger. He set the tank down, grasped the valve-handle, and twisted.
“Dude, maybe you shouldn't . . .”
He twisted again and again until the valve was wide open. The tank hissed loudly.
“Oh my God, dude,” said Jessica Treefriend. “You need to get to a hospital. We can—” She stopped abruptly and clutched at her throat. She sank to her knees and retched, then fell to the ground. Her arms and legs spasmed beyond her control. Her face turned blue. The other Good Samaritans gasped and fell, twitching, right beside her. As the light faded from her eye
s, Jessica watched Gavin heave the gas tank into his arms again and walk into the midst of the dancers. They fell away from him on both sides, gagging and vomiting. People fled, screaming, panic building in the crowd.
The deadly gas did its deadly work. In Gavin's wake lay a highway of fallen bodies as the rest of the crowd fled in terror.
Still, the electronic beat throbbed and the lights pulsed.
Until, abruptly, it all went dark. The music stopped. Only the glow sticks remained. Glow sticks in hands, threaded onto necklaces, woven into hair, bobbing cylinders of red and green and yellow, littering the ground, dimly illuminating the crowd in sickly shades.
In the darkness, a chorus of screams rose above the sound of wet, tearing flesh.
In a half-hour, it was over.
The tents lay shredded, vendor booths upended and flattened. All out of new victims, the massive horde of zombies, thousands in all, milled around near the main stage. They moaned hungrily, glow sticks still bobbing and swaying in the desert night.
All at once, they felt something. A call. A command.
As one, they turned to the east and stumbled toward Prosperity.
Chapter Thirteen
The basketball gym had a hardwood floor and basketball hoops at either end. Bleachers ran down the long sides. The floor in the middle of the court was painted with a logo of a cartoon gold miner, along with the words prosperity prospectors. A handful of candles had been lit and placed around the room on bleachers or chairs or stuck to the floor. Through the double doors of the gymnasium, the courtyard could be seen, where the campfire still burned.
Josh lay on his back on one of the gym mats, absent-mindedly strumming the guitar that rested on his belly, while Emily lay on her side next to him with a stadium blanket thrown over her hips, leaning her head on her hand and watching him play. Tom lay on his back and snored quietly. Billings lay on a wrestling mat, asleep, using a rolled-up towel as a pillow. His glasses were next to his head. Harbaugh sat slumped against the wall near the door. Sinder sat near him, his head bowed and his eyes closed. In the courtyard, Buck sat by himself in front of the campfire.
Alex Rains, Vampire Hunter (Book 2): Hell Night Page 15
