The Down Home Zombie Blues

by Linnea Sinclair

  He came back to the table, his knuckles white as he clasped his hands over the back of the chair. She was still standing, right hand on her pistol. He stared down at her. “Who makes the decision if I live or die?”

  “The captain. And the mission commander.”

  “That’s you.”

  “Yes.”

  He asked another question, but the words were wrong.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “This decision. To kill me.” His voice was harsh, raspy. “Two people say yes and I die? Or one person says yes and I die?”

  “You’re not going to die—”

  “Two or one!”

  “Two. Unless I die during the mission.”

  His mouth twisted into a pained smile. “Then I guess I better work real hard to keep you alive.”

  The entire procedure took less than ten minutes, disappointing Theo considerably. He’d wanted it to hurt. He needed the pain to remind him that just when he thought he’d figured everything out, he hadn’t. He wanted Jorie Mikkalah to watch in awe as he gritted his teeth and took the pain like a man, without flinching.

  Instead, an older woman with bright orange eyes, skin the color of a rich amber beer, and two long white braids trailing down her back held a small light over his bare shoulder for a few seconds as he sat on a padded table in what was obviously the ship’s medical clinic. The light felt—illogically—cold, and by the time he realized his shoulder was numb, she’d pressed a wide metal disk just below his collarbone. He felt a slight thump, not much more than if someone bumped against him. There was no pain.

  She took the light and the disk away, smiled at him, then said something in what he was coming to recognize as Alarsh. He caught Jorie’s last name in the middle of it.

  Commander Mikkalah was studying the data streaming over the clinic’s wall. She hadn’t even glanced his way during the entire procedure. Another disappointment. How could she watch him in awe if she wouldn’t even face him? She turned, however, when the woman spoke. There was a tautness about her eyes and mouth.

  Queasy over medical procedures? He hoped his having that implant shoved into him bothered the hell out of her. It more than bothered the hell out of him. But he had no choice. There was no other way they were going to let him return to Earth.

  “It’s finished,” Jorie said. “You may place your shirt. Care with moving for a time. Soreness is expected.”

  Either she didn’t want Doc White Braids to know she spoke his language better than that or she really was rattled. Or there was something about the implant she wasn’t telling him.

  He pushed himself off the padded table, accepted his shirt from the doc, then pulled it on. A little stiffness, yeah, as he pushed his right arm through the sleeve. But he’d played softball off and on for years, been hit by enough pitches, plowed into enough third basemen. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

  Except that this was an alien device that could kill him. He yanked his T-shirt down to his waist and watched Commander Mikkalah have a nice little chat with the doc as he tucked it into his jeans. Instructions on how to detonate the implant? He had to find out more about that thing in his shoulder. Which meant, as much as it grated on him, he had to keep his line of communication open with Jorie Mikkalah.

  “We go now.” She jerked her chin toward the door to the corridor.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets, followed her out. The guards were gone. He noticed that immediately. Of course they were. She had the magic button, the one that could kill him.

  She slowed her steps until they were side by side. He slanted a glance her way, tried to see if she had a new wristwatch or badge or something clipped to her belt that was labeled Kill the Nil. Nothing so obvious, unfortunately. And her face was still grim.

  “Don’t like doctors much, do you?” he asked, fighting the urge to grab her by the shoulders and back her up against the wall. Or grab her and shake her, scream at her for shoving a lethal device into his body. Theo Petrakos wanted to do that so badly, his throat burned. Sergeant Petrakos kept walking, making light conversation, knowing she had home-field advantage right now and he didn’t.

  But he would, soon. Patience was a virtue.

  And revenge, when it came, would be sweet.

  “Med-techs,” she answered. “Vekran term is med-techs. And my opinion is that they’re useful in many circumstances.”

  No, she definitely didn’t like doctors. Good. If he got a chance, he’d introduce her to Suzanne Martinez. Preferably in Suzanne’s clinic. With a little luck she wouldn’t know what the word veterinarian meant.

  He rotated his shoulder as they waited for the elevator, studied his surroundings as a way to keep his mind occupied, his emotions in check. The corridors here were busier than the one outside his cabin. They had passed ten, maybe fifteen crew on the way to sick bay, another dozen just now. Most could walk unnoticed on any Bahia Vista street, the orange or gold eye colors not immediately apparent. Hair colors, though, were brighter. He saw no soft shades. Blonds all seemed to be yellow-gold blond; black hair was shot through with blue. Reds were all orange tones. He saw only one other person—a younger guy—with Jorie’s hair colors of orange, blond, and brown.

  Races were tougher to define. And there seemed to be no correlation between skin tone and hair color that he could see. He’d pegged Jorie to be mixed race when he first saw her running toward him across his backyard. Later, in the conference room, he’d tried to pigeonhole her ethnicity based on his world’s standards. Best he could come up with would be a combo of white, black, Polynesian, and Hispanic.

  Her curly-haired sidekick, with her pale skin, could be redheaded Irish.

  None of that applied now, of course, with the reality of where he was. But still, except for the mini-Wookiee person, any one of the crew he saw could stroll through his local Sweetbay supermarket and no one would think twice.

  Makes it more difficult to identify the enemy, Theo Petrakos thought.

  They’re not the enemy right now, Sarge reminded. We need them to exterminate the zombies.

  And after that?

  Sarge was silent. Theo smiled inwardly.

  The elevator doors opened. Jorie stepped into the empty cubicle; he followed. The doors closed. He glanced at his watch. Almost eight in the morning. Bahia Vista’s morning. He still had several hours to get home before someone raised an alarm and started looking for him.

  He loved the job. But—vacation be damned—he’d never wanted to go to work so badly in his life. This was one whopper of a commute.

  And he’d need one whopper of a story to cover what had happened to the laptop he was supposed to have logged in to evidence.

  Damn. He’d been so caught up with getting back to Bahia Vista, he forgot about the laptop. He needed that back or there’d be questions he wasn’t sure he knew how to answer. Being Baker-Acted out to a psych unit wasn’t something he wanted to contemplate right now. He just wanted to get home, stop the zombies, and get back to work being a cop. He’d even forgo his scheduled vacation. The past several hours had been travel enough.

  “The herd has shifted outer zones.” She spoke suddenly, without any preliminaries. And without looking at him. She stared at the elevator’s control pad.

  “Is that good news or bad news?”

  The doors opened. His corridor. At least, it looked like his corridor. He hadn’t spent enough time in them to differentiate. And he couldn’t read the damned wall signs.

  “Not sure,” she said, stepping out. “We have no T-MOD in,” an odd-sounding word, “to relay accurate data.”

  T-MOD. The laptop.

  “Then we’re going home? Down,” he corrected.

  “Thirty minutes. Seeker ’droids must go first.”

  Thirty minutes! His heart jumped. They reached a cabin door. His, he assumed.

  “Fine,” he said. He had no idea what seeker ’droids were, but they’d just bought him thirty minutes in which to find that laptop.

  She tou
ched his door pad. “Eat. Nap.” He stepped inside. She didn’t. “Thirty minutes.”

  “Wait.” His arm shot out, stopping the door from closing.

  She tensed. He tried to relax his body so she wouldn’t infer a threat. “I need…I need a favor.”

  She looked up at him, one eyebrow arched in question.

  “The lap—the T-MOD. My department, my security people know it exists. It was photographed at the crime scene. I told you that we may already have information on the Guardians. If I don’t return with that unit, there could be questions you’re not going to like. Questions that aren’t going to help you do what you need to do.”

  She regarded him, both brows now drawn down.

  He pushed. “I agreed to let you put that implant in my shoulder. I don’t want it, but I understand why you needed to do it. I need that T-MOD unit.”

  “Regrets. It’s against regulations for our information to be presented to nil-worlders.”

  “It’s evidence in a homicide case. If my lieutenant can’t find it, he’s going to restrict what I can do.” He tried to keep his explanation as simple as he could. He needed her to understand and to believe that his participation was of critical importance. God help him if she found out he was clocked out for vacation and no one would miss him until after Christmas. “Then I can’t help you as much as you need.”

  “I cannot—”

  “I went through this,” he touched his shoulder, “to help you. A favor, Commander. I need you to help me.”

  Her lashes lowered briefly, then she looked up. “It’s not that I don’t wish to. It is, I cannot.”

  She turned, palming the door closed as she left.

  Just on a long shot, he tried opening the door after it closed behind her. Still locked. Damn.

  He ran one hand over his face. Eat, nap, she’d said. Forget that. He first had to look at what that med-tech had done to him.

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head on his way to the cabin’s narrow bathroom. The mirror over the sink area showed a reddened bruise on his shoulder, but that was all. It occurred to him that maybe nothing was actually implanted inside him. Maybe they just thumped him and were all having a good laugh right now.

  But maybe not. And he couldn’t take that chance.

  It took him three tries to get the shower to operate, and then liquid—he wasn’t completely sure it was water—shot out of a long thin slit in the wall. It had a slippery feel and was colder than he liked, but he needed his head clear and that would help. No towels, but an air dryer set into the same wall. He felt as if he were in a human car wash.

  He pulled on his clothes, then noticed the image cube still on the bed where he’d left it. Evidence. Proof, in case he needed it. He might not have the laptop, but at least he’d have this. He positioned his fingers on the edges as Jorie had and squeezed. A slight vibration, then it flattened back into a square.

  He pocketed it and was scratching at the stubble on his chin, trying to think of one last argument to gain that laptop, when his cabin door opened. He rose from the chair at the small dining table.

  “We have a problem,” she said, before he could ask for the laptop again.

  He sat back down, his heart moving in a similar direction. “What kind of problem?”

  She was clad in the same shorts—some kind of bizarre brown–orange camo pattern—she wore when he first saw her and the same one-armed shirt, funky boots. Two pistols, a short-barreled rifle draped over one shoulder, and God only knew what else hanging from her belt. A headset with microphone and eyepiece ringed her neck. This one-woman war machine punched at some touch pads bordering a screen on the wall behind him. He turned in his seat, watching her.

  “Your structure had visitors. The seeker ’droid relayed this image.”

  Holy Mother of God. One of his neighbors must have called the police. The image on the screen showed a patrol car, a fire engine, and a bulky vehicle that had to be a utility truck from Progress Energy.

  The devastation of his car, two palm trees, and a large section of his oleander hedge was obvious. The view was aerial, though, and he couldn’t see if the back of his house was damaged. But he had to assume it was. Just as he had to assume—no, he knew—personnel on the scene were looking for him. Or his body. Because it looked like a small hurricane had ripped through his yard.

  He had to get back there before his lieutenant made that phone call to the next of kin in his personnel file: Uncle Stavros and Aunt Tootie. They’d think the worst. No, Uncle Stavros would know the worst, because he was a retired street cop. Aunt Tootie would light enough candles in church to induce a bout of global warming.

  “Okay.” He rose again, hands splayed. “This is a problem, but not insurmountable. We can—”

  He looked at her. Really looked at her, his mind already miles ahead on his plan to beam back down a few blocks away, then jog up with some excuse that he’d gone out to help anyone injured by the storm, act devastated by what had happened to his house.

  Jog up with a one-woman war machine by his side.

  Not a good idea.

  “You have to change.”

  She did that damned head tilt, thick lashes shadowing her eyes, her lips slightly parted as if she were inviting a kiss. He fought the urge to lean into her. She was the enemy. She was an alien. She was not for him.

  “Change?” she asked.

  “Your outfit. Clothes.” He made a short motion in the air with his hand and tried to direct his gaze anywhere but her cleavage or the curve of her hips. “I can handle my visitors. But not if you look like you’re going to attack them.”

  She glanced down, then over her shoulder where the rifle peeked past. “Understand. But what is habitually worn?”

  “The shorts,” he pointed, “can stay. The top…” He shook his head. It was scoop-necked and cropped short, like those stretch sports tops women wore for exercise. And it showed off enough of her skin that he didn’t want her wearing it. “A T-shirt would be better. This”—he motioned to her long sleeve studded with thin cables and what looked like computer serial ports—“has to go. And the guns. Pistols. The boots.”

  He could tell by the slanting of her brows she wasn’t overjoyed with his suggestion. She flipped her hand toward the screen. “So I engage this situation in just my shorts, the rest of my body naked?”

  Well, that would definitely deflect attention from the wreckage of the car and the trees. “Where’s your cabin?”

  “Why?”

  “Show me your closet. I’ll show you what to wear.”

  The elevator went sideways this time, or felt as if it did. Her cabin was almost identical to his, except it looked lived in and had computer equipment on just about every horizontal surface. In spite of his urgency to get home, he was admittedly curious; there was a shelf along one wall that appeared to hold personal items—another holo cube, a glittering crystal that reminded him of a geode on a stand, a long box that might be wooden, intricately carved. But apparently she was as aware of the time as he was. She shoved her closet doors sideways with undisguised impatience.

  Four jumpsuit uniforms—three black-and-green, one a light gray—a long slinky pearlized green dress, two sweaterlike long tops, and a thick, deep blue robe were the choices that greeted him.

  “That’s it? Nothing like this?” He plucked at his T-shirt.

  “For napping, yes.” From a drawer set into the wall she withdrew a silky item. Short-sleeved, round-necked, like his T-shirt, though longer. But that’s where the similarities ended. And his fantasies began. It was so sheer as to be almost see-through. Clingy, shimmering, soft. He’d love to see her with it on. He’d love even more to take it off.

  Down, boy, down!

  He went back to the closet, slipped one of the long-sleeved sweaters from its hanger. It would have to do. Something in the bottom of the closet caught his eye. A zippered duffel. He tossed the sweater on her bed, retrieved the duffel. “Rifle, pistols, any hardware you don’t absolutely h
ave to have in your hand, in here.”

  “Wear this?” She held up the sweater.

  He nodded.

  She unhooked the rifle and strap, shoved that into the duffel, then stopped, eyes narrowed. “Pistols are fine under this.”

  She was right. The long, unstructured sweater covered her double shoulder holster and weapons. As long as no one caught her in a bear hug, their existence would most likely go undetected.

  “You have different shoes? Boots?” The combination of long sweater and nearly thigh-high boots were damned near erotic in tandem. All he needed was for Sophie Goldstein across the street to catch sight of that, and the whole neighborhood would buzz with the news that their nice Sergeant Petrakos was dating a hooker.

  There wouldn’t be a candle left in the whole state of Florida if Aunt Tootie got wind of that. And she would, just the way she knew everything else that went on in his life—from her daily phone chats with her longtime friend Mrs. Goldstein.

  With a shake of his head, he turned back to Jorie’s closet. His alien seductress’s shoe selection was equally as limited as her wardrobe. No sneakers. Closest he could find looked like hiking boots. She fished out a pair of very normal-looking white socks, sat on the edge of the bed.

  She had pretty feet. For an alien one-woman war machine.

  Then she stood before him, hands on her hips. “Satisfactory?”

  “Don’t stand like that. I can see the outline of your weapons. Pistols.”

  Muttering something in Alarsh he was sure was nasty, she closed the duffel, then slung it over her shoulder. “Now we can go to the PMaT on Deck Fifteen, Sergeant Petrakos?”

  He wanted to, badly. But he had to try, one more time. “The T-MOD.”

  “The data—”

  “Strip out the data. I don’t need that. I just need that unit with my evidence tag on it. If the state cyber guys can’t make heads or tails of the rest of it, that’s not my problem.” He could tell by her frown she wasn’t following his plea. He took a deep breath. “I just need the outside.” He sketched the shape of the laptop with his hands. “Not the data. The outside, with the small paper on the corner.” His evidence tag. “That will stop my security from asking questions.”