Dead on my Feet - The Halflife Trilogy Book II

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  “It doesn’t matter to us if you’re an actual baron or not, suh. Bessie Crow says you’re the one who’s going to deal with the gray men and give us our discharge papers.”

  “Uh, discharge papers?”

  “Our bones may be bound to the soil in which we lie but our spirits have ties to other homes and kith and family—even if they are our great-great-grandchildren. We’ve stood picket for a hundred and fifty years. We’re overdue for relief. And we like not the company of the dragon that slumbers beneath us.”

  “How—how can I help?” I asked, wondering if the word “slumber” was being used in the figurative sense.

  “A more likely question is how can we help? Your flesh is solid, your bones intact. You can pass for human under most circumstances. We have not adequate form, yet.”

  “Uh, adequate form?” I asked. “Yet?”

  “The gray men pump their runoff into a dry aquifer. From there this witch’s brew seeps into the earth and laces our remains with poisons that would kill us twice over were it not for the old witch woman’s enchantments. Instead, the chemicals bind to our sinews and swell the dried husks that remain. The old witch has promised that we will have our hands and feet in time. She says the time to muster is soon.”

  “She say anything specific about what I’m supposed to do?”

  “You are to break the alliance of the gray men with a woman called Marie Bochay.”

  “Marinette Bois-Chèche?” I should have been happy that some of these loose ends were starting to line up into some sort of pattern. What I felt now had nothing to do with relief.

  “Someone’s coming,” said PFC Blankenship. He stepped back into the darkness with his captain.

  I turned and looked back toward the building. A figure was coming toward me, haloed by the spill of lights from behind. Its features were lost in the dark silhouette created by the backlighting.

  I shifted my vision into the infrared spectrum and . . . no one was there. Bubba Billy-Bob?

  I shifted back to the human-visible range and reacquired the silhouette at half the distance now: it was rushing me.

  I leapt aside as it closed but it grabbed my jacket and we whirled about as though we were partners in some mad Cossack dance routine. I threw the creature off with a little help from centrifugal force, but it recovered quickly and advanced with its arms held wide, growling like some B-movie monster from the fifties.

  “Look,” I said, backing up and trying to maneuver so that I could regain the advantage of light and shadow. “I just came outside for a breath of fresh air. I’m sorry if I wandered into a security zone by accident. I’ll just go back—”

  “Cséjthe?” the silhouette growled.

  “Geshundheit,” I said.

  What I really wanted to say was: Shit!

  “The countess will be pleased,” it rumbled. And lunged.

  Where was Deirdre when I needed her? I dodged again.

  It caught me again. This time I couldn’t shake free.

  We went down. I rolled. It refused to relinquish its hold. Maybe I could roll us both into the pond. Maybe that might be enough distraction to break its grip. Then what? The backstroke?

  We stopped without ever reaching the pond. One moment we were rolling, the next we weren’t. Although I ended up on top, the vampire still held me close in a three-handed grip. Something was wrong with that tally but before I could think through a recount, one of the hands released my arm and grabbed my assailant’s biceps. Another joined it. And another. Suddenly there were more hands than I could keep track of. The vampire reluctantly released me as a half-dozen or more hands pried his arms back and pinned them to the ground.

  The hands came in an assortment of sizes and degrees of decay. The only things they had in common were that they were attached to arms that were thrusting up out of the earth and they were all dedicated to restraining my attacker. Who began to howl and struggle all the harder as his clothing and flesh began to smoke where the dead appendages held him.

  . . . this witch’s brew . . . laces our remains with poisons that would kill us twice over . . .

  Apparently undead flesh wasn’t proof against BioWeb’s toxic waste. I scrambled to my feet and stepped back. PFC Blankenship was suddenly at my side. “Captain’s compliments, suh. He was thinkin’ you might want to borrow his sword under the circumstances.” He handed me a cavalry saber in its curved brass sheath.

  The vampire continued to squirm and bellow as I drew the sword and considered its tarnished and rusted blade in the pale wash of amber light.

  “Under the circumstances,” Blankenship kibitzed, “it’s the humane thing to do.”

  Actually, it was the smart thing to do: every screech and holler risked undead reinforcements. I raised the ancient blade above my head. “The humane thing to do,” I echoed. “But is it the human thing?”

  “Do whatever it takes to stay alive,” the dead soldier whispered.

  “Then it is our humanness that damns us,” I said. And brought the blade down. The caterwauling stopped immediately as the head went tumbling away from the body. A moment later the vampire’s remains crumbled to ash. The only evidence of our struggle was the churned earth where, even now, the cadaverous hands were withdrawing into its sour depths.

  And my rumpled clothing, bearing grass stains and dirt smears and a scorch mark where the fabric was briefly grasped by poisonous phalanges.

  “More company,” another unseen voice called from the darkness at my back. I looked back up the path at another silhouette walking toward me. I shifted perspective: no heat signature. Shi—

  “Mr. Haim?” The voice belonged to William Robert Montrose aka Count Bubba.

  I relaxed but PFC Blankenship snapped to attention beside me. “Holy cow, Sarge! What are you doing here?”

  * * *

  Master Sergeant William Robert Montrose excused himself from the revenantal reunion he was sharing with his fellow Civil War vets—some of whom he’d helped plant here. I had assumed Billy-Bob—excuse me, Bubba—was a born and bred son of the South. I mean, what’s in a name?

  It turned out that he was originally from Des Moines, marched down here with the other blue bellies of the Twenty-third Infantry, and got forcibly assimilated a month after the war ended. According to his abbreviated explanation he had come through some twenty-odd battles without a scratch only to get bit by “some undead Yankee sonuvabitch carpetbagger” while on garrison duty.

  I’d say he’d assimilated real good over the past one-hundred-and-forty-odd years.

  Amazingly neither he nor his former comrades and foes had any inkling that either had lingered post-mortem for so long and in such close proximity. Just goes to show what a small world the afterlife can be.

  “She’s not coming,” he said, a look of concern hardening his face.

  “Who? Chalice? Deirdre?”

  “Neither one’s my guess.” He caught my arm as I turned back toward the main building. “I’m out here for a reason: finding you was just a bonus.”

  “And the reason is . . . ?”

  “Not to be in there, right now,” he said. “Why don’t you hang around here and, when the boys and me are done palavering, we’ll take a walk over to the mosquito breeding ponds and see if we can figure out what the gray men are really up to?”

  There was a disquieting look in his eyes—beyond the usual disquiet I generally feel when looking into the eyes of an undead creature.

  “I have someone I’m supposed to meet.”

  “Sonny boy,” he laid a cold hand on my shoulder, “this here’s a fancy dress ball and that ain’t nothing more than a dandified dance. One of the realities of any dance is that you don’t always go home with the one that brung ya.”

  “What are you afraid of?”

  He looked up at the building. “The Hunger,” he said unevenly.

  “Me, too,” I said quietly. “But I can’t hide from it.”

  “Not what I’m talking about,” Montrose said. “Not
my hunger, not your hunger. It’s a Hunger beyond us. An Appetite . . .”

  “Yeah? Well, ring my bell and call me Pavlov.” I started back up the hill.

  He caught my arm again after a dozen paces. “If you must go, go slowly. Go carefully. Stay close to an exit. And get away as soon as you can.” He turned back to the shadows where his sesquicentennial comrades were waiting.

  I stomped back up the hill muttering a string of curses. Divorce cases weren’t so bad. Come to think of it, spouse stalking was a little bit like being cinematographer for America’s Funniest Home Videos. I was going to memo Olive as soon as I got back in, tonight: from now on After Dark Investigations was going to handle nothing but divorce cases!

  No more walking corpses!

  No more End of the World conspiracies!

  And absolutely nothing requiring attendance at social gatherings with dress codes!

  The rear exit was one of those self-locking affairs, forcing me to hike all the way around to the front of the building to get back in.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The first thing I noticed was that there were fewer cars in the parking lot than when we had arrived. It was too early for the evening’s entertainment to wind down and I knew of no other social events likely to siphon off the crowd tonight.

  Three more cars drove off while I stood and looked over the lot. At least there had been one new arrival in the past hour: a green Chevy Nova was parked four spaces over from my car.

  I affected a casual amble, moving across the lined asphalt in a roundabout route to see if anyone was loitering in the vicinity.

  Nope.

  As I drew near, I noticed that my car sagged a bit: the right rear tire was flat. So much for a quick getaway.

  Upon closer examination the problem was clear: a slitted puncture in the sidewall of the tire. Stiletto? No . . . the slit was three times the width of a stiletto blade. More like the signature of an Army combat knife. One end of the cut was even abraded as if caught by the back saw-edge of such a blade.

  I looked across at the Nova and then back at my poor, abused coupe. Talk about adding major insult to injury . . .

  Whatever happened to the good old days when vampires rarely traveled by coach and spent most of their time lurking around castle corridors?

  I opened my trunk, hauled out the jack and the spare. Took off my jacket and proceeded to set a new world’s record for a tire change outside of a raceway pit crew. Put my jacket back on and grinned: now the element of surprise had shifted.

  I looked back over at the Nova. There was room to shift it some more.

  I put my ruined tire and my jack back in my trunk and looked around. Wondered a bit about security cameras. Remembered that my image worked about as well on videotape as it did on mirrors.

  I hefted my tire iron and walked to the far side of the Nova. Doing my best Minnesota Fats impression, I poked a hole in its rear tire. Now we were even.

  Except I was ahead of the game now.

  But not enough ahead, I decided, curling my fingers under the lip of the Nova’s trunk. I pulled and lifted using a little of the preternatural strength that my tainted blood had granted as a benevolent side effect. The catch popped with a groan of stressed metal. If I couldn’t bend it back to close tight, they might still believe it was the sudden dive into the ditch that left it sprung.

  Or they might not once they found out that I had popped their spare, as well.

  The spare was not readily accessible. Under the amber wash of the parking lot lights I could make out tarpaulin bundles that lay across the flooring and wheel well. I pulled one of the edges back. Looked. Started opening the other bundles.

  The handguns were on top: a couple of 9mm SIG Sauer P226 pistols, a .357 Magnum S&W revolver, and an HK 23 SOCOM .45 caliber handgun with suppressor and laser aiming module.

  Four rifles were underneath: a Carbine automatic M-4 A1 5.56mm, a Chicom Type 56 (think AK-47), and two 7.62mm M-14 automatic rifles. Next to them were a couple of 12-gauge Mossberg shotguns, pump action with folding stocks.

  This was bad with a capital B.

  What made it infinitely worse (with a capital W) were the bundles on each side.

  On the left I saw an N91 left-handed 7.62mm bolt-action sniper rifle. Next to it, a Barrett M99 .50 BMG bolt-action, magazine-fed sniper rifle. The sewing machines lay on the right-hand side of the trunk: an MK43 7.62mm machine gun and two submachine guns, MP-5 series, 9mm.

  I didn’t open the ammo boxes: I was afraid I’d find grenades.

  I rewrapped everything and closed the trunk lid, pushing the lip back in so it would catch on the frame and hold shut for the time being.

  I tossed the tire iron in the back seat of my car and pulled out my cell phone. I only used it for emergencies as it gave me headaches. I had already learned to step back while operating a microwave oven. It was fortunate that I had the number for the Monroe cop shop stored in memory: my hands were shaking so badly I would have had trouble punching in 911.

  “Monroe Police Department,” answered a voice. “How may we help you?”

  “Uh, I’d like to report a probable crime.”

  “What sort of a crime? And may I have your name, please?”

  “Name? I thought I could report a crime anonymously.”

  “Well, yes, but—Haim? Is that you?”

  “What?”

  “This is Detective Murray, Mr. Haim.”

  “Detective Murray?”

  “Yes. I’m just covering the phones while the desk sergeant is using the can.”

  “I didn’t know you worked the late shift.”

  “Well, truth be told we were just getting ready to come back out and see you.” His voice held the easygoing tone of a man suggesting a pleasant social visit. Sometimes Murray’s affable smile and pleasant tone suggested that he might be more dangerous than Ruiz for all her vinegar-and-piss attitude.

  “We?”

  “Lieutenant Ruiz is here.”

  I felt my heart sink: could this night get any more complicated?

  “Seems your corpse has turned up missing again,” he continued all too pleasantly.

  “My corpse?”

  “Yeah, Kandi Fenoli. Remember her? She’s showed up at your place twice, now. The lieutenant thinks third time’s a charm.”

  There was a brief mumble and fumble then Ruiz’s voice blared in my ear: “Haim? I don’t know how you’re getting her body out of the morgue but I’ll have a warrant tonight if I have to wake up every judge in Ouachita Parish! I’ll commandeer a backhoe! I’ll dig up every inch—”

  While Ruiz bellowed my sinking heart found its Peter Pan “happy thought” and began to soar.

  “No need to go all L.A.P.D., Detective,” I said when I could finally squeeze in a word edgewise. “You know you’ve got nothing on me except a vague circumstantial and you’ve got nowhere else to look. You keep shaking my tree, hoping something will fall out.”

  She sputtered but I kept on talking.

  “Well, to show you there’s no hard feelings, I’m going to help you break the case. I think I know where the body is.”

  “What?”

  I almost said “nice Gladys Kravitz impression” but why throw fuel on the fire at that point. “I think it’s locked in the trunk of a green Chevy Nova in the guest parking lot in front of BioWeb Industries.”

  “What’s it doing there? How did you get this information?”

  “Well, I saw this Chevy Nova parked in the woods near my place this evening and remembered that I had seen it in the neighborhood on the other occasions when that corpse turned up on my property.”

  “Are you certain about this?”

  “I walked over to see what was going on and found the car empty and the trunk open.”

  “What about the body?”

  “Didn’t actually see a body.”

  “Then why—”

  “Though there was this tarp that might have been wrapped around a body.”

  “
That’s hardly—”

  “I almost looked inside but there were all these guns.”

  “Guns?”

  “Illegal stuff. Auto and semi-automatic weapons. Sniper kits. If these bubbas are going hunting, they sure as hell ain’t looking for Bambi.”

  “You’re telling me you saw contraband firearms in the trunk of this car?”

  “And I think I saw a shovel,” I said, “and maybe a bag of quicklime. I decided I’d better get out of there fast. Then I saw the same car right here.”

  “Parked in front of BioWeb?” Her voice had lost its bluster and taken on that vague distracted tone that meant she was writing everything down. I would have to choose my words carefully.

  “You might want to bring a SWAT team, Lieutenant; these guys are loaded for bear.”

  “You’re sure you saw automatic weapons? You know what to look for?”

  “I did some time in the military. This was special ops stuff. Better get down here before they drive away,” I admonished. And gave her the license number just to be on the safe side. “Gotta go.”

  “Wait!”

  I disconnected and turned the phone off. I had intended to report an illegal weapons cache, hoping the police would come out and muck up the works for whoever was shadowing me in the Nova. Getting Ruiz had been sheer serendipity. There’d be hell to pay when Kandi Fenoli didn’t turn up and Ruiz went looking for tire tracks in my woods, but the immediate fireworks would likely get both the police and the vamps in the Nova off my back for tonight.

  If it was vamps in the Nova.

  I was making more than one assumption, here. I hadn’t actually seen how many occupants there were in the car when I had braced it on the trip in. I was assuming undead because that’s where my current problems seemed to lie.

  But the past has a funny way of blindsiding you when you least expect it, I thought, remembering the left-handed setup on the N91 sniper rig.

  Let the police handle it, I decided. I was strictly limited to divorce cases from here on out. I almost felt a wave of contentment, having juxtaposed two problems into a single solution—that old “two birds with one stone” thing again. I almost whistled as I pulled the Glock out of my own car and fished a spare shoulder-rig out of my trunk.