He stepped away from the crowd, close to her, and lowered his voice.
“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine. There are men lining the streets with guns.” He hadn’t seen them, but assumed it was the case. “The zombies won’t get you.”
“But they’ll say what they’ve come for,” she said.
Thomas understood. They would reveal her identity, and the rest of the city would want to turn her over.
The door flew open, and half a dozen men ran inside, carrying rifles and shotguns to spare.
“What took you so long?” the Mayor said, his Irish voice an octave higher than usual.
One of the men, with a handlebar mustache and a golden star pinned to his vest, handed the Mayor a shotgun.
“We had to grab a few extra guns.”
Thomas had heard that the Sherrif, just six months into his second life, had a blessing of tracking, that he could follow a month-old trail after a storm as if he could see his prey laying down the tracks.
The other men—deputies, based on the silver stars pinned on their vests—distributed weapons to the council members. In a flurry, and without a word, the lawmen and councilmen shooed Stanley and the Bakers, pulled the chairs out from under the windows, and fell to their knees before the glass. The windows had a lower casing, which allowed about six inches of the window to slide upward—far enough for the barrel of a gun to extend outside. Thomas had heard that you couldn’t become a deputy without the sharpshooter blessing. Soon, they had their dozen guns out the window, pointed at the street.
And just in time.
Stanley began to bark. About twenty-five zombies came up the street, clustered in a group. They looked like regular men in their hats, vests or suspenders, gray pants, and cream shirts. But even at a distance, Thomas could tell they had something wrong with them. They moved with unusual speed despite their limping. Their gait seemed off, the way they carried their shoulders just a little strange. As they drew nearer to the courthouse, the grayness of their skin became prominent. It looked like someone had rubbed ash all over them. Their eyes sat deep in their skulls. Skin stretched tight over their cheeks and jaws. Several wore eye patches, and a few had stubby little noses, like the tips had fallen off. They probably had.
They came up the street until they reached the courthouse, and stopped. The foremost zombie held a pole with a white flag fluttering at the top.
“What do they want?” said the Mayor. He glanced at Stanley in annoyance. “Would somebody shut that thing up?”
Thomas’s family glared at him. He rapped Stanley on the nose. Not a hard hit, just a quick tap the dog would recognize as a command to silence. He obeyed.
“Doesn’t matter what they want,” said a councilman. English accent.
“They’re as good as dead,” said the sheriff.
“Deader,” clarified another councilman. Southern accent.
Thomas figured they spoke true. In the wooden buildings across the street, men stood in the windows and open doorways with guns trained on the zombies. In fact, as far as Thomas could see in both directions, men and barrels filled every window and doorway. If chopping off a mob of zombies’ heads was too dangerous, a good alternative was to outnumber them by enough that your bullets could just turn their flesh into dog food—well, coyote food; you wouldn’t feed your dog rotten meat. And it seemed that in this case the people in the buildings outnumbered the zombies enough. Once the firing began, bullets would shred the monsters.
“We’d like to speak,” said the zombie carrying the flag, “with the mayor.” It had a hoarse voice.
The Mayor leaned close to the window. “Speaking.”
“Will you come out so we can talk?”
“Not while I yet live on God’s green earth. Now get out of our town before we end your unholy second life!”
“We bear a warning and a request,” said the zombie. “Sent from the Lich Mayor of Moab.”
Miss Sadie sucked a breath in through her teeth, and shook her head.
“We want neither,” the Mayor said.
Panic filled Miss Sadie’s eyes. Her hands began to tremble. “I have to get out of here. I need to get away from them and from the city.”
Thomas sensed her desperation. He could still feel her kiss on his cheek. He wanted to help her. But what could he do?
Mr. Milne, apparently realizing what the situation meant to her, detached himself from the window, and joined them. He kept his voice low, although everyone else still had their attention trained on the zombies and the Mayor's continuing dialogue with them.
“Sadie," Mr. Milne said, "do you know these zombies? Can they recognize you?”
She shook her head and rubbed her hands together. She had her umbrella tucked under one arm. She looked out the window.
“No.” Her tone became uncertain. “I don’t think so. Maybe.”
“Thomas,” Mr. Milne said, “take her out the back, and head for the edge of town.” He stepped to the wall and pulled one of the swords down. “Take this. Protect her as best you can. When these zombies are taken care of, we’ll find you.”
Thomas didn’t bother pointing out that he didn’t know how to use a sword. He just took it by the hilt, put his hat on, and took Miss Sadie’s gloved hand in his. She nearly dropped her umbrella.
“Come on,” he said. He tried to pull her toward the door.
But she hesitated, gave Mr. Milne a sad expression, as if saying goodbye for a long time.
“You’ll be careful?”
“Yes,” he said. “Get going.”
The zombie in the street shouted, “The Lich Mayor of Moab demands that his daughter be returned!”
Miss Sadie’s hesitation ended. She let Thomas pull her toward the double doors. He let go of her hand to turn the knob.
The Mayor shouted back to the zombie. “We have no idea what you’re talking about. We don’t have his daughter. If we did, we’d probably kill her like we’re going to kill you.”
Thomas got the door open, and took Miss Sadie’s hand in his again. Her eyes gaped with fear as he led her into the courtroom, down the aisle between the two sets of benches. Mr. Milne shoved Stanley into the room after them.
“No,” Charles said his voice clear even from the foyer. “The Lich Mayor’s daughter is here.”
“Now, Charles,” Mr. Milne said. He grabbed the door and began to close it. “That’s ridiculous.”
The door clicked shut, cutting off any further comment.
Without speaking, Thomas, Miss Sadie, and Stanley raced down the aisle. Thomas pushed open the gate into the front of the room, ran past the council’s chairs and the podium on the riser, to the door in the back of the room. It opened up to a plain hallway, with doors on both sides and one at the far end. A bar of yellow sunlight angled down from the rectangular window above the door at the opposite end. Stanley ran past Thomas’s legs, down the hallway.
Thomas followed. He pulled Miss Sadie forward. Her hand felt warm in his, even through her glove. It fit just right. In a dozen steps, he reached the door, paused to flip the deadbolt, and cast the door open.
Sunlight from the morning sun blinded him, so he let go of Miss Sadie’s hand to shade his eyes. He barreled on ahead, out onto a small porch and down a handful of steps, vaguely aware of two-story buildings lining the hard-packed dirt street. Stanley rushed past him.
The dog’s growl and bark provided Thomas his only warning.
As if a person don’t already have enough regrets, they’re all shown to you in the Life Vision. It’s like you’re outside your body and inside your head all at once, watching your every action, hearing your every word, and seeing how people reacted and how you looked in relation to what was going on in your head. It’s a bizarre sensation. I don't recommend it to no one. Except, perhaps, to William.
Chapter 20: A resolve is born
A pair of zombies leaped at Thomas. They came from each side, snarling and reaching with fingers curved like claws. Stanley snapped and jumped. Thom
as tried to swing the sword at one zombie, but couldn’t get a good angle. In the moment before the zombie’s body hit his, Thomas got a good look inside its mouth as it screeched at him; its tongue had dried and shriveled, but its half dozen yellow teeth looked plenty dangerous.
On the next street over, guns began to fire.
The zombie and Thomas collided. Thomas closed his eyes and raised his free hand to protect his face. His hat flew off. He and the zombie fell to the ground, with it on top of him. The weight pushed the air out of him and he grunted. The zombie tried to pull Thomas’s hands down. It smelled old, like a piece of clothing left in a barn for years, yet also bore the faint scent of mint.
Miss Sadie screamed. Stanley barked and snapped. A blur of white thumps preceded the weight falling off of Thomas. Miss Sadie pulled him to his feet and they began to run. She led him by the hand, holding her umbrella. Stanley ran with them. Behind them, the zombies scrambled to stand—Miss Sadie must have knocked one down, and pulled the other off of Thomas—and began to chase them.
“Can’t you use that sword on them?” she said.
“I can try.” He would have to. Miss Sadie couldn’t run very fast in her dress.
Dozens of guns continued to fire on the next street over, a symphony of black powder.
He let go of her hand, turned, and lifted the sword in both hands. They’d only gotten a dozen feet ahead of the zombies, each of which had revolvers at their waist. Stanley attacked the one on the left, and Thomas slashed at the one on the right.
The zombie ducked under his blow and threw its shoulder into his stomach. Again, the air left him. Stanley yelped as the other zombie kicked him in the ribs. He rolled away in the dirt street, and quickly gained his feet.
Thomas again fell backward, this time landing on the small of his back, with the zombie on top of him. He struggled to get out from beneath its weight, but it pressed down on him, and he could only watch as other zombie reached for Miss Sadie.
Her brow furrowed and her lips turned down in a scowl. She brandished her umbrella, and it connected with the zombie’s jaw with a pop. She followed with a kick between the legs.
But neither blow had effect. The creature ignored them and bent, wrapped its arms around her waist, and lifted her over its shoulder, like how Thomas had carried Mama two days before.
“Leave the other,” the zombie said in a raspy voice. “Let’s go.”
Thomas’s zombie lifted up onto its knees, to straddle him with his arms pinned. Its knees dug into his biceps. It hit him in the face several times with each hand. The blows fell hard, heavier than Charles’s ever had. Flecks of light flitted across his suddenly blurred vision.
He gasped in agony as the creature stood from him. It gave him a kick in the ribs, and turned to follow its companion. Thomas watched them go, choking for breath, wondering if he could stand—and if he could, if he could keep his balance.
Stanley came to his side, sniffing and licking his face. Gunfire continued to register from the next street over.
“Thomas, help!” Miss Sadie called. She pushed up on the back of the zombie, so she could look up, and reached for Thomas though she was twenty feet away. Her desperate face told him he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t give up.
He rolled to his knees, gathered his strength and courage, stood, and ran for the zombies.
“Get them!” he told Stanley.
The dog ran ahead of him, snarling. The zombie that didn’t carry Miss Sadie stopped, turned, and drew its revolver from the holster. Stanley reached it, snapping at its feet, and it kicked the dog away. Stanley yelped yet again as he rolled in the dust. Thomas moved too fast to alter his course as the zombie raised the gun in both hands and tilted its head to take aim.
Thomas’s heart seemed to shrink to the size of a wheat seed. He continued forward, holding his breath and bracing himself for the bullet.
Miss Sadie, however, was close enough that she could reach out and grab the zombie’s shoulder. She clutched at its shirt and yanked down, making the barrel of the gun rise just as it went off. The bullet whizzed past Thomas’s head, and he reached the creature. With a roar, he swung the blade.
This time, he didn’t miss.
The metal cleaved right through the zombie’s neck with the sound like a machete chopping through a melon. No blood gushed. No gore splattered. The head just flew off, flipped through the air. The body collapsed. Thomas stood there, stunned. His heart hammered. The reek of rotten flesh expanded with force.
“Thomas, watch—“
Miss Sadie’s scream ended as the other zombie tossed her aside. She thudded on the hard dirt road. The zombie turned and lunged at Thomas.
He didn’t even have a chance to raise the sword.
For a third time, he fell to the ground, again to his back, with the weight and strength of a zombie pinning him down. Growling, baring its teeth, the creature scrambled up on top of him, so that it sat on his belly and knelt on his arms. Pain seared into his biceps. The zombie’s breath smelled like a week-old corpse, but that same minty smell came from its body.
It drew a revolver and swung its barrel to the side, whacking Stanley in the head and diverting the dog’s attack.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” the zombie said in a voice like the color of rotting skin. Surprisingly, it had an English accent, too. Did everyone, today?
Thomas tried to wriggle away, to buck the zombie off. With its free hand, the zombie cocked the hammer and brought the barrel up to Thomas’s forehead.
The gunshots from the other street had ended.
“You should have let her go,” it said.
The metal against Thomas’s skin reminded him of how cold the house had felt the previous morning, like all the life had left the building.
Then, with the same “thunk” he’d heard only a few seconds before, the zombie’s head vanished.
The gun barrel slid down the side of his face as the zombie fell off him, settling in the dirt with a thud. It lay still.
Above him, at his feet, stood Miss Sadie. She held the sword. He couldn’t remember letting go of the weapon, but as it turned out, he didn’t mind that at all. Her eyes bulged in rage and her lips had thinned to just a line. Her cheeks had turned bright red. Her body heaved great breaths. Fresh dirt stained her dress, and brown smudges streaked her face. Her hat had fallen off, sometime, and her golden hair framed her face in a mess of tangles.
Thomas had never seen anyone so beautiful in all his life.
Which was why it surprised him when she lifted the sword, released a drawn-out scream, and leaped forward.
* * *
Thomas scrambled backward like a crab, kicking the dirt with his heels and pulling at the ground with his hands. Stanley leaped away, barking. Miss Sadie brought the sword down onto the corpse of the zombie.
Then she did it again. With another scream.
Then again. And again. And she kept hacking away at it.
Once he realized she had no intention of attacking him, Thomas wondered if the decapitation hadn’t killed the zombie. Why else would she attack it further?
She brought the sword down over and over, screaming each time.
Soon he realized she didn’t intend to kill the zombie. She’d already done that. The stench verified it—as if now that the corpse’s animation had ended, it could get on with stinking. No, she didn’t want to make sure it had died.
Rather, here was a girl with some serious emotional issues.
She brought the blade down on the body over and over. Her screaming turned to swearing as she cut the flesh to pieces. She hacked at its chest, arms, legs—at everything. The blade shredded the clothing and flesh. Chunks of rotten muscle flew away with each blow—bloodless, reeking. Her lips curled and her eyes bulged. Every now and then she took a moment to rest her arms, but instead kicked the mass of rotten flesh. After a while, she switched to the other zombie.
Stanley stepped up to Thomas’s side, eyebrows raised, tongue hanging, a
s if to say, “Wow, she ain’t right.”
Thomas nodded and pulled the dog close. He put an arm around the animal, grateful that during the fight the dog had stayed by him, fought by him. Without Stanley—especially at the end when the second revolver came out—Thomas might not have survived.
Miss Sadie’s display continued for two full minutes. Maybe longer. Thomas could only stare and wonder. Soon, the sword had mangled the bodies into unrecognizable masses. Thomas had to look away. He got the distinct feeling that he witnessed something important in Miss Sadie, something personal. Some kind of cleansing or release. It felt inappropriate to watch her transformation.
He distracted himself by examining Stanley for lasting injuries, running his hands over the dog’s ribs and face and body. Stanley whimpered or winced a time or two, but never yelped or cried out in extreme pain.
“You’ll be fine,” Thomas said. He hugged the dog. “Thank you for sticking with me.”
Stanley gave him a dry look, as if to say, “What do you think I am? A cat?”
From the next street over arose the cheering of a crowd. More gunshots rang out. Dinner bells and church bells began to ring. Apparently the town had defeated the zombies.
When Miss Sadie finished her work, she stepped back from the corpses—no longer really corpses. More of an unrecognizable pile of bones and gray flesh. She breathed hard and held the sword in one hand, point down toward the ground. An expression of contempt covered her face. She spat on the pile.
Thomas stood and she turned to him, her face still hard.
“What?” he said, and gestured at the remains. “Did he insult your mother?”
“I’m not one of them,” she said.
He nodded slowly. “Yes, it’s obvious you’re not a zombie.”
She shook her head, unamused. “I’m not a zombie raiser.”
“Ah, well, yes. It seems you have something against zombies. I think I understand.”
“No. You don’t. You never will.” She looked over her handiwork and nodded in satisfaction. “I’m not one of them.” She turned her back on the zombie, picked up her hat, and headed for the door of the courthouse. She picked up her umbrella from where it had fallen in the dirt. “In fact, I will destroy them all.”
Keep Mama Dead Page 18
