2 Death Rejoices

by A. J. Aalto

  “She's too big and fresh to burn without an accelerant! That little bit of butane won't be enough for a full-grown human!” I yelled.

  Batten glanced over his shoulder and surprised me with a cocky smile.

  From the bulging front pocket of his jeans, Hood took a rectangular squirt-bottle of lighter fluid and flicked the top off. The zombie apparently had trouble seeing due to the recent change in facial alignment, but noticed Hood's movements to its left and surged forward, arms out as if for a big hug. Hood hosed it down and said something to Batten I didn't catch. The zombie didn't stop coming. Hood backed up at a half-run, waving his arms to keep the zombie interested. Batten waited until they were away from the cabin before firing the Taser.

  I'd seen people burn before. I've seen a lot of different kinds of fire. I'd never seen a purple housedress lift and spin on the horrible updrafts of a zombie roast before. I'd also never seen a human bonfire in motion.

  The fat, flaming zombie came at Batten, who instinctively drew his Taurus from his ankle sheath and fired off a round at its head. It came towards him too fast, chewing up the distance, arms waving wildly overhead, sending sparks and clumps of burning flesh in all directions. My breath caught and my gloved hands clenched into fists as the zombie lurched first at Batten, who tossed the axe casually aside to leave both hands free, and then at Hood; it seemed torn between which one looked more appetizing, weaving back and forth while they played keep-away. I had a moment of keen sympathy, watching them dance and weave in the open yard, raw physical prowess on display; Batten's strength contrasting with Hood's dexterity made me super glad that Golden wasn't around to enjoy the show; telling her about it later was going to be awesome. Batten and Hood dodged the zombie's advances, keeping its attention with their big movements and swooping just out of range of its grasping hands like kids playing tag and taunting the slower, clumsier kid who was stuck being “it”. They bounded in circles to keep the blazing monster away from the car and house while the zombie's time ran out. When the fire finally ate through enough to slow it, Hood took the zombie down with a leg sweep and danced back on the balls of his feet.

  Hood ran to the Sentra with his right hand down, palm out, to tell me to stay where I was; I did. Batten's wide-legged stance framed the scene for me perfectly. I watched the zombie roll, flail and burn on the lawn, gurgling around her decomposing tongue. From under the Sentra, I waited for it to be over. It seemed to take far too long. The smells of charred zombie and barbecued dog shit mixed as badly as I feared they would.

  When the zombie no longer moved, Batten backed cautiously toward us, squatted and, not taking his eyes off the flaming mess, offered me a hand to haul me out of my hiding spot. I reached for him.

  That was when the second dog darted from the shadows near the porch; snarling and quick, it threw itself on Batten's bent back. Batten went down in a blur of arms and fur and teeth, his own snarl echoing the dog's.

  Dark Lady, not my Kill-Notch! I scrambled out from under the car, my first instinct being to put vengeful hands on the thing attacking Mark.

  Hood got in my face, shoving my shoulder, shouting, “Run, Mars!” His gun was drawn, and he brought it up to aim, waiting for a clear shot. “Run, dammit!”

  Without thought, my body did what my trainer commanded; my bare feet took flight, pelting around the opposite side of the Sentra. I was close to the smoking cadaver when the axe caught my eye and my free will returned in a rush. I reached into the fire, grabbed the axe, swung around, and charged back to the fray.

  This dog wasn't rotten, though it was definitely mangy. Hood had inched closer, waiting for his shot. Batten was trying to get the dog off his back and not get bitten in the process; I bolted over and kicked it as hard as I could in the rump.

  The dog let out a cavernous rowf and leaped off Batten's back, tearing his shirt with overgrown nails. Drooling and snapping at me, it launched a bouncing counterattack. Both men yelled something at me in unison, but I was far too busy stumbling backward and hauling the axe up to pay attention to them. The dog shredded lawn as it jumped, kicking up clumps of dirt and grass. The axe was heavy enough to make my arms tremble. Swinging the blade diagonally, I missed the dog's snout but caught it squarely in the neck, which did the next best thing: lopped the head off. The body flopped end-over-end and hit me in the chest. I squealed and danced away, flinging the axe aside. The stink of rot finally hit me and I knew: the thing had just turned. It landed with a convulsive shudder, legs paddling air, and then lay still.

  Batten.

  I whipped around and hurried to where he was getting to his feet. “No, no, back on your knees, let me see your shoulders. Did it bite you? Let me see your neck. Don't move, get down,” I ordered.

  Batten complied, sinking back to one knee in front of me, lowering his six-foot height for me to examine for scratches and bites. Hood was quick with a mini-flashlight, brightening the tree-shaded area.

  “Looks clear,” Hood said.

  Batten's skin was tanned, bronze, smooth, slick with sweat, and sprinkled with the odd mole here and there, along with an old scar on the edge of one shoulder blade that he'd gotten years ago as a kid from some other kid's hockey stick. Otherwise, there were no marks, blemishes or imperfections, just lots of hard, tanned muscles waiting for me to add bite marks.

  “You're all right,” I announced, and offered him a hand up. He took my gloved hand but didn't really use it to pull himself up, just held onto it and didn't let go.

  I braced for the yelling, but this time it didn't come, not from either of them. Hood's half-lidded eyes and the fatigued downward tilt of Batten's mouth were a bit of a relief: maybe they were too tired to chew me out.

  “Well, that was disturbing,” I said to fill the silence.

  “You okay, Mars?” Hood asked, and when I nodded, he added, “Need a bus?”

  “No ambulance, thanks.”

  “You sure? You look pale.”

  “Just a little corpsepox,” I said, scratching absently. “And I look like shit. Which, incidentally, both you guys smell like. I wasn't going to say anything while you danced with the zombie, but… dog bombs. All over your damn shoes.”

  Hood's nearly-invisible eyebrows lifted and he wrinkled his nose. Batten looked doubtfully at the bottoms of his standard-issue boots and grimaced. “Is that all?”

  “No worries. We're good.”

  “Is this thing going to get back up?” Hood toed the Labradoodle's head with his soiled boot. It rolled over to stare at me, tongue lolling.

  “Doesn't look like it.”

  “So, shooting them in the head isn't good enough, but taking their head right off works. Good to know. There another dog?” he asked.

  “Inside, under the bed,” I said. “It's not quite dead yet, but it's losing fur, has severe wounds, and stinks like you wouldn't believe.”

  The two men, both cops, and more accustomed to carnage than I was, resisted looking at the roasting zombie corpse and the headless Labradoodle.

  “Should I bring it out?” Hood asked. “Will it bite me?”

  “I wouldn't risk it.”

  Hood nodded. “I'll get in touch with the CDC guys, they'll have a protocol.” He turned to talk into his phone, giving our hands one more scan.

  Batten's hand was reassuringly strong holding mine, his palm making the green leather of my glove creak; he held it for longer than he needed to, even after Hood eyeballed us again. Fire light played across one side of Batten's hard face, throwing the other side into shadow; if that light hadn't been supplied by a burning zombie corpse, it might have been an actual, romantic moment. Even with the corpses, it was still one of the more calmly intimate interludes I'd ever had. The sad quirk of his mouth said Batten knew it, too. Now that we were alone, I wondered if I'd get a talking-to, but his shoulders fell and he sneaked out a yawn.

  “I'm sorry, are the zombies boring you, Kill-Notch?” I asked.

  His reply was a grumpy, exhausted grunt.

  “Yo
u guys made that kill look easy,” I accused.

  “All my kills look easy, Snickerdoodle.”

  “There's something to be proud of.”

  He looked down at the smoking mess. “Well, it wasn't a fancy affair like Marnie Baranuik's Kitty Litter Adventure.”

  “I really do need to get a cat.”

  “What would you name it?”

  “Something totally Canadian.”

  “Maple-leaf Beaver Bacon?” he suggested. The tilt of his smile belied a border town upbringing and Canadian-adjacent familiarity.

  “Poutine Labatt-Trudeau.” My shoulder brushed up against his biceps and he felt solid, like a granite wall, so I leaned against him. He leaned back, and I wasn't strong enough to hold him up, and he swayed for a second before adjusting his stance.

  “Walk you home?” he offered. And then, apparently picking something up from the way my raincoat moved, he asked, “Are you wearing anything under that?”

  “Of course. What kind of whackadoodle runs around naked in a raincoat?”

  “Flashers,” he answered.

  “You caught me.”

  “Knew it,” he said with a rare smile. “Do I want to know where your shoes are?”

  “Melted asphalt on my Keds. Lost one flip flop kicking the chimp suit, and I think Roger Kelly might have gnawed the other. The CDC took them both anyway.”

  “Do I want to know how you came to be in the Labradoodle lady's house to begin with? Or why you came alone?”

  “Oh, Hunkypants.” I sighed. “You won't like the answer, why ask the question?”

  “Do I need to carry you over the stones, here?” We started over the driveway to the road.

  “I should absolutely say yes to that,” I said, gazing up at the darkening sky through the canopy above, “because that would be awesome. And you need to do strength work in addition to zombie-dodge cardio.” Hood would be so proud; I had been paying attention to his horrible, early-morning training lectures. “But I don't do damsel in distress.”

  “Are you kidding? You're always in distress.”

  “Well, yeah, but I can't let you carry me,” I said. “I do have some pride.”

  “Since when?”

  I let that go with a smirk and a shake of my head, walking delicately where the stones were rough, noting that he slowed his pace so I could keep up with his long-legged strides. My gaze fell on an unfamiliar square of plywood nailed to the end of the fence near the driveway. “Hey, that's new.”

  Batten gave an incriminating choked-back laugh as I marched over to read the sign.

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE EATEN. At the bottom of the sign was a little green cartoon frog with blackened fangs. Despite its cheekiness, the sketch wasn't half bad.

  “High comedy,” I said. “Side-splittingly funny. Guess I don't have to wonder who did this.”

  “Public service announcement. Protect and serve, that's my job.”

  “No, that's Hood's job, he's a real cop.” I stuck out my tongue. “If I become the next zombie, I'm so going to gargle your brain juice.”

  “Best offer I've had all day.”

  “Wonder why, asshole,” I said, smiling reluctantly. “Listen, there's stuff in my head that doesn't make sense.”

  Batten smiled down at his shoes. When he recovered, he dead-panned, “How can that be?”

  “Be serious, Mark. How do we know that one dog wasn't running out there in the woods biting critters, spreading plague?”

  “Zombie squirrels and bunnies?” He dragged both hands down his face.

  “Awww,” I cooed. “Zombunnies!”

  He offered me an exhausted shake of his head, no.

  “You're right, not cute,” I said. “Look, the CDC will want to shut this whole place down until they've done a complete sweep. If wedon't get out of here now, we'll get stuck here by a full-scale quarantine.”

  “Suggestions?”

  I blinked. “Um, get out of here?”

  “Thanks, Doctor Baranuik. Helpful.”

  I tapped my temple and repeated his earlier assessment. “Not just another pretty face, babe. You wanna protect and serve this little green froggy, you come up with some ideas.”

  CHAPTER 53

  UPON WAKING FOR THE EVENING, Harry met the update of plague-spreading zombie Labradoodles not with a coo but with a doozy of a temper tantrum, which Batten and I weathered together in stony silence. Well, Batten's silence was stony. Mine was cool on the outside and rolling-my-eyes-grandly on the inside. Somehow, the making of the canine zombies managed to be my fault. The logic behind Harry's theory was unsound but he didn't want to hear it from me. Batten made no effort to defend me; he seemed content to witness the rant and wait it out. I felt the need to point out that it was the CDC and PCU cordon that had let Zombie Roger get loose in the first place, but that was also made to be my doing, what with detonating Zombie Dunnachie and causing a distraction.

  I was becoming increasingly convinced that Mr. Buzz was my favorite companion because it didn't talk back.

  Agent Golden had been sent to monitor the CDC's handling of the remaining dog. Agent de Cabrera reported in from the fish camp; K9 units had discovered the location of the Vodou ritual and recovered several items for me to Grope: a few bird bones and a leaf with short, furry grey hairs that didn't belong to any tree or shrub in the area. I was guessing the leaf was Datura. The PCU was encountering issues with the CDC members there; the CDC didn't want to release any evidence collected at the scene for fear it was contaminated with plague. With Chapel still out of commission, Batten got called over to intervene on the PCU's behalf, but I wasn't going to hold my breath that I'd get to Grope that evidence any time soon.

  Inside, in my office, Declan and I kept the light and noise to a minimum, wary of drawing attention. The office was lit only by the lamp on the desk; not only were the blinds shut, but the curtains were drawn tightly. We had strict instructions from Harry to keep our voices down; I'd tried to object to this (as zombie hearing is not good) but I'd been shushed and called an impertinent trollop, after which Harry had demanded Declan's car keys, and mine, and told us we were “grounded.” I gave up.

  Harry told Viktor to resume guard over Chapel in the cellar. I took solace in the fact that Gary's pulse probably offset the attraction of his sweatiness for Viktor. After tucking bat-faced Wesley protectively atop the office bookshelves, Harry tore off on a de-stressing ride in the Ferrari, peeling out of the driveway like the devil was on his tail. Quarantine or not, there was no way in hell a Dodge Charger or Ford Explorer was going to catch his Italian steed.

  Declan scanned the white board unhappily, hands shoved in his pockets, and rocked from toe to heel, not saying anything.

  I stripped off my sweaty gloves, tossed them on my chair, and scratched my palms. The pox was spreading, and tiny red bumps lingered between my fingers. Grabbing the green dry-erase marker, I scribbled on the white board. “Neil Dunnachie got barbequed in my driveway,” I said, drawing a checkmark next to his name. “Cosmo Winkle melted into the cement at the Starlight Dreams motel.” Check. “Anne Bennett-Dixon is a half-vampire, half-zombie pet of Malas; we're assuming she's at his mansion.” I drew a big green question mark over Anne's name. “Roger Kelly exploded outside the boathouse. The neighbor with the Labradoodles, did we find out her name?”

  “Melinda Smyth,” Declan replied.

  I wrote her name down and put a check beside it, as well as Roger Kelly's. “She got Taser-fried in her front yard. So far, we're not doing very well with the ‘saving the Furries’ part of our case,” I observed. “They've each been killed twice now.”

  “Except Anne,” Declan offered, frowning at a knock at the front door.

  “Yeah, I don't think she's drawn the winning straw in this deal,” I said, capping my marker.

  We shared a long moment of staring at the front door, wondering whether or not we should actually answer it. Finally, I said, “Stay here.”

  * * *

  From the relative safe
ty of the threshold, I took a long look at my visitor, from the top of His three heads — man, bull, and ram — to His skinny rooster feet. The skin on His corpulent trunk was the gleaming red of a milk snake from the neck down. He looked like the kind of being who'd fry your gall bladder for giggles. This was not to say that Asmodeus had Death's cool solemnity; unlike His revenants, the Overlord was neither alive, dead, nor undead. Immortal and infernal, there was nothing cold about Asmodeus, especially not His gaze. Beneath a revealing kilt of barely pieced-together strips of leathery flesh, He wore a turquoise animal print Speedo over what I could only assume was demon wiener; if such a thing existed, I refused to contemplate why.

  “Aradia's teats!” I said.

  Asmodeus grinned; I immediately wished He hadn't. “I'm in disguise.”

  “No, it's totally believable.” I assured Him. “Had me fooled.”

  He tipped a brown felt fedora onto His human head, which His bull head promptly snapped at and chewed to shreds, snorting angrily. “I'm a door-to-door salesman.”

  “Re-selling stolen bibles.” I noted the box by His chicken toes.

  “Who would suspect?” He squinted. “Why are you staring at my face?”

  “It's terrifying. Did you tear it off and throw it under a bus?”

  “Terror, pffft.” He waved this away with the dragon-like claw that was His left hand, and the heat surrounding Him made the air shimmer. “I eat terror for breakfast.”

  “Kind of explains your dental problems. So, to what do I owe this… do you mind if I don't call it a pleasure?”

  “You need more help, and so I came.” He propped one rooster-like foot out in front of Himself and performed a courtly bow that His twisting, snorting animal heads did not consent to.

  I tried to focus on His man-face. “Don't you have a busy schedule, I dunno, raping the souls of the damned?”

  “That's not my department. Besides, I thought this sort of delivery was important enough to make in person.”

  I smiled skeptically. “Gosh, I'm so honored.”