The Corpse Whisperer

by H. R. Boldwood

  “Leo, look at me,” I said, tapping his swollen cheek. “Open your eyes.”

  My fingers fumbled as I loaded the syringe with his medicine. Calm down, now. Chill out. I breathed deep and forced myself to slow down. Then I tried again. Bingo.

  I jammed the needle directly into his heart. “C’mon, Leo. Open your eyes, damn it.”

  A flicker? Did they flicker?

  “One more time, Leo. Do that one more time.”

  His puffy eyes peeled open slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to see who, or what, was in front of him.

  “Nighthawk,” he whispered, with a wan smile. “What took you so long?”

  I grinned and cut the zip ties that bound him to his chair.

  Next, came yelling and cursing, and the sounds of an army of feet running up the stairs. Rico moved beside the door and leveled his gun.

  He nodded toward Leo. “Move him over here, away from the door.”

  I bent down and slung Leo over my shoulder, nearly coming to my knees. “Holy crap, lard-ass. No more lasagna for you.”

  No sooner had I schlepped Leo across the room, than a stream of bullets blasted through the door.

  “How long does it take for the HRT team to scramble, anyway?” I yelled over the gunfire.

  In seconds, the gunmen would take out the lock, or manage to leave more holes than wood in the door, and kick it in. The shooting lulled momentarily and Rico slid, on his stomach, across the floor to the far front corner.

  I knelt in front of Leo, shielding him as best I could.

  The door gave way, and a jumble of mobsters burst in. I winced, thinking we were goners. But, before they got off a single round, an explosion knocked us all on our asses, blinded, ears ringing and dizzier than bed bugs.

  A flurry of Feds rushed the room and began rousting the bad guys. The disoriented mobsters were cuffed, hauled to their feet and dragged, half-walking, half-crawling from the room.

  I pushed back some nausea and struggled to my feet, trying to shake off the effect of the blast. Then, I straightened up and worked my way over to check on Leo. He was breathing, but unconscious.

  One of the Feds said an ambulance was five minutes out. At least, I think that’s what he said. I had to read his lips.

  With Leo taken care of, there was one more thing I needed to do. Something a little shady. Something covert. Something that if Rico did, he’d probably get shit-canned for. But me? I was a sub-contractor. What were they going to do? Not use me anymore? Fine. Sayonara, chumps. I’ll save some other corner of the world from the zombie apocalypse.

  I leaned against the wall, and staggered around the perimeter of the room, toward the big yellow splotch on the floor. Dom. I tried to crouch down beside him, but fell on my ass instead. Before anyone could ask what I was doing, I slipped my hand inside his pocket and went fishing.

  Let the Feds have the mobsters. All I wanted was Dom’s phone. Dom, the guy in the Tweety Bird sport coat, who stood beneath me when my butt was hanging off the ladder, flapping in the breeze, five stories up.

  I lurched toward Rico, who stood in the doorway, rubbing his ears, chatting with one of the HRT guys.

  He looked over at me and laughed. “You don’t look so good.”

  I wanted to hurl, but at least I could see again, and my balance was coming back.

  “Flashbangs.” Rico smirked. “They get easier once you know what to expect.”

  I pulled him over to the wall, slipped Tweety Bird’s phone out of my pocket, and showed it to Rico.

  “Why do I want to look at your phone?”

  “It’s Dom’s,” I whispered. “I think I know how to catch our snitch.”

  22

  Can’t We All Just Get Along?

  Clearing the warehouse, floor by floor, was a painstaking and time-consuming process. Designated members of both the SWAT and HRT teams funneled out of the holding room to lend a hand, while the EMTs shouldered in past them, lugging their equipment.

  They had already begun their evaluation of Leo, when Director Dickhead burst through the door, eyes wild, face blanched and spittle flying. He stomped across the room toward Rico and me, sneered, and delivered the shellacking we’d both known was coming. He didn’t use his indoor voice, either.

  “What the hell were you thinking, Nighthawk?”

  I wobbled and grabbed the wall for support, stuck my finger in my ear, and pulled out some blood. “Standing right here, sir. No need to yell.”

  He didn’t skip a beat. “It wasn’t just your own life you risked, you smart-assed little show-boater. You fouled up a strategic operation, and risked the lives of every member of the rescue team. What have you got to say for yourself?”

  Strategic operation? What a load. Leo would have been dead if we’d have waited for the sun and the stars and the moon to align.

  Unable to bite my tongue, I responded the way I’d wanted to respond to him since the moment we met. I threw up on his shoes. That might have been a physical manifestation of my feelings toward Dickhead, but to be honest, most of the credit lay with the flashbang.

  Dickhead, not expecting a puke bath, moved a split-second too late, then shook his soiled shoe in disgust.

  “And you, De Palma,” he said, scraping his Gucci against the baseboard, “You’re a cop, for God’s sake. You know better than to go in without backup.”

  Rico, red-faced, gamely met Dickhead’s gaze. “If I may, sir. I’d like to point ou—”

  “No. You may not. Do not interrupt me when I’m addressing you.”

  Cap appeared in the doorway. “I’m sure you aren’t dressing down one of my officers, Director Horton. That would be a grave mistake.”

  “Hey, Cap,” I mumbled, wiping the puke off my chin.

  “For God’s sake, Nighthawk,” he said, shaking his head. “Go sit down.”

  I sank to the floor with a thud. “Good idea, sir.”

  Cap strode over to Dickhead, never breaking eye contact with him. “I think perhaps what Detective De Palma intended to say, is that had he and Nighthawk not gone in when they did, your entire operation would have ended up in the crapper. And just so you’re aware—the mob knew about the raid in advance.”

  “That’s impossible. There were only so many people present when we discussed this mission.”

  “Exactly.”

  “A mole?” Dickhead puffed out his chest. “Surely, you’re not suggesting it’s one of my men.”

  “Well, it was somebody in that room.”

  As the EMTs wheeled Leo toward the door, Dickhead nodded to one of his men.

  “Ferris, you’re babysitting now. Stick to this putz like tar paper, and don’t even think about blinking. You understand?”

  Ferris? I took a closer look and grinned. Sean Ferris. I’d met him several years ago, at a training seminar. Solid guy. Hot too, though I doubted he remembered me.

  Leo strained against the straps on his gurney.

  “No way, Jose. I want Nighthawk.” He swiveled his eyes toward me. “Don’t let ‘em do this, Nighthawk.”

  “Not after this fiasco, Abruzzi,” Dickhead said. “I want one of my men with you at all times.”

  “Your guys? Your guys?” Leo wheezed. “If Nighthawk and De Palma hadn’t shown up when they did, I’d be dead by now. Screw your guys.”

  Leo coughed and struggled to catch his breath. “I’m not fucking around here. You take Nighthawk off my detail and our deal’s history. Period.”

  Dickhead smirked, and flicked an invisible speck of lint off the sheet covering Leo. “Nice try. But we both know how much you need that medication. You’ll stick with the deal. If for no other reason than you want to live longer.”

  “Watch me,” Leo said. “Those drugs get less effective every day. Some things are worse than dying. I can take myself out, any day. And I’ll do it, too. I got nothing to lose. Your call, you big blowhard.”

  Damn, Leo. Way to play hardball. Leo had Dickhead by the short hairs.

  “Fine. It’
s your funeral,” the Director said with a snort. “Nighthawk stays. De Palma, too. But Ferris here stays with them. That’s the only way—”

  Gunfire and screams erupted from the floors below.

  “Stay put!” Rico shouted at the EMTs. ”Wait here, until we tell you it’s safe to leave.”

  Cap, Rico, Ferris and I sprinted to the top of the steps and listened, trying to nail down the location of the gunfire.

  “Third floor, maybe. Could be second,” Ferris said.

  Dickhead trailed behind us, as we hugged the wall, and took the steps down to the fourth floor.

  Screams echoed up the stairwell.

  “Third floor,” Rico yelled, taking the steps two at a time.

  Cap, Ferris and I caught him at the third-floor landing. A final round of gunfire rang out in the hallway to our right, followed by a chorus of gut-wrenching shrieks that quickly tapered off.

  After Rico cleared the corner, we entered the long, narrow passage, lit only by our phones and an odd smattering of beams scattered along the floor, maybe twenty yards down the hallway.

  We pushed forward and a copper tang hit my nose. Two more steps. I slipped in something wet. I didn’t want to look at the sticky floor beneath me, or the chaotic tangle of shapes and forms that rose from the center of the light beams.

  Cap advanced, shined his phone into the jumble, and gagged. The blood-soaked bodies of both SWAT and HRT members, ravaged beyond recognition, lay strewn across the floor.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Ferris murmured. He rested his hands on his knees and sucked in air, as I walked among the dead, systematically pumping bullets into their brains.

  Frenzied sounds filtered toward us from a room beyond the pile—wet, tearing sounds I’d heard before—the sounds of deadheads devouring human flesh.

  How many were there? Were they all in that room?

  Only one way to find out. We retrieved the Maglites off the fallen officers, and moved on.

  I breached the doorway, with Hawk cocked and locked. Something growled to my right. I spun, coming face to face with a deadhead, a multitude of gunshot wounds in its chest. It leapt at me and I fired. Dead bang. Right between the eyes. One down.

  Rico, Cap and Ferris filed in at my six. Rico cut left, leaving Cap and Ferris to cover the middle. The room, massive and black beyond the range of our flashlights, could have held one biter or a hundred.

  Growls and the sound of shuffling feet echoed around us, making it impossible to know where the rotters were. But they were close. I could smell them.

  I swung my Maglite across the room, and a pocket of deadheads scattered like roaches into the darkness, leaving their feast of entrails and flesh behind.

  Cap, eyes focused on the shadows, advanced and tripped over a severed leg. No sooner did he fall, than a biter dropped from above and pinned him to the floor. Cap wrestled with it, rolling back and forth, struggling to keep clear of its jaws, trying to get out from beneath it.

  Rico leveled his Glock. “Give me a clear shot,” he yelled.

  Cap leveraged his shoulders against the floor, and pushed the biter slightly off center. Rico fired and nailed the back of its head. The front of its skull exploded, splattering gray matter and decomp all over Cap, who lay on his side, gasping for air.

  “You okay, Cap?” Rico asked, as he pulled Cap to his feet.

  “Never…better.” Cap panted, wiping zushi off his face with his sleeve. “Where the hell did that thing come from? The ceiling?”

  I aimed my light at the collection of copper steam pipes that snaked back and forth above our heads. No more biters.

  “It’s as if they drew us into this room, so they could attack from above, and pick us off one at a time,” I said.

  “When did they start to strategize?” Rico asked.

  I bit my lip and sighed. “I didn’t know they had.”

  The remaining biters grew louder, bolder—and closer. The four of us stood shoulder to shoulder, peering deep into the void beyond the reach of our flashlights.

  They attacked from all sides. Cap squeezed off one shot and then another. The deadhead sailed backwards, like a rag doll. Rico fired a couple rounds into the advancing horde. One of the biters broke through and jumped Ferris. He blasted a hole in its chest, barely slowing it down.

  “Head shot,” I screamed. “Shoot the head!”

  The biter took Ferris down, but he brought his Glock to bear and put a bullet into its eyeball.

  Two of the meatbags double-teamed me, one coming at my thighs, the other at my face. I kicked the one near my legs, and sent him tumbling across the floor.

  The one coming at my face ended up with no head, thanks to Hawk. The biter I’d kicked lay face up, arms and legs flailing, trying to right itself.

  I scrambled beside it, and drove my Ka-Bar through its brainstem.

  The room went strangely silent. No more growls, no more shuffling. Only six decommissioned deadheads that had decimated an entire tactical team, because the officers hadn’t shot for the head.

  I choked on the bile in my throat and the feeling of helplessness that welled inside me.

  The tactical teams had been trained to go for center mass. It was a game of percentages. The larger the target, the greater the odds of stopping the threat. But, damn it, when were these guys going to start listening to me?

  My stomach rolled, and I thought I might retch, but Dickhead wandered into the room and my brain changed gears. He’d been with us on the stairs, maybe a step or two behind at most. Where the hell was he, while we were fighting for our lives?

  “Zombies.” He spat out the word like it tasted bad. “Fucking piles of decomp. What the hell are they doing here?”

  The brain bitch didn’t even try to sensor me.

  “That’s a good question, although none of us has had time to ask it yet. We were busy trying to survive. What about you, Director? What were you doing?”

  “You impudent little shi—”

  An odd, high-pitched mewling rose from behind him. Before he could turn, a rogue biter threw him to the ground.

  So help me, as he struggled to break free, a part of me wanted to let him sink or swim, but you can guess what the damn brain bitch had to say about that. There’d be no living with her, if I walked away.

  I moved into place above the rotter, glared at Dickhead, and said, “Move it or lose it,” shoving Hawk’s barrel against the biter’s skull.

  Dickhead pushed himself out of the line of fire, giving me the shot. Against my better judgement, or maybe because of it, I pulled the trigger. And I won’t deny it, seeing Dickhead covered in zushi was the only good thing that happened that day.

  Dickhead slid out from beneath the corpse and popped to his feet, chewing nails and spitting barbed wire. “Jesus H. Christ, Nighthawk. Couldn’t you have used your knife, like you did on the last one?”

  “Oh. That’s right,” I said, standing over the top of him. “You had a front row seat to what happened in that room, didn’t you? And you didn’t lift a finger to help us. Yeah. I took that last rotter out with my knife. But basting you with biter juice gave me a lot more satisfaction.”

  “I’ll have your ass, you insubordinate bitch. No one ta—”

  Before anyone could stop me, I dropped onto his stomach and straddled him. “Listen, you pompous ass. If you, or your men, knew the slightest thing about taking down deadheads, you’d know that center mass hits don’t fucking work. You need to take out the brain. How many more officers have to die before you halfwits at the top get the message, and start training these guys right?”

  I climbed off Dickhead and wiped the sweat from my face. “What I do, raising the dead, is a gift. I do it, because it’s the only thing I know how to do—that I was born to do. And I do it really well. There’s a madman out there, manipulating the Z-virus, and trying to overrun this country—the entire world—with zombies. Somehow, he’s connected to Leo and this case. These biters didn’t wander in here by accident. And here’s something els
e to keep you awake at night, Director. The deadheads that attacked us today seem to have developed intelligence, an ability to problem solve.”

  I exhaled long and slow, then extended my hand to help Dickhead up. “Look at me, Director Horton. I’m Allie Nighthawk. The best of the bad-ass zombie hunters—and the only hope you’ve got. If you stop working against me, maybe we can catch this monster and get Leo to the grand jury alive, in the process.”

  That was as close to an olive branch as he was going to get from me. But would the moron be smart enough to take it?

  23

  No Wonder Health Care Is A Mess

  With the last of the rotters down, the EMTs would be able to safely transport Leo. They’d head for University Hospital, one of the facilities located on Pill Hill in nearby Clifton.

  Two of us would need to be there to guard his room. It was three in the morning. The night had been long and exhausting. What I really wanted was sleep.

  We trudged through the hallway of the warehouse and back to the third-floor landing, a collection of characters more disheveled than the biters we’d put down. Ferris’s five o’clock shadow made him look pasty and gaunt. It wasn’t the dark circles beneath his eyes that drew my attention, but the haunted look inside them. New to this game, he’d seen things that night that he’d never seen before. Yet somehow, he’d not only handled himself well, he’d stepped up, in spite of it all.

  “I’ll go take the first shift,” he said. “One of you guys can go home and get some rest.”

  Good man, for a Fed.

  I volunteered to go with Ferris, then turned to Rico and asked, “Think you can head to the hospital around 10:00 a.m. and spell me?”

  “Sure thing,” he said, starting toward the stairway.

  He stopped when he reached Ferris. “Good job today, man.”

  Ferris flashed a weary smile and clapped Rico’s shoulder as he walked by.

  As Rico started down the steps, Ferris and I trekked up to the holding room on the fifth floor. I knocked on the door.

  The voice on the other side warbled, “Wh…who is it?”