I had no idea where Gino was headed, but no matter, once I caught him, I’d know his secrets.
A half mile later, Gino left the county road for an asphalt single lane.
Leafy shrubs pushed close to the road. Branches slapped my windshield. Gino’s aura bounced in the squall like the flame of a candle. Even if he swerved into the brush, I’d still be able to spot him.
To my right, a man and a woman darted between the shrubs. At first, I wondered what they were doing out in this storm. Then I realized: neither of them had an aura.
Zombies.
Change in plans. Gino could wait.
I stepped on the brakes and jerked the steering wheel for a fast U-turn.
The Toyota looped across the rain-slick asphalt. I straightened the wheel and pressed the gas pedal. The rear tires clawed at the road and the truck yawed side to side.
What were zombies doing out now? I thought of them as creatures of the night. Well, vampires get around quite a bit in the daytime. Why shouldn’t zombies?
Since they showed no auras, their filthy clothes allowed them to blend chameleon-like in the landscape. I searched for their outlines. I caught them up ahead, lumbering in stooped gaits through the woods.
I pulled off the side of the road.
I reached under my seat and pulled out a Heckler & Koch.45 pistol. Normally, if I needed a gun, I packed a.380. Plenty of firepower to discourage even stubborn humans. In case of vampires, I loaded the.380 with silver bullets. Against zombies I needed something with more oomph, like this.45.
I palmed the gun and got out of the Toyota. The pistol felt heavy and reassuring. Nothing like German firepower as backup to my vampire skills.
Rain dribbled down my face. I wiped my eyes and looked for the zombies’ trail.
Two sets of prints trampled the grass. I leaned over to study them and got hit with a double dose of wet garbage smell.
One set of prints was of a man’s big bare feet. The other prints looked like they came from a small pair of boots.
I advanced with the H&K and moved the square muzzle left and right like the snout of a dog homing in on the scent.
What were the zombies doing out here? Hunting?
For what?
Who sent them?
Perhaps there was an infestation underground and the rain had forced this pair to the surface like a couple of earthworms.
I would drop them both and go through their clothes. With luck I’d find a lead back to the reanimator.
One of the zombies paused beneath a willow. He wore a tattered straw cowboy hat. At the moment I could see him only in outline, but as I got close I noticed that he was looking back at me.
Layers of flabby skin hung around his neck. He stood bow-legged and barefoot, wore a ragged shirt and tight pants with a big metallic buckle. The boxy shape of his face, the thin eyebrows, and the cowboy hat reminded me of someone I’d recently seen.
The missing cowboy. The zombie’s face matched the picture in the newspaper.
He hadn’t run away or gotten tangled up with criminals. His fate had been worse.
He’d been a victim of the reanimator.
The cowboy zombie lowered his head and scooted away.
I had seen the tracks of two zombies. Where was his companion?
Cowboy zombie disappeared through a gap in the dense shrubs around a stand of scrub oaks. Plenty of cover to hide for an ambush.
My sixth sense tingled my fingertips and ears.
I crept through the shrubs and under the branches of the oaks. Dumpster funk was all around me, but I had lost the zombies.
The tingling of my fingertips amplified into a buzz. The muzzle of the pistol began to tremble.
The damn zombies were close.
I adjusted my grip on the.45 and held it as steady as I could.
I don’t breathe.
Zombies don’t breathe.
The only sound was the drip-drip patter of heavy drops falling through the leaves.
My wet clothes sucked the heat from my body. The chill squeezed my bones. First I’d kill these zombies and then reward myself with a hot soak and an extra-large martini.
Cowboy zombie appeared in the sumacs at the far end of a grassy open patch. His waterlogged hat drooped around his ears. He wiped an elbow across his belt buckle.
My sixth sense screamed Trap.
My senses tingled so hard I couldn’t keep the pistol steady and I gripped the H&K with both hands.
I stayed beneath an oak tree and scanned the brush around me. Nothing lurked.
Cowboy zombie was at least fifty feet from me, too far for an accurate shot. But after meeting Barrett, I had learned to keep my distance from these smelly tricksters.
I raised the pistol and centered the sights on his chest.
Pow.
The bullet ripped through his shirt and tore into his sternum in a splat of rotted meat. The impact knocked the hat off his head. The zombie shook and flopped to his back. His heels pawed troughs in the mud and his hands clutched at the wet grass.
Incredibly, he rolled to his knees and retrieved his hat. How unstoppable was he? This H&K could kill a bear.
Exposed ribs flopped hatch-like from his chest. A lump of pulp dropped from the hole. He grabbed the lump and came to his feet. He shoved the lump into the chest cavity and tamped the ribs back into place.
I leveled the sights on his nose. The next shot would blow his head apart like a melon.
The zombie screwed the hat on his head. Mud plopped from the wilted brim. He wiped his belt buckle and shuffled closer as if daring me to shoot again. No problem, I had plenty of bullets for both zombies.
Both zombies?
Where was the other zombie?
This was a diversion.
Stars exploded in my head.
Pain rattled my skull and spine.
My knees buckled.
I rallied and straightened my legs. I pivoted to the left and my gun hunted for the other zombie.
She swung in a blur of arms and legs from an overhead branch. Her boot heels came straight at my face.
I raised my pistol and squeezed off shots in a panicked spasm of self-survival.
More pain thudded across my forehead.
The strength drained from my hips and knees. My legs became jelly. Sharp branches ripped at me while I tumbled.
Tumbled.
Tumbled.
What woke me was the sensation of having a hot iron pressed against my face.
Even with my mind fogged up with pain, I instantly knew what this was.
The morning sun.
My kundalini noir shrank and corkscrewed in terror.
I slapped my hands over my face and curled into a ball. Hot rays prickled my skin. I squinted through my fingers.
The gray light of a rainy dawn broke to the east. A semicircle of yellow light hovered over the horizon, marking the place where the sun would rise.
The morning sun, the great devourer of vampires, was an instant away from roasting me into ash.
I lay in a rocky puddle at the bottom of a shallow ravine. I was surrounded by trash, weeds, and trees. My wet clothes were matted with mud and garbage.
My head swam in pain, but unless I moved…NOW…the next sensation would be cooking alive.
I drew the collar of my coat over my head. I sat up and crawled to the nearest well of shadow.
Sunlight lashed at me. The air burned with microwave intensity.
I splashed through the syrupy mud like a wounded, desperate dog and dove headfirst through the bramble.
I burrowed into a layer of wet dirty leaves. I scooped them over me until I was covered in a paste of leaves and mud. I lay still in the protective coolness while the ravaging sunlight stalked the open ground.
Worms and beetles crawled out from the fetid mud and kept me company by climbing over my face. I cinched my fingers over my nose and kept my eyes clenched tight to keep the visitors out.