DeadBorn (18 page)

“
Well, we've got to try something,” Valerie says as she takes another shot at the ooze spitter. It doesn't react, not at all. It just stands there and watches us, obviously quite a bit more intelligent than any of the other DeadBorn we've seen thus far. That makes it scarier. That makes it
deadly.

“
Experimenting with that thing will just get you fucked,” Dawson says as he sighs and tosses a look over his shoulder at me. His almond eyes are pinched and tired and the skin around his face looks paper thin. I don't think he can take much more of this. “Let's just keep doing what we've been doing. If it wants to sit there, let it.”

“
No,” Valerie says firmly. “We can't stay inside forever. Eventually, we're going to need to go out. Do you want that thing waiting for you on the other side of the door?”

“
Maybe it'll go away?” Dawson says, but it sounds more like a plea than a question. Valerie turns her head and I can see that she's sorry he has to go through this, but that she's determined to protect him. The two sentiments are at odds with one another, so she takes the practical route and tells him the honest truth.

“
That's even worse. If it goes away and hides then we'll never know if we're safe.” Valerie turns back to the ooze spitter. “Let's get it while we can.”

“
Hell yes,” Holly says and the two women actually smile at each other. “Should I go down there?”

“
No!” I'm shouting the word without even realizing that I've opened my mouth. Holly looks back at me and her smile softens. I want to tell her that she looks so brave and strong standing there with the blue sky framing her slender body, blonde hair blowing gently around her face. She looks like a guardian angel sent from Heaven to protect me from the demons of Hell. She also looks like she's already made up her mind, and I know beyond a doubt that she'll do what she wants to do.

“
I'm safe from Patricia's DeadBorn at least, so it makes sense for me to go. That way, I only have to worry about the demons.” Valerie's nodding and rubbing her chin in thought.

“
I've got a guess, but of course, there's no guarantees.” Holly's already nodding in agreement. Whatever suggestion Valerie has, she'll do, as long as it's reasonable. That's just the way Holly is. “I know the damn things don't die when you tear 'em apart, but what if we, say, blew off their fucking legs? Can't walk with no legs.” Holly snaps her fingers and the ooze spitter's rancid, swamp green eyes swing over to her face and rest there. It makes me want to break the damn thing's head off its shoulders.
Don't you dare look at my Holly like that, like she's some kind of insect, a fly for you to crush.
I close my eyes and let the anger ride through me until I'm calm again.

“
If we do that, it'll have limited mobility. Then we could get rid of its arms, maybe its head, until it's practically helpless. That way, we could experiment on it until we find a way to get rid of it like we did the … ” Valerie pauses and I fill in the word for her.

“
Fire faces.”

“
Right.”

Everyone is silent while Holly thinks. When a grin spreads across her face, I know that she thinks it's a good idea. For a moment, I'm relieved because I think that means she'll be staying on the roof.

“
But it's either got to come closer or we've got to go down there because the shotgun's only going to be effective at about forty yards.” I look over at the ooze spitter, sitting pretty across the vast parking lot which is big and round, made for buses and RVs as well as cars. The DeadBorn's on the opposite side, maybe a hundred yards away from us. Shit. I look up at Holly and see that she's thinking about her game plan.

“
I'm a good shot,” she tells Valerie without any sense of shame. “If I go down there, and it comes at me, I shouldn't have any problem hitting it. I'll take a couple of extra shells, too, just in case.” Valerie nods and just like that, Holly's loading up the pockets of her borrowed sweatshirt with ammo.

“
I'll be ready,” Valerie says. “If something happens, try to stay out of the line of fire, okay?”

“
Got it,” Holly says as she comes over and kisses me gently on the lips. I reach around her neck with my right arm, careful to keep the left still and whisper into her ear.

“
I love you and be careful,” I tell her while tears sting my eyes and I feel like the world's biggest wimp. I should be going down there, not her. But she's right. She always is and so I don't even suggest it. I'm injured – well, that's up for debate, but at the very least, I can't use my left arm – and I know almost nothing about guns. Plus, I'm susceptible to all of the DeadBorn while Holly isn't. She's the most logical choice, the only choice.

“
I love you, too,” she replies as she stands up and loads the shotgun. “And I always will.”

***

Thirty-Eight Hours and Four Minutes After …

Holly disappears into the building with the keys in hand and I hold my breath until I hear the front door open. There's always a chance that a zombie could be around any corner. Those nasty unborn children seem to pop up everywhere, and even though we haven't been attacked by one yet, that doesn't mean it could never happen.

Even though I'm not feeling a hundred percent, I stand up and walk carefully to the edge of the roof for a better view, making sure that I stay behind Dawson and Valerie in case something happens. If they had to fire and I was in their way, something horrible could happen to Holly. The nightmares I've had about being melted come flashing back, and I have to fight my brain to keep from imagining Holly's face putrefying under the spitter's goo.

The damn thing is hunched over now, nostrils flaring as it takes in Holly's scent on the wind. It whimpers a bit under its breath as she comes forward in a jog. No sense in wasting any time, that's my Holly. I bite my tongue to keep from calling out to her. If I did, she'd turn back right away to see if something was wrong. I promise myself that I'll be extra quiet for her.

“
Hey you,” Holly says as she tries to get the stupid thing to stand up. The way it's bent over right now makes it hard to shoot. Holly could hit it in the midsection or possibly the head, but it could still run and that's exactly what we're trying to avoid. The ooze spitter squalls and lets yellow-green acid dribble down its mouth where it hits the pavement and sizzles like it's on a frying pan. “Yeah, you, you fucking bitch.” I doubt the DeadBorn understands English, but something in Holly's voice seems to make it angry. It snarls and shakes its head. Pustules and boils burst on its skin and leak blood and an orange fluid that I've never seen before. It's a fucking nightmare on legs and Holly's walking even closer, spine stiff, gun held up to her shoulder like it's no big thing. “Come and get me, you monstrous sack of shit.”

The ooze spitter rises to its feet and towers over Holly, casting the ugliest shadow I've ever seen across her face while the dying sun frames its body and limns it with a beautiful pinkish glow that it doesn't deserve. When it starts to run, I close my eyes involuntarily, squeeze them as tight as I can until I hear a gunshot.

“
Move to the left!” Valerie screeches and my eyes fly open just in time to see Holly take a dive on the pavement and roll towards a row of empty parking spaces. Valerie fires her gun in time with Dawson and two shots hit the DeadBorn's left hip. It's a meaty mass of dangling, rotten flesh that flaps when the monster runs, but it doesn't slow it down. It's still after Holly.

She rises to her feet faster than I would've thought possible, levels the shotgun and fires. Shot peppers the creature's flesh and I think I can even see bone showing through on its thigh, but still, it's not enough. The ooze spitter howls in either agony or rage and barrels towards Holly with such single minded purpose that before I know it, I'm grabbing a baseball bat and a gun and running towards the window that leads into the building. Neither Dawson nor Valerie notices because they're too busy taking shots of their own, trying to help Holly from afar. But none of it's working. If I don't get down there now, she could die.

At first, my intention is just to get her into the building, but when I open the door and see that Holly has just slipped in some gravel outside the parking lot, my mind goes blank and I'm running at full speed shouting something incoherent into the quiet, refuge air. The ooze spitter doesn't look at me, just keeps going for Holly, making hacking noises in its throat like a cat with a hairball. After it does this a few times, it spews acid across the dirt and even manages to splash some on the sole of Holly's sneaker. She screams and stumbles to her feet, limping and trying to pull the shoe off as she goes. It's slowing her down substantially, making the gun wobble uselessly as it dangles from her right hand.

I pick up speed, imagining as I go that I'm on the field with Holly and the Garcia sisters again, heading for a home run, for that last final push that will give us the game. Holly would be so proud, I know, and so I push that hard and lose myself in the pounding of my feet across the pavement.

The gunshots from above stop and soon Valerie and Dawson are yelling things at my back, incoherent sentences, bits of murmured babble that blend into nothing.

I have to save Holly. That's all that matters.

My left arms pulsates, squeezes tight with energy and rage. I don't know if it's feeding off of me or Patricia's magic or what, but it soon pulls free of the makeshift sling, shedding bits of torn T-shirt behind it like a mummy's wraps.

“
Holly!” I scream and manage to grab the ooze spitter's attention. As it starts to spin towards me, I bolt past it, drop the baseball bat, and grab at its exposed thigh bone with my left hand. It crushes easily beneath my fingers, like it's nothing but dust, and I keep running, bringing it along with me as the DeadBorn crashes to the pavement on its back. I stumble into the gravel beside Holly who's now standing with one holey sock and one shoe, shotgun aimed at the flailing monster. She fires twice and reloads while I gasp for breath and try to control my arm.

An
entire
leg is gripped in my hand, kicking and stirring up dust that stings my eyes. I should be concerned with the body that goes with it, but I know that Holly won't let anything happen to me. I focus on trying to relax my grip so that I can drop the putrid thing to the ground. My arm doesn't want to seem to budge though and I struggle with it for several minutes as warm bits splatter my back and the smell of massacred corpse stings my nostrils.

“
Galen?” Holly asks finally and I look up to see that she's focused only on me now and not the DeadBorn. When I glance behind me, I see that between the three of them, they've shot it to pieces. It's still moving and making strange, guttural, sputtering noises, but it isn't getting up.

“
Help me,” I whisper as the leg tenses and tries to use its heel to push against the ground and shove me to my feet. I have no trouble holding it there which is weird enough, but although I can feel the sensation of the mangled body part in my hand, I can't let it go. I no longer have control over my own limb.

Holly stares for a long moment and doesn't ask any questions, just bends down, grabs my wrist and pushes her fingers into my flesh. Warmth travels up my arm and pools in my belly, relaxing all of my muscles, not just the ones in the dead arm. After a long, drawn out moment of this, my fingers release, shocked by an electrical impulse that's radiating from Holly's skin, and the leg falls to the ground.

“
What the hell?” I ask as she raises her gun, centers it on the knee cap of the bouncing bit and fires. She doesn't answer me for awhile and just stands there with her eyes kind of glassy and her lips pursed. Then I remember her foot and think that she might be hurt, or turned, or whatever happens when a spitter finally gets you with its ooze. “Holly, let me see,” I say as I turn around, left arm flopping uselessly by my side. When I reach out for her, she takes a step back and looks away. There's a tiny smile fluttering around her lips, but her brow is pinched and unhappy.

“
Thanks for riding to the rescue,” she says and I want to kiss her so bad it hurts.

“
Are you okay?” I ask, gesturing at her shoeless foot. She lifts it up for my inspection and I can see that there's no injury there. Holly got lucky.

“
If by
okay
, you mean
necromancer
then yeah, I'm okay.”

I stare at her for a long moment and try to ignore Valerie and Dawson shouting in the background. They're telling us to come back, but we're not ready. We need this time alone. Neither of us responds.

“
You're a necromancer?” I ask and Holly nods her head slowly as if she's just realized this herself and it hasn't sunk in yet. She nibbles her lip for a moment and tucks some hair behind her ear.

“
I think so,” she says and sounds sad about it. I reach out to hug her when my arm clenches violently and starts to twitch. It's actually pretty painful, like I'm having a muscle spasm or something. Holly looks at it and then reaches forward, tangling her fingers with mine. As soon as she touches me, the pain dissipates and leaves nothing but the pleasant touch of her hand. “Can you control it now?” she asks me and I squeeze her hand gently in response.

“
I can, thanks,” I say as a bit of black and silver light travels down her arm and up mine.

Yep, Holly is definitely a necromancer, and I'm definitely a zombie.

CHAPTER 16

Proximate

Forty Hours After …

“
Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn't blow off your goddamn head!” Dawson screams as he points a pistol at my face. Holly points hers at his and he backs off, but he isn't happy. Valerie isn't either, but she's mad at him, not us.