Deader Still (26 page)

Behind Mina, the zombies continued to pound on the glass of the door, smudges of blood and grime streaking the apparently shatterproof glass. Only her continued weight against it kept them from pushing their way in. Mina rolled her eyes, but didn’t lower the gun.

“Oh,
please
,” she said. “You think you could keep something like that secret? Now use your damn power and open the door.”

The zombies struggling behind her gave the whole scene a surreal aquarium effect.

“Just touch the lock,” she continued. “Read the entry code off the last person who used it.”

Whoa,
I thought. That was far more articulate a summary of how my powers worked than I would have expected out of her. Something didn’t quite seem right about that, but there was no time to think about it with her shoving a gun in my face and giving me orders.

“Yeah, about that …” I said. “Thing is, I don’t really have those powers at my disposal right now.”

“Yeah, right,” Mina said, and cocked the gun. “Just hurry up. Do you want to be stuck here when the guards come back through?”

“I’m serious,” I shouted. “There were these gypsies …”

Mina wasn’t buying any of it, despite the fact that I was telling the truth.

“If you had been stalking me properly,” I continued, “you’d know that. They cursed me. My powers don’t work.”

“Sucks for you,” she said, her finger ready on the trigger. The door behind her pushed in just enough for one of the zombies to wiggle its hand in through the opening. To my relief, she uncocked the gun, slid it into her waist, and pushed back on the door with all her might. I ran up to her side to help, and the door slammed shut underneath our combined weight, but not before several rotting fingers snapped off of the hand and fell to the floor. The smell coming from them was putrid, but the severed fingers continued to move, rolling back and forth on the floor of the foyer.

“You shoot me,” I said, “and then you’re just stuck in this little glass box with a bunch of zombies pouring in on top of you.”

“Then it’s really in our best interest that you get that second lock open, isn’t it?” she said, some of the venom gone from her voice. Mina was scared. One of the fingers rolled onto her shoe and, with a nervous jump, she flicked it away.

“You’ve got the door by yourself?” I asked. Mina nodded. I turned and looked into the actual lobby, on the other side of the glass doors, with its large, gray tiles on the floor, its open atrium, and the tiny squares of color all over the wall. It looked like freedom and I wanted it bad.

I changed my focus to the lock that kept me from all that. There was a screen at the top of it and it prompted me for a five digit pass code. I wrapped both my hands around it. I braced myself, hopeful for something to happen … anything.

“Well?” Mina shouted over the low moaning coming through the glass.

I kept my hands firm on the lock, but it was no use. “Nothing.”

I turned to face her. Maybe there was a way to get my psychometry back. Stress had always been a trigger back when I couldn’t control it, so maybe …

“I have an idea,” I said. “Pistol-whip me.”

Mina turned from looking out the door. “I’m sorry,
what
?”

“Just do it.”

“Simon, are you crazy? I’m not going to pistol-whip you.”

“A second ago you were willing to shoot me,” I spat out.

She shook her head and sighed. “I wouldn’t have really shot you.”

“Looked like it to me,” I said, moving closer to the door she held shut. I reached for its handle. “Now, pistol-whip me or I’m going to pull this door open and let the undead have their merry way with us.”

Mina started to argue, but gave up when she saw how dead serious I was. “This is the Simon I remember,” she said with a smile. “Reckless and steeped in crazy. You realize it’s a fine line in pistol-whipping between rendering you unconscious and killing you, right?”

I hadn’t really thought of that. Pistol-whipping just seemed like one of those great movie clichés to try.

“I suppose irreversible brain damage might not be worth the risk. Fine. Just hit me like you mean it.”

“No problem there,” Mina said, and pulled back her arm. She let fly with a right hook, catching me upside the head. I stumbled back, stunned and a bit shocked at how jarring the blow was.

“Again,” I mumbled.

“Again, no problem,” Mina said. There was a perverse anger on her face now, and my ire was rising as well. She drew back, this time missing my face and punching me in the shoulder while still keeping the door secure.

The blow spun me around and I was once again facing the lock. I reached for it.

“Agai—” I started, but I felt a sudden sharp pain in my ass as Mina drove her foot into it. I fell forward into the glass from the kick’s impact, clutching onto the lock itself to keep my face from smashing into it. Mina was in pure vengeance mode, and all my years of repressed anger toward her flooded my mind. Female or not, I wanted nothing more than to get up off the floor of the foyer and take a swing back at her, but all these emotions overwhelmed me like I had been hoping they would. I felt the tiniest electric spark of my powers returning, building until it washed over me. I could only hope that by the time I came out of this fresh vision, Mina wouldn’t have beaten me to death by accident.

As I expected, the life of an electronic locking system wasn’t an exciting one, but it certainly got a lot of action. Multiple flashes filled my head—fingers, chubby, wrinkly, young, old, keyed their pass codes into the system. Each of their IDs was different, but the numbers were flying by so fast I couldn’t make out any single code. I slowed the psychometric vision as best as I could, like I was watching it on replay. A harsh-faced woman with an armful of books paused by the electronic lock and keyed her code: 24601.

When I pulled from the vision, I found myself passed out on the floor of the little lobby, and the first thing I noticed was how sore my ass was. The second thing I noticed was a tickling sensation by my nose, accompanied by a wretched smell. I tilted my head, only to see one of the severed zombie fingers wiggling far too close to my mouth for my liking. I shot up to a sitting position, the pain in my ass screaming now, and I found myself shaking with low blood sugar. I hadn’t expected the return of my powers, but there was half of a lint-covered roll of Life Savers in my coat pocket, and I crunched them down as I went to stand up again.

Three arms were poking in through the door now as Mina struggled to keep the rest of them from coming in as well.

“Jesus, my ass,” I said.

“Sorry,” Mina said. “Got a little carried away there with the kicking. Didn’t realize you were out for the count.”

“Enough of this shit,” I said, batting the one zombie arm away. “Time to go.”

I ran to the lock and pressed in 24601. Tomorrow, the security people might wonder why their favorite scholar’s code was being used this late at night, but I was more concerned with the guards patrolling the museum right now. If we didn’t get the hell out of the vestibule before their return, our choices would be fighting them or fighting the zombies. Probably both.

The light went green with a pleasant beep, and the magnetic lock clicked. I pushed the door open all the way. Mina was still concentrating on holding the outer door shut against the zombies and wasn’t aware of what I had done at all.

“Mina! Let’s go.”

She craned her head around and her eyes lit up. When she saw me inside the museum, she slammed the glass door on the zombie arms once more, eliciting a bone-cracking crunch, then ran toward where I stood just inside the main lobby. As she ran past, she grabbed me by the arm and started dragging me with her.

“No,” I shouted, pulling free. I had wanted to shut the inside door against the zombies, who were already stumbling over one another as they streamed into the foyer. I ran back toward the door, but there was no way I was going to get to it before they entered the museum. I looked back over my shoulder. Mina stood there watching me, dumbfounded.

“Go,” I said, raising my bat and turning back toward the oncoming zombies. “Do what you came here for. They won’t bother you. They’re after me.”

Mina hesitated for a couple more seconds, then ran up a set of white stairs leading to the next level. Now that she was out of the way, things would be much easier. Zombies in small numbers were easy to outrun, and if I led them off into the museum away from her, I should have no trouble playing keep-away. And there was always the bat to fall back on. If I got lucky, I’d be able to pick them off one by one. I had never dealt with zombies all by myself, but I really couldn’t call in the D.E.A. to help me with this one. I
was
in the middle of a crime, after all.

I started backing off in the opposite direction from the one Mina had gone, jumping onto one of the dark wooden blocks of a bench … only to watch the entire pack of zombies start shuffling off toward the white stairs instead.

“What the hell … ? Hey! Dicks! Over here!”

I leapt off the bench and crept to the edge of their pack, my bat choked and ready for action. Not a one of the monsters swiped at me. I poked my bat at one of them. It pushed the bat away, but ignored me and my juicy, juicy brains.

They continued toward the stairs. Definitely going after Mina.

“Crap on toast!” I said, and ran ahead of the pack. I took the stairs two at a time. The next floor had even less light than the main floor, but was lit in dim little pools here and there. I spun around, looking for signs pointing to the traveling exhibition that held
The Scream
. I couldn’t read anything in the dark, but I did see a pool of light move across the wall off to my left and I ran toward it as quietly as I could. I didn’t want to run up too boldly thinking it was Mina, only to startle a guard.

I stopped at the arch near where the light had come from and peeked in. Mina stood there in front of
The Scream
, the lone figure in it looking horrified that it was being stolen for the umpteenth time. Jane finished unfolding a painting-shaped soft case from the bag she had brought with her. She then pulled out pieces of an adjustable frame and started assembling them.

“You want to speed this up?” I whispered.

Mina jumped.

“What are you doing up here?” she said. “I thought you were going to take care of your friends.”

I shook my head.

“Apparently, they’re not
my
friends; they’re
yours
.”

“What?” She stopped what she was doing and turned to me.

“Seems like I’m not the only one around here with major secrets. You been pissing off the wrong people, Mina?”

She wouldn’t respond, and turned back to her now-assembled frame, which was roughly the size of
The Scream.
“Shit.”

“You didn’t just figure out I had psychometry all on your own, did you?” I said. Mina remained silent. “Because normal people don’t have zombies coming after them, do they, Mina? You want to explain just what it is that you’re into here?”

“Nope,” she said, and continued working. She started attaching tiny blocks of weight to the interior of the frame she had just assembled.

Low moans came from one of the other rooms. The zombies were no longer downstairs. Contrary to popular culture, zombies weren’t stair-challenged.

“Fine,” I said. “It’s not going to matter once they shamble their way over here.”

“Quiet. I’ve got to counterweight this for the switch out,” Mina said. “I’m going with forty-five pounds, more or less.”

“Are you even listening to me?” I hissed. “They’re coming.”

Mina looked at me, her eyes calm and her voice evening out.

“So deal with it,” she said. “Listen, this next part has got to be pretty precise, and if they ruin it for me, we’re both going to get caught.”

I turned away from her and stormed off toward the zombies. I was going to have to be creative if I was going to stall or beat down an entire pack by myself without disturbing any of the art or setting off alarms. I prayed that some of my new training with the Fraternal Order of Goodness would be of use.

The zombies had all but ignored me before, but I was pretty sure that if I stood between them and their target, they’d try to rip me apart. Still, I couldn’t just wait for it. I’d have to dodge them and play to the fact that I was faster, despite being outnumbered. Stalling them until I could thin their numbers was my best chance for survival.

I backed myself just to the left of the arch leading into the room that Mina and I occupied. I could make a stand against the first few before they tried to converge on Mina. I counted heads. Six of them, one sans fingers. All of them had made it up the stairs. Damn.