The Countertenor Wore Garlic (The Liturgical Mysteries) (12 page)

The zombie-walk moved relentlessly closer and I felt, rather than saw, the people behind us shifting in their queue. A glance over my shoulder confirmed my suspicions. The orderly autograph line had, in a moment, transformed itself into a crush of vampires. A spine-tingling howl came from the throng behind us and cut through the night. I imagined the gnashing of teeth. At least I hoped I was imagining it.

"That's it," I called out to the zombies, still twenty-five feet away. "Time to go home." This admonition had no effect whatsoever.

"I don't guess you want me to shoot one?" said Nancy.

I shook my head.

"Then I guess I'll just knock one of 'em out and see if that stops 'em."

"It won't," said Pete. "There's too many. Most of them won't even see you do it."

I heard the nasty click of a switchblade behind me and to my right.

"Shoot into the air," I told Nancy. "See if that will shake them out of it."

Nancy's Glock had just cleared the holster when the first of the church bell peals rang out across the town. Surprisingly, the zombies all stopped in their tracks and their grunting and growling suddenly ceased. The big bell rang again, a booming sound that echoed through the mountains. The zombies, almost with a single consciousness, slowly lowered their arms and turned 180 degrees to face the church. A third peal, then a fourth. The mob stood transfixed, listening to the bell reverberate in the cold October evening. Five bells, six, seven. Then, without a spoken word, or any sound at all for that matter, the zombie flashmob broke free of its collective mentality and the members began to shuffle off in all directions, save the direction of the bookstore.

We heard scuffling behind us, and when we turned to look, we saw that the aggregation of vampires had again formed itself into a reasonably peaceable autograph queue. I looked for any sign of a knife, but I might as well have been looking for a rosary.

"That was interesting," said Pete. "I don't mind telling you I was a little nervous."

"I don't think the zombies would have eaten you," I said, "but there were a few of the vampires that were spoiling for a fight. Someone would have been hurt."

"Look. Here's Meg," said Nancy. We followed her gaze across the park and saw Meg quickly making her way through the last of the disappearing zombies. "She saved the day."

Meg joined us a moment later, breathless and obviously concerned.

"What happened?" she asked. "We couldn't see. There were too many people."

"It was touch and go," said Pete. "Just the three of us against a vast hoard of flesh-eating zombies that was threatening to tear us limb from limb and use us for a reality show on the Food Network." Pete stepped forward and began to act out his part in the standoff. "I had just pushed Hayden and Nancy behind me," he continued. "'Stay back,' I said. 'I'll take care of these abominations with my bare hands.'"

Nancy laughed.

"Seriously," I said. "Ringing the church bell was genius. How'd you think of that?"

"Well, Moosey was the one who rang the bell," Meg said with a smile. "I sent him to the bell tower when you three lit out across the park."

"But how...?"

"
Night on Bald Mountain
," explained Meg. "The Disney version. Remember? The choir sings
Ave Maria
and the church bell rings and all the ghosts and goblins disappear? I thought it was worth a try."

"Shooting into the air might have done the same thing," said Nancy.

"Maybe," I agreed. "Maybe not. It might have had the opposite effect and started a panic. I'm glad we didn't have to do it."

"Me, too," said Nancy.

Suddenly a gunshot echoed through the park, far off, but not so far as to be considered inconsequential.

"Shotgun," said Nancy, looking around. "Twenty gauge. Kid's gun." The first pop was followed by another.

"Two, three blocks away maybe," said Nancy.

"Oak Street?" I said.

"I think so," said Nancy.

"Let's go," I said. I pulled Meg close and kissed her. "You wait here."

***

It was easy to find the source of the shotgun blasts. Two blocks from the downtown square, the corner house was lit up like a Christmas display. There was a body lying face down on the porch. A zombie. Two companion zombies stood in the road, quite a distance from the door of the house, now zombies in costume only. They'd dropped their undead act in deference to their fallen comrade.

"I just called 911," said the taller of the zombies as Nancy and I ran up. "They're sending an ambulance."

Nancy ran up to the prone body. I stayed to get the story from the zombies.

"That crazy old lady shot Kevin," said the other zombie, the short, squatty one. He pointed toward the front door of Amelia Godshaw's house.

"Are you kids from the church?"

"Nah," said the tall one. "We're Lambda Chis from over at Appalachian State. We heard about the zombie-walk and just thought we'd scare some of the townies."

"Smart," I said.

"He'll be okay," called Nancy. "He just got shot in the butt with some rock-salt."

I turned my attention back to the zombies. A congregation of curious onlookers was gathering in the street, trick-or-treaters and adults. "So what happened?" I asked.

"We were following some little kids," Squatty said. "We saw some other zombies doing the same thing."

"They were from the church," I said.

"Yeah, that's what they said when we asked 'em," said the tall one. "They gave me some pamphlet or something. Invited me to church."

"Then what?" I asked. I heard banging and looked over to see Nancy pounding on the front door of the house.

"We were walking down the street and we saw some kids get some candy from that old lady. Then she closed the door and the lights went out."

"We knocked on the door," said Squatty. "She opens it, points a shotgun at us, and blasts Kevin when we were hightailing it down the steps."

"That's it?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "That's it." Tall zombie nodded his agreement.

Nancy was up on the porch talking with Amelia. Hannah and Grace huddled in the doorway. I watched Amelia disappear inside, then reappear and hand a shotgun to Nancy. Then the three women went back inside and closed the door behind them. Nancy looked down at Kevin, now beginning to squirm in pain, and shook her head. She stepped over the victim and came down the front steps toward the three of us.

"Amelia says they were inside watching a movie and they heard scratching at the windows."

I looked at the two fraternity brothers.

"The three of them were watching
Night of the Living Dead
on the SyFy channel," Nancy continued. "They heard scratching and when Hannah looks outside she sees these three idiots making faces through the glass. Scared her half to death. Then the zombies started banging on the front door."

"Their word against ours," said Squatty.

Nancy turned to the onlookers and, in the time-honored police tradition, said, "Move along, nothing to see here." Some of the onlookers decided that she was probably right and since there was going to be no police action to speak of, began to leave in order to get back to their governmentally sanctioned looting. Others, probably hopeful of another shooting, or at least an arrest, stuck around.

"I guess we can go check for footprints around the side of the house," I said to Nancy. "See if they're telling the truth."

"Okay, okay," said the tall zombie. "We tried to scare the old lady. No law against that. Especially on Halloween."

"Nope," I said. "No law against protecting yourself with a shotgun, either. In North Carolina, a person is allowed to act with deadly force to prevent an intruder from entering the home if he or she believes the intruder will kill or injure him. You were banging on the door. These women were, in all probability, in fear for their lives."

"From
zombies?
" said the tall one.

"From whoever."

"You're not going to make an arrest?" said Squatty incredulously.

"Can't see it," I said. "No jury would convict her."

Kevin had gotten to his feet and was limping painfully down the steps of the porch.

"You might as well wait for the ambulance," said Nancy. "It's on the way."

"I'm all right, I think," said Kevin. "Just stings like hell."

"I guess it does," I said.

"These hayseed cops," said Squatty, "aren't going to arrest the old lady."

Nancy bristled. I shrugged and said, "I guess we could charge all three of you with trespassing, but other than that, there's not much of a case to be made."

"I'm gonna sue that old bat," said Kevin. "I'm prelaw. I know my rights."

Nancy held up her cell phone and snapped a picture of the three students. They'd done their work well and looked absolutely awful: fake teeth, scars, detached eyeballs, flesh drooping and sloughing away from their skulls. Altogether unpleasant and terrifying. "Don't forget to get some good pictures of your butt," she said. "The jury's gonna want to see those as well as these."

The rest of the crowd dispersed and we watched as the two uninjured zombies tried to help Kevin to their car on the other side of the street. He angrily shook them off.

Nancy showed me the gun. "Twenty gauge like we thought," she said. "Half a birdshot load of salt shot through the screen door. I'm surprised it got through his jeans to his rear end."

"Scared 'em more than anything," I said. "Even so, if Amelia gets sued, it's not because she doesn't deserve it. She could have killed someone."

"Well, I have the shotgun and they're not getting it back," said Nancy. "I told all three of them that it was evidence in a possible murder attempt and that we'd be in touch concerning the indictment. I think they're all rattled enough to keep their firearms under wraps for a while."

"Well done, Lieutenant Parsky. A good night all around. Call the ambulance and cancel the run, will you?"

"Hayseed cops, eh?" said Nancy, already dialing. "I wonder if those party boys might be speeding on the way back to Boone and whether they've had anything to drink this evening or maybe have any contraband pot in their car?"

"All fair questions," I said, "and ones that only a hayseed can answer."

Chapter 8

I went back into town, filled Meg in on the excitement, and we spent the next couple of hours hanging around the square, watching the number of trick-or-treaters, as well as the line in front of Eden Books, slowly diminish. Nancy, presumably, got in her car and took the short cut toward Fraternity Row. When things were back to normal, Meg and I climbed into the old truck and made our way back home. We were greeted happily by Baxter, sitting patiently on the front porch. He nosed his way into the house as soon as Meg unlocked the front door, then skidded across the hardwood floors in his headlong dash for the kitchen.

"You think he might be hungry?" Meg laughed, as Baxter's tail disappeared from view. "That was quite an evening. How about pork chops for supper?"

"Sounds great. I'll put on some music."

"More of that spooky stuff?"

"Nope. James Taylor."

"Hmm. Very romantic. You hoping to get lucky later?"

"Why, yes," I replied. "Yes, I am." I settled into my writing chair, plopped Raymond Chandler's hat on my head, and chomped on a cigar. "I expect that my literary efforts will also have some aphrodisiacal qualities."

"Keep thinking that," said Meg. "You'll have to grill the chops. I'll fix the couscous and some vegetables. Give me about half an hour."

"I'll put them on in fifteen minutes," I said, limbering up my fingers. "The muse is about to strike."

"Who's this mug?" I asked when Pedro showed up at our table with a yegg wearing a tuxedo and a cape and preening like a CNN reporter with a fresh eyebrow wax. I snorked the last of my Stinksteifel, chased it down with a Bavarian creme-filled pretzel, then whistled for a waitress using an obscure 16th century fugue subject: a Fux reference in the third species that I knew would tickle the ear of any professional hostess in the place. It worked.