The Down Home Zombie Blues (4 page)

“Recommendation noted, Lieutenant. You both have a care too. See you back on board.”

Theo plopped the laptop on the Crown Vic’s threadbare front seat, turned the key in the ignition, then reached for his container of coffee on the dash. The sedan’s back tire clipped the curb as he pulled away, jostling his hand, and he spilled lukewarm coffee down the front of his shirt and on his right pants leg.

Oh, hell. He gripped the wheel as he pulled up to the stop sign, aware of the damp sensation on his skin and the sickly sweet smell of stale coffee. He wasn’t that far from his house. He could kill two birds with one stone if he took five, ten minutes to stop there, change his clothes, and pick up the portable sound system that Lieutenant Stevens wanted to borrow. He could drop the laptop and the sound system off, sleep late tomorrow.

Sounded good.

He tapped his blinker and turned left.

They definitely didn’t navigate very well on this world, but fortunately ground traffic was sparse as Jorie followed the man in his vehicle. She’d worked enough surveillance to know how to keep her quarry in her sights and yet stay out of his. Her scanner on the seat beside her—functioning properly now that she was out of the dead zone around Danjay’s structure—tracked Danjay’s T-MOD and would alert her to any sudden departures from his current heading.

At the eight-minute mark, he turned again. Two minutes after that, he slowed considerably. So did she, dropping back under the cover of darkness, her vehicle’s running lights extinguished. This was a locale of small structures, most likely personal residences, many adorned with small colored lights. His wasn’t, she noted as she cruised past. The aft end of his land vehicle was just visible around the back corner of his structure.

The narrow road curved around a small park intermittently bordered by a low wooden fence. She guided her land vehicle onto a grassy area, disengaged the power pack, and tucked her scanner into place in her utility belt. Her rifle was on the floor. She looped the strap over her head, flipped her oc-set in place, and, hugging the shadows, trotted back toward his residence.

The night air tickled her bare arms and legs like a flirtatious lover, alternately warm then cool. The foliage scraping her skin had a strong yet pleasant scent. It reminded her of Paroo, whose tropical islands were renowned for huge blossoming trees and sweet sand beaches. She’d been there with Lorik. An error she didn’t intend to repeat.

If Lorik had been the one in possession of the T-MOD, she might well have let the zombie get him first, clamping its serrated jaws over Lorik’s fine-featured dark face, chewing on Lorik’s pale hair—which at one time had reminded her of the color of starlight—as it sucked the life essence from Lorik’s damned brilliant mind. Then she’d retrieve the unit. The thought momentarily cheered her. Other than Danjay’s death, things had been going well on this mission until the critical Guardian tracking equipment was separated. Now they were losing precious time. The herd had to be moving, or else Danjay would still be alive. That was his second mistake, after not keeping scrupulous watch on his shields. A herd moved because the craving set in. And the youngest, being on the outside of the hierarchy, moved first, taking individual kills, creating scent trails, drawing the mature herd drones and eventually the powerful C-Prime—the controller of the herd—to them.

A good tracker could almost instinctually feel when the craving started to build. In her thirty-two active hunts, she’d never failed to spot the first signs of a craving.

Danjay may have failed, but his data would not. Jorie skirted along a high hedge in a half crouch. She was at the residence and cover was slim. She glanced down again at the scanner secured to her belt. Shields at max. No intruders. And the T-MOD…

In the structure? No, still in the land vehicle, according to her scanner. Bliss luck! She wouldn’t have to wait for the man to fall asleep and risk waking him as she appropriated the unit. She didn’t want to hurt a defenseless nil. She wasn’t sure what stun setting on her G-1 would be effective with the least amount of soft-tissue damage on this type of humanoid.

She squatted down, listening to the world’s odd night sounds—shrill chirps and resonant grumps—as she organized the items in the small pods on her utility belt. A standard desensitizer for any security systems the vehicle might have, then a wide-range sonic lockbreaker like Trenat had used to appropriate their vehicle. She didn’t know if she had the young ensign’s delicate touch—she decided she would file a nice report on him when she got back to the ship—but she’d get inside. She always did.

With one last glance at her scanner, she rose.

And froze.

Light stabbed the green expanse before her.

Biting back curses, she flattened herself on the ground. The rear door of the residence swung open. The man stepped out in the bright glow of a small overhead illuminator. He no longer wore the jacket he had earlier but was clad in a gray short-sleeve shirt and lighter blue pants. A long black box—not the T-MOD—was tucked under one arm, with two small square boxes nestled in the other. His grip on the smaller boxes wasn’t as secure. They jiggled as he plodded toward the vehicle.

He hesitated at the pilot’s door, then, evidently changing his mind, he moved toward the vehicle’s front end.

Damn! Damn! If he turned even the slightest bit, he might see her under the shrubbery. Her gaze glued to his movements, she levered herself up mere minmeters on one arm and slowly plucked one of her lasers from its holster. If he spotted her, she’d have to stun him. She had no choice.

His attention, however, seemed to be on the vehicle’s interior. She had a sinking feeling that she knew what he was looking for. Danjay’s T-MOD. The boxes he carried must be some kind of decoder.

He put the smaller boxes on the vehicle’s roof, touched something to the side of the door, then a moment later pulled it open. The grinding, creaking noise it made sounded like a barrage of strafer cannons to her ears. The doors on her land vehicle didn’t sound at all like that. Was this some kind of auditory security measure?

The rear cargo door of the vehicle suddenly flew open. But no weapons turrets protruded, nothing lethal emerged. She slowly let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and watched him transfer the small black boxes to the rear cargo area. The long box went in too. She was considering how to take him from behind when—damn! damn!—he stepped back to the door on the navigator’s side, bent over, and came out with the T-MOD in his grasp.

There it was. She had to take possession of it now. It shouldn’t be difficult. He was a nil, a civilian. She was an expertly trained military commander with the element of surprise.

She rose in one smooth, swift, practiced movement.

And her scanner screeched out an intruder alert.

Zombie.

So much for keeping a low profile.

“Run!” Jorie screamed at him, her heart pounding in her throat as she tabbed the laser in her right hand up to hard-terminate. “Run!”

She grabbed her other laser and barreled across the lawn. “Drop the T-MOD! Run!” A sickly green glow formed in the night gloom off to her left. She laced the spot with both her lasers, aware that the stupid nil was still standing there, T-MOD in his hands, staring at the expanding portal.

Just as she reached him, the green cloud erupted into hard form maybe two maxmeters away, about level with the top of the high hedge. Its diameter was small. Bliss luck, she’d done some damage but she hadn’t stopped it. Yet. She fired off three more bursts, then swung around to face the nil, bringing her micro-rifle across her chest as she did. “Drop the unit, damn you!” Her breath came in hard gasps. “That’s a zombie. It’ll kill you!”

The man stared down at her. And then Jorie remembered: the entire universe did not speak Alarsh.

But that was the least of her problems. The zombie had arrived.

She swung back as it slithered like molten green liquid out of the hole in the night sky. The man behind her uttered something guttural. She could feel his breath against her hair, could feel the hard tension of his body against her back.

“What in hell is that?” she heard him rasp—in passable Vekran—as the zombie snapped into solidification. Its serrated jaws gleamed in the moonlight and its three sunken opticals pulsed red, strafing the darkness in all directions. Four clawed appendages, long and multijointed, clicked. Energyworms undulated and writhed over its tall, angular body.

“Zombie,” she said, her breath still harsh. She shoved her pistols back into the holsters and whipped her Hazer micro-rifle forward. “Okay, big boy. Now we play rough.”

She fired as it lunged for them, the rifle’s energy almost blinding as it crashed against the void substance of the energyworms. She squinted her left eye closed, viewed everything through the filtered ocular on her right.

The zombie howled, slashing at her with its upper claws. But it stopped advancing.

Swinging the rifle down, she strafed its legs with a blast. The grass around it immediately blackened. The zombie tottered for a moment. She aimed for its topmost eye, but missed as it jerked sideways. “Damn!”

It lashed out with its lower right arm. She caught the movement almost too late. “Down!” she screamed in Vekran. She dropped to her knees, prayed the man behind her understood and copied her movement.

The zombie’s long arm snaked out, ripping through the roof of the land vehicle, sending jagged metal hurtling across the lawn. Damn, this one had extenders. She hadn’t seen that mutation in a long time. She’d have to adjust her attack, especially as neither Herryck nor Trenat was there to help create a diversion or watch after the nil.

The nil. Another worry. The vehicle behind her was still shuddering, clanking from the contact. “You alive, nil?” she shouted over the noise.

“Yes!”

“When I say run, you run. Understand?”

“No, wait!” He spoke quickly.

She couldn’t follow his strange version of Vekran, couldn’t catch all the words. She fired another blast at the zombie. “I do not understand all you say. Listen to me. I say run, we run.”

“No. Gun! Give me a gun!”

“Gun?”

He slapped at the pistol on her right side. He wanted the G-1. He wanted to help.

Could he? She popped off two more blasts, quickly cradled the rifle in the crook of her arm, and yanked her pistol out. A G-1 was easy to operate. A nil should be able to do it. She shoved it into his large hand, closed hers around his as best she could, aimed, and pressed his thumb against the activator. A steam of laser fire streaked down the zombie’s side. “Yes?” she asked, praying her quick lesson was sufficient and he didn’t shoot himself in the foot.

Or her in the back.

“Yes!” His mouth curled into an oddly attractive, feral grin.

Damn, she liked that. She grinned back. “Good! Kill!” She lifted her rifle, sighted, and fired, and hoped he mimicked her movements.

He fired in a line next to her.
Good nil!

“Legs!” She told him, aiming for the same. “Opticals!” She raised her rifle and, this time, took one optical out.

His laser fell silent. Oh, damn, it was too much for him. She was on her own again. Then all of a sudden shots streaked out, and—
pow! pang!
—the remaining two opticals exploded.

She jerked her head around, stared at him in unabashed admiration. “Damn!”

“Thanks.” His face was sweaty, streaked. But he still had that delicious—there really was no other word for it—grin.

She swung back, concentrated on the zombie’s arms. Blinded and howling, the zombie thrashed wildly, advancing then retreating. It could still sense the leaking T-MOD but, without opticals, couldn’t hone in on them for a kill.

It used its extenders instead. Shrubbery flew, tree branches crashed. She yanked on the man’s arm. “This way.” She pulled him away from the vehicle, away from the T-MOD. Closer to the zombie.

“Arms!” She fired at the coiling extenders. He did the same. Good. She sprinted away from him, ignoring whatever it was he yelled. She was almost to the zombie. She had to duck three times to avoid its claws, but she finally sighted its white heart, just under its grinding jaws.

Almost, almost…now!
She fired.

The zombie exploded, silently, in a cloud of bright green gas, then disappeared.

Jorie stood, shaking, exhausted, bliss running through her body in galactic-size doses. But only for a few sweet seconds. Then reality hit. The leaking T-MOD. More zombies would come.

She whirled and headed for the gutted vehicle. The man sprinted, catching up with her. He grabbed her arm, frowning. That delicious smile gone. His eyes were dark, intense. She shook him off, then at the last moment remembered he still had her laser. “I need that.” She pointed to the pistol in his hand.

“Who are you? What
was
that thing?”

“I don’t have time to explain. I need that and my agent’s T-MOD. Then I have to get back to my ship.”

“You’re not making sense.”

She frowned at him, not understanding.

“You talk crazy,” he said.

No, her Vekran and his were somewhat different. “No time. No words now.” She kept it as simple as she could. “Mine.” She pointed again to the pistol he’d yet to relinquish. “Mine.” She pointed to the unit.

He hefted the pistol in one hand, mulling his options, obviously. As if he had any. She sighed, raised her own pistol, and this time pointed it at his head. “Mine.”

He handed her the pistol.

“Thank you.” She tucked both back into their holsters, then turned and strode the few steps to the T-MOD. She bent toward it. Hard, muscled arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her up.

Damn, the nil was strong. She wrenched out of his grasp and stared in surprise at the business end of her laser pistol. The one he’d just returned to her. His other hand was clamped on the T-MOD. And that feral grin was back.

“You’re going nowhere, lady, until you explain.”

She didn’t know how he’d managed to get it, but he could keep the G-1, though she’d face the captain’s hell-wrath for losing it. She tried to jerk the unit out of his hand, but he wouldn’t let go.