The Shambling Guide to New York City (23 page)

Zoë pulled the silver knife from its sheath and looked at it briefly. “It will be a miracle if I don’t do myself in with this thing before the zombies can even get to me.”

Zoë found that her training with Granny Good Mae was useful—the rules about zombies were to stay away from them, which she did her best to do. Word must have spread about the visiting human, though, and they began crowding the doorway. The ones Phil didn’t engage came straight for her.

The vampire was impressive. It was odd seeing this business-oriented, kinda dumpy, friendly-faced guy move faster than even Granny Good Mae as he attacked the zombies, pulling off limbs and knocking them down. At first she wondered why he did that, considering that didn’t stop them, but it did unbalance them, and they no longer had hands to grab with.

The first zombie to reach her had only one arm, which was good, since she had fewer limbs to avoid. As Granny Good Mae had taught her, she avoided the grasping arm and danced out of the way. She went around the kitchen table, but another zombie had cut her off. This one was a woman, also one-armed.

“Dammit, Phil, can you stop tearing their arms off and do something about their heads?”

The vampire struggled under three zombies and failed to come to her aid.

“All right, then. Here’s where I go down fighting, I guess,” she muttered, and held her knife at the ready. The male zombie was closer, and she paused a millisecond to get her bearings as he shuffled closer.

Parry the arm, avoid the fingers. Go inside. Slice.

She made a purposeful move forward, and promptly tripped on a cockeyed kitchen chair. She fell forward onto the zombie and they toppled down together, Zoë on top of the zombie, his mouth at her throat.

But he wasn’t moving at all. She stumbled to her feet and realized she’d stuck her knife under his chin and into his brain.

“Luck,” she said grimly, and looked around for the next threat.

A short, thin zombie had her back to Zoë and was trying to pummel Phil while groaning what sounded like the tune of “The Ride of the Valkyries.” Zoë took her by the shoulder with one hand and cut at her neck with the knife.

Zoë didn’t know what to expect. She knew there would be no
blood when she cut, and she was seriously aware that the zombie could bite her. What she didn’t expect was for the knife to slice through the zombie’s neck as if it were papier-mâché.

The head toppled from the body and bounced on the floor, rolling slightly to come to rest on a Kate Hudson clipping.

“Huh. That was too easy,” she said. She looked up to find her initial one-armed female zombie, and three males, shambling toward her.

“Uh-oh,” she said.

“Public Works. Stand down!” The voice came from the hallway. More angry voices, moaning, and a yelling human.

Another zombie head bounced into the room, followed by the words, “By order of Public Works”—Zoë could see a Public Works uniform, with a strong arm wielding a wrench—“I am ordering you to”—another head knocked off—“stand down!”

After four zombies fell, the others in the room finally took note of his presence and turned on him. Zoë stood there dumbly and watched as his targets became the ones who came for him. It became a fight of self-preservation, the man dodging the snapping, sluggish jaws, the grasping hands, all the while shouting commands to stand down.

Zoë looked at Phil, who looked as startled as she did, and—Was that fear? Zoë realized that if Public Works came in killing zombies, Phil might be a target as well.

Phil stopped fighting and simply watched. Zoë swore at him and went in to help her fellow human. She’d protect Phil if she had to, but she definitely wasn’t going to watch this human get ripped apart.

Fighting zombies from the rear was, as Granny Good Mae had said, much easier. Zoë had to be careful not to cut the man, as her knife decapitated zombies with no problem and she could
easily lose her control, but she and Public Works guy cleared the room shortly.

Panting and shaking, Zoë looked at the guy.

His mouth was open. “Zoë?”

She glanced at him, took a moment to assess him, his clothing, and his weaponry, and then said, “Oh. Hi, Arthur. Thanks for having our backs.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but another zombie came in behind him.

“Behind you!” she yelled.

Arthur whirled around, taking off the zombie’s head with his wrench.

“Nice reflexes,” she said. She tried not to stare at him. He looked like a freaking action hero. Her eyes flicked to Phil, rumpled and grimy, who was staring at them.

Arthur looked from Zoë to Phil and back to Zoë, then down at the pile of bodies around him. “You want to tell me what’s going on here?”

“It’s a long story,” Zoë said, looking at Phil. He hissed, his fangs coming out again, and he ran at Arthur.

“Phil, don’t!” she yelled. Arthur raised his wrench, opening his mouth to say something, but the vampire didn’t slow down. Arthur stepped backward, taking a defensive stance, but stopped when he bumped into a body behind him.

Rodrigo had come home. The much shorter zombie bit deeply into Arthur’s arm before Phil could reach him, the vampire’s white fingers outstretched to rip the zombie apart.

Until recently, Heather Welliver was the leader of the zombies in New York City. She was a police officer, having attained the rank of captain, and a native of the city. She was turned in her fifties during a doughnut run for her precinct.

Welliver brought the discipline she used in raising a family of five and running a police station into the coterie world, quickly whipping the city’s zombies into some semblance of shape and making them the second-most dominant coterie in the city. She was a diplomat, forging a tight truce with Public Works and working tirelessly to maintain the balance in the city. She worked to get contacts in the major hospitals in all the boroughs and lowered the necessity to hunt.

Of course, she did allow her people to hunt; she wasn’t a complete human sympathizer. She let her monstrous part run this aspect of her being, and by
monstrous
we refer to her desire as a police officer to make the city better without the pesky tie-ups of court. Welliver had her list of criminals who had gotten off due to connections, lack of evidence, an abundance of money, or just sloppy work on the judge’s part. And she went after all of them. After her zombies completed her vigilante justice, many of the criminals rose again to join her, former criminals turned vigilantes. She ruled over zombified gang members, drug lords, mob bosses, and one rich boy who was a suspected rapist.

Having been well loved and respected, Welliver is honestly mourned by the few remaining zombies in New York City, as she died on 12/8/15.

S
o many things happened at once.

While Rodrigo gnawed on the screaming Arthur, Phil easily tore through his neck with his bare hands. He had to pry the zombie’s head from Arthur’s arm, as it had attached itself like a tick.

Blood gushed forth and Arthur sank to his knees, grabbing his arm. His dark skin paled considerably. He looked up at Zoë’s stricken face. “Kill me, please.”

Zoë looked at Phil, then back at him. “What do we do?”

“You hang with them but you don’t realize what’s about to happen to me?” Arthur shouted, his eyes bulging. “Kill me, now, before I turn into one of them!”

Zoë glared at him. “Hey, just calm down, Boy Scout. Let me talk to Phil.”

“Why should we do anything?” Phil asked. “He’s Public Works. He waded into a zombie fight. This is a risk he accepted when he took the job.”

Zoë gritted her teeth and took a step forward, hand tightening on the knife. She was tired, covered in flaky zombie bits, and lacking in patience as she stared up at the vampire.

“We were losing. And he showed up and saved our asses. I know the zombies couldn’t hurt you much, but they could certainly have turned me into undead sausage. I’m rather appreciative. If you’re just going to let him die, that means you devalue
humans who help you. And if that’s the case, then I’m not sure our little arrangement will work out.”

The vampire was silent. Arthur closed his eyes. “You know, you could stop arguing and kill me, which would solve everyone’s problems.”

“He has a point,” Phil said.

“Can a zombie bite be cured?” she asked.

He shifted behind Arthur. “Not… as such. A strong zoëtist might be able to do something about it. It won’t be cheap.”

“Do it.”

Phil paused. Zoë wanted to shout at him, but remained patient while he did whatever mysterious thinking he was doing. “He’ll need watching,” the vampire finally said. “If he begins to turn before I get back, it will be too late.”

She held up her wicked blade. “I’m ready. Just go. Call me when you find the right person. I’ll get him back to my apartment.”

The vampire was gone then. Zoë sheathed her weapon carefully against her forearm and went to help Arthur up.

“Kill me,” he moaned. “Or give me your weapon so I can kill myself.”

“Nah,” she said, hauling him to his feet. “You’ve got some time left. You up for a little walk?”

“No.”

“Good. We’re going just a few blocks.”

“Zoë—”

She looked at him then, her expression stopping his protests. “Look. Can you trust me?”

“I barely know you. You fraternize with vampires. You willingly walked into a zombie nest. Why in the world would I trust you?”

“I’m the only one left who can help you? I could leave you my knife and you could kill yourself now, or you could let me and
Phil try to save you, and if we can’t, one of us can kill you later. With my way you at least have a chance.”

“How do I know you won’t just let me turn and then have me join him and you in whatever activity you’re doing?”

Zoë snorted. “All you know that we do is kill zombies.” She tried to keep hysterical laughter from her voice at the thought of her, the mighty zombie slayer. “Why would we want you turned just to make more of them?”

He finally nodded. “Whatever. Just get me somewhere where I can lie down.”

“Sure,” Zoë said.

She wedged herself under his good arm and headed out of the building, her knife at the ready for any more attacks.

She assumed they’d killed all the zombies, as they left unmolested. She got to street level and futzed at her neck for her coterie talisman, thinking about Max.

(Left left left left ware left!)

“What did you—?” Zoë started to say, turning her head to the left. She gasped and stepped backward, dragging Arthur with her, narrowly dodging the knife that swooped down.

No one stabs like that, not if you know how to use a knife
, she thought, her training kicking in even through her exhaustion. She grabbed the hand, a woman’s hand, and twisted it sharply, making the assailant drop the knife, but not before it sliced over her right forearm.

“Damn,” she said. She was still under Arthur’s weight and unable to do much more, so she failed to evade when another hand, a man’s hand, swung up and punched her in the jaw. Stars bloomed in her vision as she reeled, and she dimly heard Arthur shouting, his good arm grasping her to keep her from falling.

Wesley, woman’s hand, man’s hand, it’s Wesley
—She managed to process this thought before a garbled war cry came from the
shadows and the construct fell under the weight of a flurry of overcoat and arms.

The new attacker pulled out a knife, as wicked as Zoë’s, and began slicing through Wesley’s clothing, carving away at the body parts underneath. Zoë winced, expecting to see blood, but nothing spurted as the construct’s skin opened obscenely. Wesley floundered, getting weaker, calling feebly for help, until he stilled.

“There it is, crafty bitch hid it under his arm, I knew it was there,
she
told me, yes
she
did, Granny Good Mae always listens,” the woman was saying, sheathing her clean knife and wiping her hands off as if she had touched something dirty, although there was no blood on her hands.

“Holy shit,” Zoë said, rubbing her jaw.

“That one didn’t like you,” Granny Good Mae said.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Zoë steadied herself and tried to shake off the shock from the punch. Her jaw throbbed. “Don’t you live in Manhattan? And how the hell do you always know when I’m in trouble?”

“You know Granny Good Mae?” Arthur asked, amazement coloring his voice.

She ignored him and pointed to the body that Granny Good Mae was dragging, in pieces, into an alley.

“What do you know about Wesley?” Zoë asked.

“He wanted to rile the zombies up, to keep these guys busy,” Granny Good Mae said, pointing at Arthur. “He hoped to do you in as well. He was a busy boy.” She rooted around in Wesley’s pocket. She pulled out a little bottle and held it up to them. “Formaldehyde. Turns their brains off.”

“Granny Good Mae, thank you,” said Arthur.

“Wait, how do
you
know her?” Zoë asked. Then she grimaced.
Of course he did. Like a lot of homeless, she freelanced for Public Works. Assassin.