Book of the Dead (14 page)

Henry shook his head. “Tried. Can’t raise nothing on the base station or the phone. Sheriff’s number is busy. I figure everybody’s calling to report a zombie or two. Sorry,
muchacha
.”

“Back me up,” Bertie said to Shine. “Just in case.” The other man nodded and hefted his Remington pump. Bertie smiled at Martha. “Kiss for good luck? No?” He shrugged and called to the men lined along the counter, “Somebody decoy the fuckers long enough for me to clear the door.”

At the end of the counter, a weathered cowboy in boot-cut jeans and a pearl-snap shirt strolled over to the front window. He stared into the faces of the zombie women for a moment, then he turned, skinned down his pants and mooned them. The zombies crowded toward the pressed ham.

“Gross,” said Martha.

Bertie flipped the latch on the front door and crunched out onto the gravel. Shine relocked the door. “Don’t nobody get in my way if he needs help.”

“It’s all yours, buddy,” said Miguel Espinosa. “I don’t want none of those ladies.”

The zombies had evidently figured out that fresher meat was now outside and within chewing distance. Still, it took all six a few moments to lurch around vaguely and fix on Bertie Hernandez. Bertie held the magnum in the proper two-handed position and sighted down the barrel.

“Bertieee—” The squeal of expelled breath was loud enough even to hear inside the Diner. Bertie’s mother lunged at her son. The muzzle of the .357 belched flame and the back of Mrs. Hernandez’s skull exploded outward, the spray of blood and tissue coating the face of the zombie close behind her.

Inside the Diner, Billy said, “I didn’t think they were supposed to remember anything human.”

Miguel shrugged. “Reflexes, I’ll bet. You know, like chickens when you pull off their heads.”

Billy looked dubious.

Bertie blew away the faces of the next two zombies; ducked a fourth that had the smarts to flank him; then practically stuck the muzzle in the mouth of a fifth creature. The exiting slug nicked one front corner of the Diner’s roof.

“
Dios!
” yelled Henry. “Be careful!”

Bertie had taken his eyes off the craftiest of the zombies. While he was watching the sixth go for him, the other survivor got in close enough to grab his gun hand. Then the last zombie wrapped her spindly arms around his lower leg and began to gnaw one Fry elephant-hide boot.

“Shit!” said Shine Willis, flicking the latch and pumping in a round as he slammed open the door. He had a clear shot at the zombie Bertie was fighting off with both hands. The old woman’s head simply disintegrated and the body flopped backward, twitching as it hit the graveled parking apron.

“Jesus,” Bertie cried. “I’m fuckin’ deaf!”

Shine reversed the pump and swung the stock into the skull of the remaining zombie chewing on Bertie’s boot. It took three blows before the creature’s jaws stopped champing.

“Christ,” said Shine, panting. “She’s worse’n a Gila monster.”

Bertie kicked free of the zombie’s doubly dead body. “Shit, man, I had her—I had ’em both.”

“Yeah, sure.” Shine wiped the bloody stock of the pump on an old lady’s flowered dress. “If I was a second longer, you’d be zombie jerky and I’d be obliged to blow your fuckin’ head into the Arkansas.”

Bertie said nothing; just thumbed some shells out of his right front pocket and began reloading the magnum. When he was done, he said, “Okay, bud, you got one on me. Let’s go back in and I’ll buy you a coffee.”

“I need somethin’ stronger than that,” Shine said.

They both froze a moment when they heard the siren.

The county car slewed off the blacktop and into the gravel. Both Bertie and Shine jumped to avoid the spray of rocks. Bobby Mack Quintana got out of the car with his service revolver drawn. “What’s going on here?”

“Fuck you,” Bertie said. “Henry’ll fill you in.” He turned and walked back into the Diner, Shine following with the barrel of the Remington propped against one shoulder.

Bobby Mack stared after them. “Zombies?” he called.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

The deputy took out a notebook and a ballpoint. He gingerly flipped over a body with his booted toe. He recognized the piece of face that remained.

Martha watched from inside. The body Bobby Mack was identifying was old Mrs. Hernandez. Martha had known her since she was a little girl. Mrs. Hernandez had read to her from the collection of P. G. Wodehouse books that had furnished Bertie’s name.

Martha felt a sudden lurch in her belly. She barely made it to the ladies’ room. As she hunched over the stool and heaved up her breakfast, she heard Bertie Hernandez complaining at the counter.

“Hey, Henry, get your buns out here. This bacon’s
way
too done!”

“Bobby Mack, I want to talk to you,” said Martha. Bertie and his friends were out back of the Diner in an open field, piling up the bodies of the six zombie ladies, dousing them with unleaded, and then holding out chilled masculine palms, calluses to the heat.

The deputy had reminded them about the recent state law. “‘You kill ’em, you burn ’em,’” Bertie had repeated somewhat derisively. “Sure enough, Deputy Dawg, we’re good citizens. We’ll have a little zombie roast… work up a healthy appetite for lunch.”

“I can’t wait around for this,” whined Miguel Espinosa. “I gotta go to work down to the Quik-Lube.”

“Just shut the fuck up,” said Bertie. “We’ll do it,” he said to Bobby Mack. The deputy watched for a few minutes, then went back into the Diner.

When Martha asked to speak with him, he hesitated. “Official business?” he said.

Martha sighed. “You’ve got to be kidding. I just want to take a minute.”

Bobby Mack looked doubting, then shrugged. “Okay, I can talk.”

“Not here.” She called to Henry in the kitchen, “Hey, boss, I’m taking my break.” Without waiting for an answer, she led Bobby Mack out the door.

A cold autumn wind followed them a hundred yards across the highway and up a forested rise. The greasy black smoke curled over their heads. Martha wrinkled her nose. Bobby Mack Quintana looked fine in his tan uniform and Stetson. The black leather at his trimly belted waist didn’t hurt.

“Just wanted to talk,” she said, turning to face him. She had to tilt her face up to meet his dark eyes.

“Figured,” Bobby Mack said. He smiled.

Shyly, she thought. Martha took a deep breath. “Would it be too bold,” she said, “to ask why you don’t like me?”

Bobby Mack looked stunned. “Don’t like you? I
do
like you, Martha. Truly I do.”

“You don’t ever show it.” She had amazed herself with her boldness. She knew she should be tongue-tied, but the words tumbled out anyway. “I want you to feel kindly toward me, Bobby Mack.”

The deputy started to say something, but stuttered the words. He took a breath and started over. “I don’t want to overstep what’s right. I figured you and Carl Crump—”

“Carl Crump?” she said incredulously. Just what did Bobby Mack think was going on between her and the high school principal’s son? “He’s just a—just a horny jerk, just like—” His father, she started to say, but clipped off the words in time. No use aggravating things. She knew the Crumps square-danced with Bobby Mack’s folks on Friday nights. “
Carl?
” she said again. “Why do you think he and I—?”

Bobby Mack seemed to be blushing. “Well, he was saying…”

“Who—Carl Crump?” The deputy nodded. “No way,” said Martha. “I may not make much money at the Diner, but I’ve got some standards.”

“And pride,” Bobby Mack almost whispered.

“That too.” Martha reached out and lightly grasped his hands. Their fingers touched warmly. “Any other gossip you want to ask me about?”

Bobby Mack met her eye. “No,” he said.

She could have called him a liar, but didn’t want to. She didn’t want to think about it, but knew there were men in the town who talked about her, speculated, perhaps even claimed to have touched her in the dark, in the backseats of their cars, in the balcony of the movie theater in Walsenburg, on the grass along the bank of— “Okay,” she said. It had never happened. But God knows, she had turned them down. They had said all the things that seemed harmless on the surface, but she knew meant something else if examined closely enough.

“Nice day,” he said, as the shifting wind whipped corpse-smoke through the trees and into their faces.

Martha started to laugh and cough at the same time. When she could speak, she said, “No, it isn’t.”

Bobby Mack laughed too. “No, you’re right. It’s a bad day, a rotten day, except for this.” His fingers tightened on hers.

She screwed up her courage. “Bobby Mack, do you think you might like to go out tonight and do something?” Smoke from the pyre curled over their heads and up into the pine branches. His fingers tightened so fiercely, she feared he’d bruise her. Yet she didn’t mind.

“Yes,” said Bobby Mack. “I get off patrol at six. Yes,” he said again.

After a long moment they both smiled and began to walk back toward the Diner. The day was sufficiently overcast, Henry had turned on the neon sign.
EAT
, it flashed.
EAT, EAT, EAT
.

Bobby Mack checked in the county Ford by six and picked up Martha at the Diner in his Suzuki Samurai.

“How about the Lanes?” he said, glancing at her and then back at the road.

“Sure. That’s fine.”

“We can’t bowl tonight,” he said.

“I heard on the radio. The meeting’s at seven.”

“We should have time to eat.”

“You want to stay for the meeting?” she said.

“I’ve got to. Sheriff’s orders.”

“Oh,” she said.

“
Shit!
” Thump-
thump
. The Samurai bounced over something lying humped on the road. “Sorry about my language, Martha.”

She ignored that. “What was it?”

“Looked like a dog.” With a hunk taken out of its head. That’s what he didn’t say. “It was already dead.”

“Poor thing.” She stared out the side window. “It was all curled up the way Mrs. Hernandez was this morning.”

Bobby Mack didn’t say anything.

“This morning,” Martha said, “is that how it’s going to have to be from here on out?”

“I wish I knew.” Bobby Mack’s words were clipped. “The word from the legislature is that Bertie can do that sort of thing. Anyone can. They’re looking at what happened back East. You don’t argue with zombies. You just shoot them in the head.”

“They can’t all be bad,” said Martha. “There have to be some that remember being alive.”

“Maybe they do,” answered Bobby Mack. “Maybe that’s why they’re so pi—irritated.”

Martha was clearly not satisfied. “I don’t think I could kill one if it was somebody I’d loved.”

“Hard to say.” Bobby Mack swung the Samurai off the blacktop. “I reckon we’d do most anything if we were pushed.” The parking lot of the Chama Lake Lanes wasn’t crowded. He parked by the row of elms bordering the near side of the lot.

“Not if I loved him,” Martha muttered.

“Huh?” said Bobby Mack. “Sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

“Nothing. Let’s go eat.”

*  *  *

The cheeseburgers and fries were what she could have eaten anytime at the Diner, but these were prepared by a different cook. They tasted terrific. A Coke apiece. Hot fudge sundaes for dessert.

By seven o’clock the bowling alley had started to fill with the citizens of Fort Durham and the surrounding countryside. It was clear there would not be enough chairs in the area on the riser behind the alleys, so old MacFarland, the owner, handed out pairs of bowling shoes to the later arrivals. They had to seat themselves on the polished hardwood of the lanes.

“Looks like most everybody’s here,” said Bobby Mack. “Sheriff’s over there, so’s the mayor, most of the county commissioners.”

Martha had noted all those, but also Carl Crump, both junior and senior, not to mention Father Sierra and Pastor Beecham, the latter accompanied by his wife. Both the pastor and the priest had come onto her—at least that was what she’d suspected. She was unsure how else to interpret their words and actions on separate occasions. It seemed tragic to her, sadder, somehow more shocking than something like the propositions of Principal Crump or his son. But the weirdest thing— She hardly wanted to think about that at all. The true strangeness was the overture she had received from Mrs. Beecham, the pastor’s wife.

For an entire semester after that, the final term of her senior year, she had attempted to dress even more conventionally than she had before. It didn’t seem to work. She could still interpret the smirks and smiles.

Mayor Hardesty levered his plump self upright behind the lectern. “Let’s get this called to order, folks. Sooner we get started, the sooner we can get home and do whatever we need to do.” The room quieted. “I figure you all pretty much know what’s going on from listening to the TV and radio, and after hearing the Health Department lady at the meeting last week.”

“Nobody believed her,” said Bobby Mack in a low voice.

Martha knew that was true. At the time, the zombie stories on the hourly KNBS news had been just that— stories. It was like a war in Central America or a volcano blowing up in Asia. You just couldn’t believe in some things unless you actually saw them. Otherwise they weren’t real.

The zombies were real enough now. The morning had proved that. Mayor Hardesty mentioned the massacre at Eventide Manor and briefly outlined Bertie’s morning exploits at the Diner. “We all have to be heroes like that,” said the mayor. “We’ve got to watch out for each other and do more than just our share.”

“And arm civilians with automatic weapons,” Bobby Mack said sarcastically into Martha’s ear.

The mayor went on. It was an attempt at being inspirational. Then the time for questions came. Someone spoke up from the rear of the snack area.

“How long’s this zombie thing gonna last, anyway?”

“Probably about as long,” said the mayor, “as it takes for the army to get mobilized, come on in, and kick some butt.”

“After what happened out at the old folks’ home, what about maybe putting up some roadblocks? You know, like a quarantine.”