Resurrection

Chapter One

There is no wound whose pain cannot be salved by the soft touch of a beautiful woman.

For me, it’s more like a little bump-and-grind, beauty optional.

It’s a good thing I’m not picky because Candy, the little filly rubbing up on me like buttered toast, wasn’t gonna win any beauty pageants. Short and a little on the bony side, sporting a wild mane of greasy hair, which failed to cover the pockmarks on her face, she wasn’t exactly a model of attractiveness. But that’s okay. You can’t feel ugly in the dark.

Not that I was bashing her, or anything. I was still there, right?

We both understood it was a business transaction. We weren’t looking for love. I was just renting a good time from a woman who wouldn’t bat an eyelid when I broke out the vat of Jell-o and a snorkel. She didn’t care about my broken heart or want to hear how my day went. She wasn’t looking to be the next Mrs. Trigg. All she cared about was the big, hard bulge pressed tight against her sweaty little hand.

My wallet.

Not in the mood to play games, I grabbed her hips and pulled her to me, leaning close to her ear so she could hear me over the throbbing bass of the club’s sound system. “You want to take a walk?”

“Already?” She plucked her glass off the table, taking a slow sip. “I’m not even finished with my drink.”

“What, you gettin’ paid by the hour?” I knew the routine: buy her a bunch of overpriced drinks and keep stuffing dollar bills in her skirt until closing time before I’d be given the pleasure of emptying my pockets for a quickie out back. Not up for the soft sell, I cut out the middle man. “Just chug it and I’ll throw in an extra hundred so you can drink to your heart’s content afterward.” That worked.

With a loud gulp, she sucked down the remains of her Jack and Coke, then tossed the empty glass onto the table. She hopped to her feet, tugging me up by my belt.

“What ya drivin’?” she asked, all about the romance while she pulled me toward the door.

“The primer gray Impala out back.”

“Ooh. Big back seat?” She was easily impressed. That worked in my favor.

“Room with a view.”

More of a show than tell kind of guy, I hurried her out of the Old Town strip club and around the back of the building to my car. I whipped open the creaking rear door, having left it unlocked for quick access, and rushed her inside. I slipped in after her, settling into the seat. Her hand was on my crotch an instant later.

“I hate to do this, but it’s cash up front.” She gave me a crooked smile, all feigned innocence and poor dental hygiene. She punctuated the sentence with a flutter of her fingers. “And don’t forget the hundred you promised.”

I grumbled as I pulled my wallet out, yanking several crisp bills from inside, and handed them over. She counted them with a pleased look on her face, then folded the cash before slipping it into the waistband of her mini-skirt.

On the clock, she undid my belt and attacked my zipper. Her lithe hands, nothing less than professional, went about prepping me. Not that it took much these days. A stiff wind and I’m reaching for a napkin. I’m loads of fun in a crowded x-rated theater.

Any other time, I’d watch Candy work her magic, but the club was situated at the outer edge of Old Town, just off the desert that surrounded the city. No matter what you had going on, it was best to keep at least one eye peeled in this neighborhood. This wasn’t the place to let your guard down.

As usual, my cynicism and paranoia were right on the button. I hated them for it.

Out of the corner of my eye, a figure shambled out of the darkness near the rear of the parking lot, just beyond the glow of the shimmering club lights. I watched for a moment longer and then Candy shifted from her hands to her mouth. My eyes shut for just a second, an involuntary moan slipping out. Without a doubt, the girl was gifted.

When I regained my composure, I looked back at the figure as he walked herky-jerky toward the club, muttering to himself. I chuckled as the drunk stumbled, weaving his way toward the beckoning neon signs that promised all manner of unsavory carnal delights. He had about twenty too many from the looks of him. Tomorrow morning was gonna be hell on him, if he made through the night.

Pretty low on the threat scale, my paranoia be damned, I looked away from the drunk and watched my money in action. Just as I started to relax and get back into the rhythm of things, I heard an angry shout, followed by a woman’s screech. Candy stopped and peered up at me, her eyes wide. Growling, I looked out the window to see a couple backing away from the wobbling drunk who’d apparently careened into them as they’d exited the club. Even from the car, I could hear him jabbering something incomprehensible while he moved toward them, wavering from side to side.

The couple’s faces were plastered with terror.

Thinking that was a strange reaction given the circumstances, I took a closer look. While I couldn’t really see the guy that well, I noticed he had his arms thrust out before him, reaching for the woman. Irritated, and not up to playing the hero, I tried to ignore the situation, urging Candy to keep going. That’s what bouncers are for. I paid for a good time, and I was damn well gonna get one.

That’s when I noticed them.

Out of the desert, from the same direction the drunk had stumbled in from, a huddled mass of figures appeared. Like the guy harassing the couple, they seemed to shamble forward, their steps awkward and rigid. They, too, were mumbling loudly, their words lost in the jumble of their raspy chorus. Unable to see them any better than I had the first, I let my senses loose. They drifted out, invisible tendrils of my spirit, seeking the bare essence of the approaching crowd.

A shudder ran down my spine right then, which had nothing to do with flickering precision of Candy’s pierced tongue. I felt the dim, flickering sense of residual magic coming off the group, dappled with a lingering taste of spiritual decay. There was something not right about these guys.

I reined in my senses and looked back to the club doors. The couple had retreated inside, but the drunk followed. A second later I heard someone cry out. Another second after that, a choir of horrified shrieks rang out, drowning out the music and rattling my eardrums.

Candy popped up again and I shoved her back down fast, pushing her to the floorboard on the far side of the car. She started to complain, probably thinking I hadn’t paid for any rough stuff, but I put my hand over her mouth, gesturing for her to be quiet. She complied meekly. She was confused and scared, but amenable. She hadn’t survived this neighborhood by being stupid.

“Stay down and keep your mouth shut,” I whispered as I packed all my parts away and did up my pants angrily, trying not to catch anything in the zipper. There’s something wrong with the world when a man can’t even pay to get off without interruption. I was gonna be asking for a refund, no doubt about it.

Things situated as well as they could be, I reached under the front seat and pulled out my chromed. 45 and bullet belt. Candy whimpered as I checked the chamber, probably thinking I was gonna use it on her. I did my best to calm her with a toothy smile as I strapped the belt on.

“Don’t move. I’ll come back and get you once I figure out what’s going on,” I told her as I opened the car door as quietly as possible. Not knowing what I was dealing with, I didn’t want to announce my presence any sooner than I had to.

She nodded and sank further into the floorboard, grateful she wasn’t gonna get shot. I had no such certainty.

I left her behind and stepped out low, staying out of sight as I circled behind the shambling crowd; there were easily thirty of them. I could hear them speaking, but there was a strange randomness to it. They were talking but it made no real sense. Once I got closer, my stomach hit bottom as the sharp, bitter scent of rotten flesh assailed my nose, settling thick in my throat. I gagged, muffling the sound against my sleeve.

There’s nothing quite like the scent of death. No matter how often you encounter it, you can never get used to it, never prepare for it. It sticks to the air, a thick, damp breath of putrescence, which gnaws at your olfactory senses and brings tears to your eyes. It crawls inside your mouth and settles on your tongue like a putrid layer of grimy dust, the taste lingering for hours, sometimes days.

These guys were wallowing in it.

In my experience, there’s only one thing that can smell that bad and still be up walking, despite what you may think about some of the homeless you’ve encountered.

Zombies.

Just as I got close enough to confirm my suspicion, the rest of the club’s patrons burst from the door in a panicked dash, barreling right into the waiting horde of undead.

The zombies wasted no time. They tore in with abandon, moist arms flailing. Despite their appearance, tattered limbs flaking off chunks of mottled, gelatinous flesh with every movement, zombies are powerful. Strengthened by the magic that raised them, they’re meaty wrecking balls driven to destruction. The startled patrons found that out quickly. Live flesh and bone gave way to the unrelenting force of undead. Those unlucky enough to get caught up in the midst of the foul horde were quickly buried beneath a surging wave of decayed bodies. Limbs flailed and throats screamed as they were dragged under the hoary mass, sinking ships in a whirlpool of chattering death.

There’d be no washing that stink out.

With little time to waste, I leveled my pistol and took aim at one of the corpse’s heads, the only target of any intrinsic value on a zombie. I snapped off a quick shot that ripped through the base of its skull with a crack. What was left of its saggy face exploded into a spray of gangrenous flesh and shattered bone that showered the zombie in front of it. That one turned to face me and caught a bullet through the eye for its interest. Its body twitched once, then dropped into a heap beside the first. Two down. Too many to go.

A few more of the zombies turned at the sound of my gun, their empty sockets glistening with maggots and malevolence. Once they perceived the threat, they came at me, muttering eerily in challenge. While strong, zombies aren’t the fastest or the brightest of critters. That helped even the odds a bit. I was gonna need every advantage once the rest of them caught on. However, what they lacked in speed, they made up for in sheer, witless determination.

Kinda like some of my exes.

I fired another round, striking the lead zombie in the face, dropping it without a fuss. The corpse tumbled to the asphalt with a wet thud, impeding the path of the two behind it. Slowed even further by having to navigate over their fallen comrade, they were easy pickings. I re-ended their lives with two more bullets.

The ruckus drew more undead attention over the dwindling serenade of their club victims. Several of the more aware ones made their lumbering way toward me while others scattered, presumably to look for more victims.

Given a few seconds leeway, I cast a quick glance at the pile of bodies as I popped off my last two shots before reloading on automatic. I expected to see an ocean of blood and torn off appendages, but that wasn’t the case. Instead of carnage, there was a surprising neatness to the zombies’ attack. There was an apparent method to their undead madness. Pinned beneath the pressing wall of dead flesh, strippers and club-goers alike were being suffocated, the air squeezed from their gasping lungs.

That wasn’t standard zombie operating procedure.

I didn’t have time to think about what it all meant because a handful of zombies turned and shuffled toward me with grasping hands. I chambered a round and shot the zombie closest to me, before skipping back a couple of steps, letting lead fly as I did. I caught two more coming in, but the last couple made it past the hail of fire, partially sheltered by their slow to fall, dead-again compatriots. They were on me a second later.

The first caught my arm, yanking it down, the barrel of my gun pointed at the asphalt. The second latched its mushy, ripe arms around my ribs, gibbering like a sailor with Tourette’s. If I hadn’t been busy getting killed, I might have blushed.

My breath whistled from my lungs as the zombie squeezed tight, its powerful arms leveraging my ribs into my lungs with an audible creak. I gasped for air, but what little I could suck in was tinged with the sickly, bitter taste of rotting flesh. The zombie’s snarling face hovered inches from mine. I was almost tempted to give in just to avoid the stench.

Almost.

The gun useless, as shooting a zombie in the foot is as effective as asking a politician to do what’s best for his district, I dropped it to free my hand. Wrapped up in their arms, the first adding his insistent love to the embrace, I didn’t have much room to work. The only good thing about the situation was that they weren’t tearing at me or biting. That would have really sucked.

Zombie cooties and all that.

As things were, it was a contest of strength and will. While I couldn’t match them in the will department-zombies trended toward being relentless-I was more than a match for them physically. I also had the benefit of over four hundred years of martial arts experience.

Their Zombi-Fu was no match for my Mutt-Kung-Pow.

I twisted to the left, forcing my right shoulder down, my hand leveraged against the zombie’s side to create space. My shoulder slipped underneath its grip, freeing my arm to move, the left already loose. Posturing up as best I could under their weight, I set my hands on the side the zombie’s head, pressing it away and down. After I’d moved its face about a foot away from mine, I kicked its legs out and rode it to the ground, dragging its friend down with us. All two hundred-fifty pounds of my weight behind the move, the first zombie’s head slammed into the asphalt with a meaty thud, cracking open like a fetid egg. It went rigid in an instant, but a wafting wave of vile nastiness struck me full on, invading my eyes, nose, and mouth like a Mongol horde. Vomit roiled up in my gut in an instant.

Rather than fight it, I let it come. I turned my head and rolled to be on top of the second zombie, which still clung to me, as my stomach emptied. A rush of Budweiser and rancid fettuccine Alfredo-I’d had Italian earlier in the evening-spewed from my mouth. It streamed onto the zombie’s hoary face, pooling in its blackened sockets and flooding its open, howling mouth.

While it didn’t do anything to slow the zombie, it sure made me feel better. Although, I had to admit, the mixed scents were not an improvement. Pasta does not come up well. If I’d had anything else in me, I would have puked again.

Motivated to create some distance between me and old stinky-puss, I pulled my legs past its thighs and sat up on its stomach, breaking its grip. Free to move, I stood up fast, spinning away to keep it from grabbing ahold again as I stomped at its head. The first shot only clipped it, snapping its face to the side, but the second got it good. I felt its head smack the ground hard as I stepped out of its reach.

Like a turtle on its back, the zombie bucked and rolled in its attempt to get up. That gave me time to retrieve my gun. Just as the zombie got to its knees, I pressed the barrel against the back of its head and pulled the trigger. I returned it to the grave, albeit with a few less pieces attached.

Though I knew the time spent wrestling with the corpses had probably condemned the club-goers to a smelly death, I felt obligated to do what I could for them. I ran back to the pile to see the zombies pulling bodies out of the stack, tossing them over their shoulders. They were limp and lifeless, eyes wide and sightless. I was too late.

Frustrated and angry, the zombies ruining my night-oh, and killing people and stuff-it was time for vengeance. Better able to think things out now, I took cover behind a car and popped off a couple of rounds. As a pretty good shot, if I say so myself, two zombies fell with smoking holes in their heads. Then the second before the rest turned to look, I dropped out of sight behind the car.

Did I mention zombies were dumb? Well, not dumb so much as plain stupid. They operate on a purely instinctual level of function, only overridden by the desires of their master. In all but the rarest of cases, they don’t think or reason on their own. They only follow orders and react within the parameters of what they’ve been told to do. As such, the second I disappeared from sight, I no longer existed to them. Once out of sight, I was out of mind.

Unable to see me, the threat to their mission ended in their minds, they returned to their duty only to have a couple more of their buddies drop. Each time they went back to work, I repeated the process, ad nauseam. I couldn’t help but think it was a waste of good bullets.

Crafted by a minor angel and demon pair who worked for DRAC, the ammunition I carried-D/A slayers-was made to slay both supernatural species. Though they were effective on the zombies, regular bullets would have been too. But since I didn’t have any on me, I made do, griping every time I pulled the trigger.

After a few minutes, the rest of the undead still on site rested peacefully once more, each properly tucked in with a lead blanket. Unfortunately, so was everyone else who had ventured out to the club, it seemed. Bodies lay strewn across the parking lot in jumbled heaps. Blue faces stared up at me with accusing eyes, their necks twisted at awkward angles, throats and ribs crushed and deformed. The naked flesh of the strippers mingled with the clothed patrons in an orgy of death; a game of Twister gone horribly wrong.

Suddenly remembering Candy, I raced back to my car to find the back door open. A torn scrap of material, the same design as her tiny little skirt, was caught on the jagged edge of the door frame. Little drops of blood stained the backseat and led out onto the asphalt. From there, a barely visible wet trail headed off toward the desert.

That was just my luck. Even after paying to get laid, a zombie stole my girl. There is no justice.

Frustrated in more ways than one, I followed the trail to the edge of the parking lot where I found the rest of Candy’s skirt, along with her cell phone. Not remembering her having one, I couldn’t even begin to imagine where she’d had it stashed.

Actually, I could, but I didn’t think that’d help my mood any. It was obvious she’d been taken while I was busy wrestling around. I realized then I must have missed some of the zombies in the confusion. My eyes on the desert, I could see nothing moving in the darkness. Whatever zombies had made it past me had gotten away clean.

Tonight was a total bust.

I snatched up Candy’s phone and popped it open to find it still had service. Easier than hunting down a pay phone, a dying breed in this day of cheap, portable technology, I put her minutes to good use. I dialed the number to one of DRAC’s dummy corporations and rattled off the secret codes that told them I needed help, then hung up, slipping the phone into my pocket. As I waited for the telepaths to open a connection, I flipped over the wreckage of the skirt and smiled when I saw the wad of cash I’d given Candy still stuck in the waistband.

Even though I was facing a long, drawn-out night trying to figure where the zombies came from and what they were doing there, things were already looking up.

I’d gotten my refund.