Best New Zombie Tales: Vol. 1 Part 27

Prendergast licked his parched lips. His Enfield rifle was near at hand; he wondered whether that was what the limb was aiming to reach. Prendergast crouched down and grabbed his weapon. He pounced, bayoneting the arm. The hand jerked, clawing spasmodically, then was still.

There was more groaning now. Prendergast pulled the blade free and backed away, almost falling over another body. The soldier moaned. Prendergast recognized a comrade: Dennis Trotter.

"Thank G.o.d you're alive!"

Trotter groaned; his hand reached for Prendergast.

Prendergast bent over the wounded man, shrugging off his army pack. He would not be able to carry that and Trotter back to their own lines.

"Are you hurt badly?" he asked.

Trotter's blood soaked jacket answered that question. Prendergast opened the jacket, reeled back, retching again. There was no way Trotter could still be alive with that gaping stomach wound.

Yet Trotter raised a hand and grasped Prendergast by the throat; he began to squeeze and pull the Private down towards him.

Shock kept Prendergast momentarily frozen; then realization that a dead friend was choking the life out of him spurred the Private into action. He struggled free, and smashed the b.u.t.t of his rifle into Trotter's face.

Around him, men of both sides, including Trotter, were rising slowlymen with terrible wounds, dead men. Private Prendergast began to back away.

They were closing in on him, staggering and shambling. Men that no longer breathed groaned and moaned. Some missing limbs, others with gaping wounds were spilling entrails. Staring with sightless eyes, ruined faces, one corpse entirely headless.

Prendergast watched dazed and amazed. "This can't be happening," he muttered. Hands reached out for him, but not all of them.

A Hun with his guts hanging out, grabbed, and pulled free, some of his intestines, intent on using them as a garrote.

Prendergast fired. His bullet hit the living corpse in the eye. Prendergast was amazed for two reasons. Normally he would not have achieved such accuracy even if he had aimed for the eye. Secondly, the shot had little effectthe walking dead man staggered at the impact, paused a moment, then continued its shambling advance.

"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I let a bunch of dead men kill me!" he shouted, stabbing and slas.h.i.+ng his bayonet wildly.

Though bullets had little effect, his blade proved more effective.

Prendergast fought as if possessed by the spirit of a Viking berserker. Thankfully, whatever perversion of nature had caused these dead men to rise had only affected this small corner of the battlefield. Hacking and slas.h.i.+ng, Prendergast was able to fight his way free.

The zombies continued to pursue him, moving slowly.

Despite his wounds, and the treacherous conditions of the battlefield, the Private was able to outdistance them. He would be safe in the trenches, he told himself. Realizing this he began to laugh.

But Prendergast had become disorientated in the fog of war. He did not find his way back to the safety of his own lines.

A group scoured the battlefield, perhaps searching for the wounded. They looked up at his approach.

"G.o.d almighty!" Prendergast gasped.

There was something wrong with them.

They stood hunched, lean, and grey. Whilst some wore blood-drenched uniforms, others were dressed in tattered rags, the remnants of charnel shrouds. Skin discolored, faces misshapen, snout like. Creatures of nightmare, they did not carry rifles in their hands, the talons of these scavengers held gobbets of b.l.o.o.d.y flesh. They grinned, exposing stained canine teeth.

Private Prendergast began to scream.

And then the ghouls pounced.

"... And my last memory is of the charnel stench of the foul creatures, the agonizing pain as their fangs bit into me, and their claws tearing the flesh from my still-living body. My body rent apart, and the internal organs ripped free. Thankfully oblivion overcame me and I found myself Andrew Maitland once again, back in London, in the here and now of 1972."

"Good G.o.d! I've heard of the horrors of World War One, but zombies, and ghouls!" Hilton brought his fist down on the arm of his chair. "This Liao, it sounds like it took you on a particularly wild trip. Had you been watching too many d.a.m.ned horror films?"

Dr. Maitland ignored the question. "I can understand your skepticism, Roger... and I might too accept your verdict of drug induced fantasy. But tell me, how would you explain this?" Maitland rose from his chair.

"Explain what?"

Maitland took off his jacket. Lately he had taken to wearing black polo neck s.h.i.+rts, and he pulled off the one he now wore, revealing a body covered with an innumerable number of horrific scars.

Hilton gasped and stood up, a shocked expression upon his face. "Andrew, I don't know what to say. How on earth is it possible?"

"That I cannot explain. They are not self-inflicted. The bite marks do not match my dental records, and indeed, how on earth would I have been able to bite myself so, even under the influence of such a potent drug?"

"You were definitely alone, when you took it?" Hilton asked.

Maitland nodded. "Yes, absolutely. No young hippie girl."

"Incredible, incredible," Hilton muttered, shaking his head.

"There's one more thing I feel I should share with you."

"More?"

"Yes my friend. There's one last fact I failed to tell."

"Oh?"

"Forgive me, I did not inform you that the user of the Liao can not only project himself back into the past, but also forward into the future. You see, the unfortunate Private Prendergast, he was a soldier in World War Four!"

Pegleg and Paddy Save the World JONATHAN MABERRY.

I know what you've heard but Pat O'Leary's cow didn't have nothing to do with it. Not like they said in the papers. The way them reporters put it you'd thought the d.a.m.n cow was playing with matches. I mean, sure, it started in the cowshed, but that cow was long dead by that point, and really it was Pat himself who lit it. I helped him do it. And that meteor shower some folks talked aboutyou see, that happened beforehand. It didn't start the fire either, but it sure as h.e.l.l caused it.

You have to understand what the West Side of Chicago was like back then. Pat had a nice little place on DeKoven Streetjust enough land to grow some spuds and raise a few chickens. The cow was a skinny old milker, and she was of that age where her milk was too sour and her beef would probably be too tough. Pat O'Leary wanted to sell her to some drovers who were looking to lay down some jerky for a drive down to Abilene, but the missus would have none of it.

"Elsie's like one of the family!" Catherine protested. "Aunt Sophie gave her to me when she was just a heifer."

I knew Pat had to bite his tongue not to ask if Catherine meant when the cow was a heifer or when Sophie was. By that point in their marriage Pat's tongue was crisscrossed with healed-over bite marks.

Catherine finished up by saying, "Selling that cow'd be like selling Aunt Sophie herself off by the pound."

Over whiskey that night Pat confided me that if he could find a buyer for Sophie he'd have loved to sell the old b.i.t.c.h. "She eats twice as much as the d.a.m.n cow and don't smell half as good."

I agreed and we drank on it.

Shame the way she went. The cow, I mean. I wouldn't wish that on a three-legged dog. As for Sophie... well, I guess in a way I feel sorry for her, too. And for the rest of them that died that night, the ones who died in the fire... and the ones who died before.

The fire started Sunday night, but the problem started way sooner, just past midnight on a hot Tuesday morning. That was a strange autumn. Dryer than it should have been, and with a steady wind that you'd have thought blew straight in off a desert. I never saw anything like it except the Santa Ana's, but this was Illinois, not California. Father Callahan had a grand ol' time with it, saying that it was the hot breath of h.e.l.l blowing hard on all us sinners. Yeah, yeah, whatever. We wasn't sinning any worse that year than we had the year before and the year before that. Conner O'Malley was still sneaking into the widow Daley's backdoor every Sat.u.r.day night, the Kennedy twins were still stealing hogs, and Pat and I were still making cheap whiskey and selling it in premium bottles to the pubs who sold it to travelers heading west. No reason h.e.l.l should have breathed any harder that year than any other.

What was different that year was not what we sinners were doing but what those saints were up to, 'cause we had shooting stars every night for a week. The good Father had something to say about that, too. It was the flaming sword of St. Michael and his lot, reminding us of why we were tossed out of Eden. That man could make a h.e.l.lfire and brimstone sermon out of a field full of fuzzy bunnies, I swear to G.o.d.

On the first night there was just a handful of little ones, like Chinese fireworks way out over Lake Michigan. But the second night there was a big ball of lightBiela's Comet the reporter from the Tribune called itand it just burst apart up there and b.a.l.l.s of fire came a'raining down everywhere.

Pat and I were up at the still and we were trying to sort out how to make Mean-Dog Mulligan pay the six months worth of whiskey fees he owed us. Mean-Dog was a man who earned his nickname and he was bigger than both of us put together, so when we came asking for our cash and he told us to p.i.s.s off, we did. We only said anything out loud about it when we were a good six blocks from his place.

"We've got to sort him out," I told Paddy, "or everyone'll take a cue from him and then where will we be?"

Pat was feeling low. Mean-Dog had smacked him around a bit, just for show, and my poor lad was in the doldrums. His wife was pretty but she was a nag; her Aunt Sophie was more terrifying than the red Indians who still haunting some of these woods, and Mean-Dog Mulligan was turning us into laughing stocks. Pat wanted to brood, and brooding over a still of fresh whiskey at least takes some of the sting out. It was after our fourth cup that we saw the comet.

Now, I've seen comets before. I seen them out at see before I lost my leg, and I seen 'em out over the plains when I was running with the Scobie gang. I know what they look like, but this one was just a bit different. It was green, for one thing. Comets don't burn green, not any I've seen or heard about. This one was a sickly green, too, the color of bad liver, and it scorched a path through the air. Most of it burned up in the atmosphere, and that's a good thing, but one piece of it came down hard by the edge of the lake, right smack down next to Aunt Sophie's cottage.

Pat and I were sitting out in our lean-to in a stand of pines, drinking toasts in honor of Mean-Dog developing a wasting sickness when the green thing came burning down out of the sky and smacked into the ground not fifty feet from Sophie's place. There was a sound like fifty cannons firing all at once and the shock rolled up the hill to where we sat. Knocked both of us off our stools and tipped over the still.

"Pegleg!" Pat yelled as he landed on his a.s.s, "The brew!"

I lunged for the barrel and caught it before it tilted too far, but a gallon of it splashed me in the face and half-drowned me. That's just a comment, not a complaint. I steadied the pot as I stood up. My clothes were soaked with whiskey but I was too shocked to even suck my s.h.i.+rttails. I stood staring down the slope. Sophie's cottage still stood, but it was surrounded by towering flames. Green flames, and that wasn't the whiskey talking. There were real green flames licking at the night, catching the gra.s.s, burning the trees that edged her property line.

"That's Sophie's place," I said.

He wiped his face and squinted through the smoke. "Yeah, sure is."

"She's about to catch fire."

He belched. "If I'm lucky."

I grinned at him. It was easy to see his point. Except for Catherine there was n.o.body alive who could stand Aunt Sophie. She was fat and foul, and you couldn't please her if you handed here a deed to a gold mine. Not even Father Callahan liked her and he was sort of required to by license.

We stood there and watched as the green fire crept along the garden path toward her door. "Suppose we should go down there and kind of rescue her, like," I suggested.

He bent and picked up a tin cup, dipped it in the barrel, drank a slug and handed it to me. "I suppose."

"Catherine will be mighty upset if we let her burn."

"I expect."

We could hear her screaming now as she finally realized that Father Callahan's h.e.l.lfire had come a'knocking. Considering her evil ways, she probably thought that's just what it was, and had it been, not even she could have found fault with the reasoning.

"Come on," Pat finally said, tugging on my sleeve, "I guess we'd better haul her fat a.s.s outta there or I'll never hear the end of it from the wife."

"Be the Christian thing to do," I agreed, though truth to tell we didn't so much as hustle down the slope to her place as sort of saunter.

That's what saved our lives in the end, cause we were still only halfway down when the second piece of the comet hit. This time it hit her cottage fair and square.

It was like the fist of G.o.dif His fist was ever green, mind punching down from heaven and smas.h.i.+ng right through her roof. The whole house just flew apart, the roof blew off, the windows turned to glittery dust and the log walls splintered into matchwood. The force of it was so strong that it just plain sucked the air out of the fire, like blowing out a candle.

Patrick started running about then, and since he has two legs and I got this peg I followed along as best I could. Took us maybe ten minutes to get all the way down there.

By that time Sophie Kilpatrick was deader'n a doornail.

We stopped outside the jagged edge of what had been her north wall and stared at her just lying there amid the wreckage. Her bed was smashed flat, the legs broke; the dresser and rocker were in pieces, all the crockery in fragments. In the midst of it, still wearing her white nightgown and bonnet, was Sophie, her arms and legs spread like a starfish, her mouth open like a ba.s.s, her goggle eyes staring straight up at heaven in the most accusing sort of way.

We exchanged a look and crept inside.

"She looks dead," he said.

"Of course she's dead, Pat, a comet done just fell on her."

The fire was out but there was still a bit of green glow coming off her and we crept closer still.

"What in tarnation is that?"

"Dunno," I said. There were bits and pieces of green rock scattered around her, and it glowed like it had a light inside. Kind of pulsed in a way, like a slow heartbeat. Sophie was dusted with glowing green powder. It was on her gown and her hands and her face. A little piece of the rock pulsed inside her mouth, like she'd gasped it in as it all happened.

"What's that green stuff?"

"Must be that comet they been talking about in the papers. Biela's Comet they been calling it."

"Why'd it fall on Sophie?"

"Well, Pat, I don't think it meant to."

He grunted as he stared down at her. The green pulsing of the rock made it seem like she was breathing and a couple of times he bent close to make sure.

"d.a.m.n," he said after he checked the third time, "I didn't think she'd ever die. Didn't think she could!"

"G.o.d kills everything," I said, quoting one of Father Callahan's cheerier observations. "Shame it didn't fall on Mean-Dog Mulligan."

"Yeah, but I thought Sophie was too d.a.m.n ornery to die. Besides, I always figured the Devil'd do anything he could to keep her alive."

I looked at him. "Why's that?"

"He wouldn't want the compet.i.tion. You know she ain't going to heaven and down in h.e.l.l... well, she'll be bossing around old Scratch and his demons before her body is even cold in the grave. Ain't n.o.body could be as persistently disagreeable as Aunt Sophie."

"Amen to that," I said and sucked some whiskey out of my sleeve. Pat noticed what I was doing and asked for a taste. I held my arm out to him. "So... what you think we should do?"

Pat looked around. The fire was out, but the house was a ruin. "We can't leave her out here."

"We can call the constable," I suggested. "Except that we both smell like whiskey."

"I think we should take her up to the house, Peg."

I stared at him. "To the house? She weighs nigh on half a ton."

"She can't be more than three hundred-weight. Catherine will kill me if I leave her out here to get gnawed on by every creature in the woods. She always says I was too hard on Sophie, too mean to her. She sees me bringing Sophie's body home, sees how I cared enough to do that for her only living aunt, then she'll think better of me."