A Little Undead (6 page)

Chapter
3:
In
the Ice

Seconds
following the first earthquake the southern coast of the United
States was thrown further into chaos as the tsunami struck at over
500 miles per hour. Government agencies intent on addressing the
damages failed to realize the true threat until too late. Hours
later, as the bodies of the dead began to rise again, the federal
government began its swift and inevitable collapse. Those who died
by any means soon joined the rapidly increasing scourge of the
undead. Nations across the globe were quick to follow the United
States' demise as the phenomenon swept across every continent. The
exact cause of the plague is still unknown.

–
Mannsfield 9
^th
grade primer

The old landline phone beside
the bed rattled once, twice, a third time as I finally fumbled it off
the hook. “...Hello?”

“
Ah, good, you're awake.”
I supposed that was technically true. My head felt like it was
encased in wet cement. I couldn't actually remember sleeping, but I
didn't remember it turning from night to day either.

“
Fred?”

“
Listen, the Captain said
you could take a couple days off if you need to but we could use some
help over at Emerland High School.”

“
Uhh, yeah, sure, I'll be
there. What happ–” He hung up.
'Seriously? Not even a
goodbye.'
The time slowly rolled across the screen as my blurry
eyes glared at the phone.
'7:43. I should have become a night club
bouncer. I bet they never have to wake up this early.'
I
suspected that as a five foot tall young woman (at least with my
heels on) the offers wouldn’t exactly come pouring in.

Rolling out of bed onto abused
feet I had to clutch at the door as the glare of the morning sun from
the kitchen window sent a migraine slamming through my skull.
Fumbling through my backpack I found my sunglasses and braved the
light once more. Still bright, it was at least tolerable now if I
squinted a little. I set the coffee brewing and hopped into the
shower. Road-burned shoulder protesting the heat I was forced to
settle for a lukewarm rinse. It was probably for the best, a hot
shower probably would have sent me snoozing. Despite my best efforts
to leave I stayed under the spray for twenty minutes before I felt
anywhere near clean. Last night's escapades had left me feeling like
a chicken nugget on a sidewalk – battered, salty, and covered
in grime.

Settling for a quick
finger-brush of my frizzy black hair I set thoughts of the half-tamed
menace aside and switched to brushing my teeth. I stopped. My canines
had suspiciously sharp points to them.
'Were they always that
big?'
I left the bathroom as quickly as possible, slipping into
my police uniform and boots that pinched at my swollen feet. Armed
with a styrofoam cup of coffee and my equipment belt I was ready to
go. Still, I stopped with my hand on the doorknob.

'It's probably just like that
little stain you don't see for weeks and only becomes a big deal when
you start paying attention to it. It's not like my teeth....'
I
kicked the door, heavy boot largely insulating my foot from harm.
'Who am I kidding, I barely touched the wine last night. Even I'm
not enough of a lightweight to hallucinate something like that after
one cup of wine. I bit a guy's throat and then he turned into a wolf.
After that anything's possible.'
At this point I just had to hope
it didn't get worse. After all, I'd gone years without anything
particularly odd happening – bar a zombie apocalypse I couldn't
even remember. Why should things change now? On the other hand, I'd
always had a slightly different idea of entertainment than most girls
and a bad habit of chewing on pens, though that vice probably wasn't
relevant.

'I'm freaking out about
nothing.'
I opened the door.
'Moment of truth.'
Cautiously
I pressed my hand towards the beam of morning light passing in front
of the doorway like a mime probing an invisible wall.
'Nothing.'
While vaguely disappointed that the super strength and agility I'd
briefly enjoyed the previous night was not a permanent thing it was a
comfort to know I wouldn't have to give up sunbathing on the beach
anytime soon. Well, at least if I ignored my ability to get a
sunburn on a cloudy day.

I was more than willing to
believe an alternate explanation to the previous night's activities.
Whatever energy I’d felt propelling the previous night hadn’t
felt dark and evil and dead. It had felt vibrant, almost alive in
its own right. For a little while it had felt like I could do
anything, as if gravity was just a suggestion that could be ignored
at will. But now I was back in the real world.
'

Alright, on to problem number
two. Why don't I own a bike?'
It looked like I'd be walking to
the crime scene. Fred definitely didn't seem the type to pick me up.
At least this was one place whose location I thankfully knew. My
first time on the job and it sounded like I'd get to visit a crime
scene. This was so cool! Well, condolences, of course, for whoever
may have suffered damages physical or fiscal. Still! The excitement
was enough to make me forget my injuries and after a long swig of
coffee I forced myself into a soft-footed jog, knees and thighs
taking the brunt of the work.

The city was waking up with a
vengeance, compensating for the eery stillness of the night. Bakeries
tempted me with their scents as I passed and at the risk of
perpetuating stereotypes I indulged myself and picked up a
chocolate-glazed doughnut. Munching on it as I ran I couldn't help
but wonder if I hadn't gotten lucky by not taking a taxi to the
scene. The closer I came to the high school the worse the traffic
jams became. Even though Boston's population was only a fraction of
what it once was, enough roads had fallen into disrepair or collapsed
completely that a few intersections got blocked up on a regular
basis.

By the time I slowed down to a
walk, licking my fingers as I came to the corner, a few drivers had
actually stepped out of their cars. Tossing away my coffee cup into a
green can I picked up my pace, carefully avoiding eye contact to keep
the curious and the frustrated from asking me any questions. From the
corner of my eye it looked like one was approaching me to try and
initiate an interrogation despite my countermeasures when to my
relief the captain spotted me and called me over. “Fisher,
good, you made it.” His smile beamed warmth and sincerity
before vanishing without a trace. I was starting to wonder if he
wasn’t just a little bipolar.

Well, this was a bit more than I
expected. It looked like the entire force must be here, and maybe a
few cars from neighboring departments as well. “What's going
on?”

“
I need you to help out on
the northern rim of the school. We've already had one punk kid try
and sneak past the tape and I'd rather not have to deal with
another.” I followed his dismissive gesture to a spiky-haired
boy receiving a firm lesson in life by a gray-haired detective.

“
Yes, sir, I'm on it.”
How frustrating. Now I had to stand around for hours on end wondering
about what happened. As I picked my way around the outer edge of the
police tape I spotted a few other officers assigned to perimeter
guard. The woods, sparse and cultivated as they were, made the task a
rather difficult one. It appeared safe enough that half the kids
living nearby probably cut through on the way to school.
'I wonder
if the other officers know as little about this case as I do.'
After sorting out my position in the line I mentally prepared myself
for a long wait.

It wasn't a bad way to spend the
day, to be honest. My injuries weren't fully healed yet and I
wouldn't have said no to a sandwich but the weather was marvelous.
Buds were opening everywhere as spring decided to finally take hold
in earnest. Even in the shadows of the trees there was a refreshing
chill replacing the bitter cold of winter. My eyelids drooped against
the sunlight. Backing into the shade I slumped against the trunk of
a shoulder-wide oak tree, letting some of my weight drift off my
feet.

A tiny red spider drifted down
on a thread of silk. I caught it gently on my hand, watching it play
across my fingertips. A twig snapped in the distance, and soon enough
I heard footsteps coming towards me. Hastily I let the cute little
arachnid crawl off onto a low-hanging branch.
'It's stuff like
this that makes people think you're weird, Julie,'
I thought to
myself, idly wondering if addressing myself in the third person was
not another sign of eccentricity.

“
Julie Fisher?” said
the man as he came into view.

“
That's me.” He
looked vaguely like the quarterback for my high school football team,
minus the perpetually broken nose. The hits to the nose weren't all
from football, of course. Haven was a small town, but with very
little access to video games and modern technology we turned to
sports – and just about every variation of them we could think
of.

“
They told me you hadn't
picked up a radio yet. Thought you should know we're packing up.
I'm Jake by the way.”

I was supposed to say something
here, wasn't I? I wasn't good with greeting people. The moment was
gone soon enough. As he turned to leave I sidled into place behind
him. “So what happened here, exactly?”

“
You haven't heard about
the serial killer?” He turned his head back to stare at me,
incredulous. In my defense, it wasn't as if I had the money to buy
the newspaper every day, and Alex probably didn't think a serial
killer was proper conversation for a date. As far as everyone else,
well, I had no desire to hang out at the skate park with young teens
and I looked too much like a kid to really enjoy clubbing. “They
say Chains is back in town, but if you ask me it's more likely to be
a copycat. Some of the stuff he does requires some real strength to
pull off and the guy must be at least sixty by now.”

There were a couple rather
strong senior citizens in my home town but it probably wasn't worth
it to argue the point right now. “So why do they call him
Chains?” I asked.

“
Well,” he said,
slowing his walk, “after he rips out your throat, he decides to
go a step further. Apparently killing isn't enough for this guy; he
puts them in a barbed wire necklace and hangs 'em up somewhere for
all the world to see. Back when my grandfather was on the force it
was a big embarrassment for the department that they couldn't catch
Chains when he wasn't even hiding the murders. We've got better
forensics nowadays though. It's probably just a matter of time.”
The fellow apparently thought himself a storyteller, accompanying
his narrative with expansive gestures.

Something about this case was
worrying me. More than the average serial killer would, that is. “How
were the throats ripped out?”

“
With something’s
teeth, near as anyone can tell. Almost like he let a dog chew on
them. No animal matches the marks, but that's probably due to the
barbed wire.

That clinched it. Apparently
confronting Alex about my purse would be even more dangerous than I
had thought.
'It can't be him, there's no way he's sixty.'
Still, what did I really know about how werewolves aged? And honestly
how many werewolves could there be running around in the streets
before someone took notice of them? Throw in how he had chased me
with intent to maim and kill and... This was worrisome. I'd already
given false testimony about him, which would make arresting him a
difficult task. Then again, if I was implicating supernatural
creatures, maybe it was some sort of vampire. They could rip out
throats too, right? I slapped myself on the face as a brief image of
myself ripping gleefully into my old crush's throat came to mind. I
barely managed to keep a straight face as Jake looked back at me
again.
The officer patted his pockets and abruptly stopped
walking. “Hey, wait here a sec, I think I dropped my
headphones.”

I would have walked along with
him to help, but I was feeling a little woozy. The lack of sleep and
food had done me no favors. Throw in my still healing injuries and,
if the hot feeling on my neck was any indication, a sunburn from
lingering in the clearing and I was in bad enough shape to feel
barely functional. A fallen tree seemed like invitation enough to
sit down. My forehead felt cold and clammy, and I doubted I looked
much better than I felt. I was really missing out on my beauty sleep
these days.

“
Uuu.
”

I knew that sound. It was the
same as in my dreams, a haunting moan from a creature with no right
to breathe. I leapt to my feet nauseatingly fast, drawing my gun in
one hand and my knife in the other. The moan came again, soft and
rasping as if short of breath. Should I really be doing this? What
if there was more than one, or if it was a feral? I'd heard stories
of a single one of those clawed monstrosities cutting through entire
villages in minutes. But I was a police officer, wasn't I? This was
my job, this was why I was allowed to carry a gun in a city with
endemic gang violence and a strict weapons ban. I could do this.

My breath hitched as I caught
sight of her. Raven-black hair wreathed a face that with her eyes
and mouth closed could pass for human, but no human could survive
this. Springtime it might be, but here in the deep shadows of the
woods spring always came late. A miniature glacier had formed from
the stream that now rushed along beneath, fed by the spring melt.
She was encased in ice, nearly up to her neck. She was still half
asleep, though whether that was from the feeble sunlight through the
branches or from being half frozen I couldn't say. Her skin was
dusky but had that sallow, almost translucent look common to most
zombies. Even with the hint of crimson beneath her near-shut lids
and the hint of sharpened teeth between her purple lips it was
difficult to label her a zombie. She looked terribly, deathly thin,
but... '
not so dissimilar to me.'
I
backed a pace, knife rising to ward off this immobile opponent even
as my gun hung limp, nearly forgotten in my off hand.