I get her as far as the living room before she faints. She’s bleeding bad. There’s a kind of shawl on the back of an old chair. I tear off a long section, wrap it around Brigitte’s neck like a scarf, pick her up, and head for a shadow. But there’s no door there. Just wall. Fucking Springheel must have put an antihoodoo cloak on the house. I carry her out through the kitchen. Extra-crispy and original-recipe Drifters shamble from the back into the living room. Most of them get lost in the furniture and bounce around like pinballs, but some of the smart ones that can follow a straight line stumble after us. Eventually, the pinballs will bounce their way out of the front door, too. Nothing I can do about that now. I get Brigitte to the Lexus, put her in the passenger seat, and buckle her in. I get to the driver’s side cursing Kinski for being gone. We could use you and your magic glass right now, you prick. Maybe a dozen Drifters are wandering around the vacant lot and there are more behind them. This neighborhood is all warehouses and pretty deserted even in the middle of the day, but it won’t take them long to wander into populated neighborhoods. Someone left them there like a land mine. It was going to go off sometime and I’m the asshole lucky enough to have set it off. How many more bombs did whoever spray-painted behind the door leave around the city? Brigitte moans. I hit the gas and point the Lexus in the direction of Vidocq and Allegra’s.
I BEACH THE Lexus half on the curb outside the building, run to Brigitte’s side, and pull her out. The streetlight casts a fat shadow on one wall. I step through and come out in the apartment. I don’t know what time it is. Probably three or four. All the lights are off. In my head, the room is still the same as when I left it eleven years ago, but it’s not my place and Vidocq has changed everything. I want to put Brigitte down on the couch, but I keep stumbling over chairs and piles of books. Fuck it. I start kicking anything that makes noise. “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” A light comes on in the bedroom. Allegra wanders out in an extra-extra-large Max Overload T-shirt. Vidocq follows, tying his robe. “What time is it? What’s going on?” asks Allegra, rubbing her eyes. Now that I can see, I carry Brigitte over to where they’re standing. “She’s hurt and she’s lost a lot of blood.” “Who is she? If she needs blood take her to an emergency room.” “She isn’t hospital hurt. She’s Kinski hurt, but he’s gone, so you’re Kinski tonight.” “What happened to her?” “There was a metric assload of Drifters. One of them bit her.” “What the hell? What’s a Drifter?” “A High Plains Drifter.” Vidocq clears his throat. “He means revenants. Zombies.” Allegra’s forehead creases in a frown. “There really are zombies? Why doesn’t anyone tell me these things?” “They’re extremely rare. I’ve only seen an outbreak once in this country and it was put down quickly.” I say, “History later. A chunk of her neck is missing.” Allegra points past me. “Put her on the kitchen counter.” She and Vidocq grab plates, utensils, and a cutting board and toss them on a nearby table. When there’s a clean spot, I lay out Brigitte, facedown. Allegra pushes the hair back from Brigitte’s wound. I put a kitchen towel under her so her face isn’t right on the tile.
