moment and Jubal glimpsed a lump on her neck.
“So, what are we going to do with Renee, Jubal?”
The sight of the blister or boil on Fiona’s neck had stricken Jubal silent. He couldn’t tell her about his plan to burn Renee’s body somewhere in the surrounding desert.
“Did you hear something in the other room just now?” Fiona said.
He had heard something…
There was a moaning sound, then Renee Spencer lurched into the room, arms outstretched, heading straight for Fiona. She made a whining sound as if she were in pain…or hungry.
Fiona screamed and sidestepped out of Renee’s path.
But she was dead. I could have sworn…
Renee swung around toward Fiona. She made an angry sound from the back of her throat. Jubal could see her eyes now. There was no light there; there was nothing. Yet this dead woman was in Fiona’s kitchen, attacking her.
Jubal leapt out of his chair and punched Renee in the stomach. The undead woman let out a surprised grunt and tumbled backwards onto the tile?oor.
Oh my god. She looks dead. She smells dead. She looks dead. She smells- Renee was on her feet again and Fiona was still screaming in the corner of the kitchen. Jubal grabbed Fiona’s sleeve and yanked her toward the doorway.
As Fiona was pulled across the room, Renee clawed at her but missed.
Renee emitted a hunger-fueled wailing that chilled Jubal to the bone.
He yanked his Glock and shot the undead woman in the stomach.
Then Jubal and Fiona?ed across the living room and out the front door, slamming it closed behind them.
Jubal opened the passenger door of the cruiser and pushed Fiona into the car. Then he ran around to his side as Fiona swung her door closed. Jubal got in and switched on the radio.
Fiona was whimpering like a baby.
“Sh, baby, shh,” Jubal said as he tried to raise the state police. But all he got was static and hum.
“Shit!”
Jubal started the cruiser.
Fiona screamed. Jubal turned his head and, through Fiona’s window, saw Renee lurching down the front walk, her shirt spattered with blood. She reached out toward the cruiser with outstretched arms and groping?ngers, her jaw working up and down.
“Quiet, baby. We’re getting out of here.”
The cruiser tore off down the street, leaving the hungry zombie behind.
Fiona would not stop screaming. He’d seen hysterical people slapped in movies, but couldn’t bring himself to hurt Fiona-ever. Even if it was for her own good.
Halfway to the sheriff’s house, Fiona’s screams died down to sobs.
“Don’t worry, baby. Don’t worry…”
“What…what happened back there?” Fiona said, sliding across the seat until she was right up against him. “You said she was dead. You said you were sure she was dead just by looking at her.”
Those dead yellow and red eyes. That blank stare. And the smell…
“She was dead, baby. I’m not going to lie to you. She was dead, and she was walking.”
“Nooooooooooo.” Fiona moaned the word.
“I shot her right in the stomach at point blank range, and she was up and at ’em-at you — in no time at all. And I saw her eyes, Fiona. I saw her dead, staring eyes right above her hungry, gaping mouth.” Jubal knew he shouldn’t be talking like this but couldn’t stop himself; he was babbling like a lunatic.
Fiona grew silent. And then Jubal knew; she had seen the woman’s dead eyes, too.
As they neared Damon’s house, Fiona said, “What about my neighbors? What about poor old Mrs. Sanchez and the Alberts?”
“We can’t worry about them right now. This is too much for me to handle alone. I need to talk to Damon. I need to know what he thinks of the situation. He’ll know what to do.”
“But isn’t he sick, too?”
“Yeah…” Jubal wasn’t thinking straight and he knew it. Which only angered him.
He realized he was chewing on the inside of his lower lip, something he hadn’t done since he was a child. It had always been a reaction to stress and he had torn up his lip pretty badly on occasion, causing his mother to coat the wounds with a foul tasting antibiotic paste. Back then the tribulations he dealt with included math class and getting the crap beat out of him by Tommy Brainard. Today was a mite tougher. He spat out the window, tasting the coppery tang of the blood.
Blood.
In the past few minutes he had seen more of it than he had in his entire life. The thought of it made him a little lightheaded and forced him to consider for the?rst time if he was cut out for this line of work.
On the other hand, was anyone cut out for a job that included facing down walking dead women? Jubal seriously doubted it. This wasn’t some horror disc from his collection at home. In those?lms, the heroes easily absorbed anything that was thrown at them, while spouting off funny lines and kicking ass. He was discovering that real life was different. In real life, your brain could only handle so much before it threatened to shut down. He was worried that Fiona wasn’t going to recover from what had happened. Also, he wasn’t very con?dent about his own stability.
The woman had died. He had no doubt about that. Yet the truth of what he had witnessed con?icted with his instinct. Could he have been that terribly wrong?
No.
She had been dead. She then got up and chased them. That was the truth, no matter how much he wanted to deny it or?nd a way to make it?t into some sort of nice package that would make sense.
Nothing made sense now, except that Renee Spencer had become a soldier in the dead army. And she was still marching back there, dead but hungry.
Holy Christ, what had happened down in that secret lab?
He turned into Damon Ortega’s driveway. Except for the rooftop solar cells that glinted in the moonlight, the house was dark. Jubal yearned for dawn. Even a strangely colored morning sky would be preferable to this sti?ing gloom and the horrors that might be hiding in the shadows, because it had occurred to him- and what im-fucking- peccable timing you have, Jubal, to be spooking yourself now — that maybe there were others like Renee Spencer in Serenity, shambling into town during the night, mindless, soulless, with only their need to feed propelling them. Or maybe the sickest residents in town, the ones he hadn’t seen for days, maybe they were also dying, shedding their humanity and getting ready to sign up for a hitch in this new unholy army.
He shivered in the cool of the pre-dawn morning.
“What’s wrong?” Fiona said. She almost sounded normal, which in itself seemed a bit cruel. Jubal suspected they had last seen normal in the rear view mirror.
“Nothing. Just got a chill.” He opened his door. “You coming in?”
“I’m sure as hell not staying here.”
In the dome light Fiona looked drawn and pale. He glanced at her neck, looking for the lump he had thought he’d seen back at her house. Her hair covered the spot, though, and he was grateful that he didn’t have to deal with it, at least for now.
Just a few minutes, Lord. Just a few minutes without another night-mare.
They held hands as they climbed up the front porch steps. Jubal rang the bell, but he didn’t really expect an answer. He turned the knob and swung the door open.
Damon may not have been the cop Jubal’s dad had been; still, he was pretty good and he always locked his door partly because he had a large gun collection that was his pride and joy. As they entered the house-Jubal in front, Fiona close behind, hanging on to his hand-Jubal drew his own weapon.
“Damon? You here?”
There was no answer. They moved down the short hallway to the living room, which was softly illuminated by the blue light from the screen of the silent TV. A large shape was stretched out on the couch. A large, motionless shape.
