“I do not want to know how you came by that knowledge,” I said.
As the zombies-dead doggie included-shuffled closer, Devona stepped closer and grabbed hold of my arm, as if seeking my protection. I wanted to put my arm around her and hold her closer, but I didn’t. I told myself this wasn’t the right time, and anyway, it wouldn’t be professional. But in truth, I was afraid if I tried, she might pull away from me in disgust. After all, right then I didn’t look, or smell, any better than the walking corpses slowly coming toward us.
“What’s wrong with them?” Devona asked. “I’ve seen zombies before-normal ones, not self-aware ones like you, Matt-and they don’t act like that. For the most part, they just stand around and wait for someone to give them an order.”
“You’re thinking of voodoo zombies,” I said. “Those are corpses resurrected by a voodoo priest or priestess for the purpose of being a servant. Those zombies-” I nodded toward the moaners-“are a more recent breed.”
“Not to mention more annoying,” Lazlo out in. “They’re always wandering out of the Boneyard and into the other Dominions, staggering around and trying to feast on the flesh of the living. The only good thing about them is that you have to shoot them in the head to kill them. Makes them good target practice.”
“Where did they come from?” Devona asked. “And more to the point, why are we just standing here if they want to crack open our skulls and slurp up our brains?”
The zombies had crossed half the distance to us in the time we’d been talking, and they were becoming more excited the closer they got, moving with more urgency, and all of them were loudly moaning, “ Braaaaiiiinssss…”
I decided to ignore Devona’s second question and answer her first. “No one’s sure where they originated from. Some say they’re the result of voodoo zombies mutating after exposure to some kind of supernatural or science-based power source. Others think that one mad scientist or another got hold of an old Earth flesheating zombie movie on DVD, saw it, and decided to see if he could actually make them.”
The zombies were almost upon us by then.
“Wherever they came from” Lazlo said, “I’d wish they’d go back and stay there.” He glanced at me. “No offense, Matt. You’re in a way different league than these moaners.”
“No offense taken,” I reassured him.
The first of the zombies was just about within arm’s reach now, and she stretched a trembling hand toward us that was more bone than flesh. Her milk-white eyes stared hungrily at us, her leathery lips moving as if she were anticipating the meal to come.
“ Brains…” she whispered softly in an eerie, hollow voice.
Devona was pressed against me so tight now that I feared she might break a few more of my ribs.
“Guys…” She sounded on the verge of panic, but before she could do or say anything else, the zombie woman paused.
Her dead nostrils flared as they took in our scents, and I was jealous. I couldn’t smell, but then I didn’t need to hunt down brains to devour, either. The zom-bie’s features twisted into a mask of pained disgust, and she stuck out a slimy black tongue.
“ Yuck,” she spat, then turned to face her fellow zombies.
She said or did nothing obvious to communicate with the others, but they stopped and gazed at her with their dead eyes. And then as one the entire group, zombiedog included, slowly turned and began shuffling away.
Devona relaxed a bit, but she made no move to step away from me. Not that I was complaining.
“What just happened?” she asked.
“That breed of zombie only feasts on living human flesh,” I explained. “Not demon, not half-vampire, and certainly not another zombie.”
Lazlo shook his head as he watched the zombies slowly depart. “That’s the other thing I hate about them: they’re picky eaters.”
Devona ignored the demon and gave me an irritated look. “You could’ve told me that sooner.”
I smiled. “What, and spoil the surprise?”
She hauled off and punched me in the arm using her full strength. It might have been my imagination, but I thought it actually hurt a little.
We resumed walking and eventually came to an open field containing the bent, broken, and rusted hulks of hundreds of cars, with a faded, weather-beaten sign proclaiming the place to be Riffraff’s Revenants. A junkyard. It made sense, I suppose. After all, this Dominion was reserved for the dead, right? And what was a junkyard other than a cemetery for machines?
Lazlo stopped and stared, a beatific expression on his hideous face. He looked like a demon who had died and, much to his surprise, gone to heaven.
“Look.” He pointed to a crumpled hunk of yellow metal that had once been a taxicab and grinned. “I thought I’d never see it again.”
“Surely you don’t think that’s yours,” Devona said.
“Look at the tires on the passenger side,” I said. “They’ve been melted.”
She shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
“Maybe this is where cars go when they die,” Lazlo said in wonder.
“Or maybe it’s part of the deal I made with Lord Edrigu. Whichever, it sure looks like your cab.”
“I’m going to check it out, see if anything’s salvageable. Maybe, with enough work, I can even get the poor thing running again. You guys go on ahead.” He started forward.
“We can’t just leave you here,” I said.
Lazlo stopped. “Why not? What can happen to me in the Boneyard? Everything’s dead here.”
I thought of the E emblazoned on my palm. “This is Nekropolis, Lazlo. Just because something’s dead doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous.”
He chuckled. “You worry too much.”
“We almost died in Glamere,” Devona pointed out.
“We didn’t, though, did we?” Lazlo countered. “But my cab did. Maybe now I have chance to get it back. You two take care, and good luck.” And with that he shufled toward the remains of his pride and joy.
“Let’s go, Devona.”
“But-”
“Lazlo’s cab is his whole life. And you’ve seen him drive. Once he starts, he doesn’t slow down, and he doesn’t listen to anyone telling him to stop. He’s like that about everything. He’ll probably mess around with the cab for a few hours, realize it’s no use, mourn his loss, and then head on back to the Sprawl. Eventually, he’ll either find another cab, or he’ll be forced to go into a new line of work and the pedestrians of Nekropolis will be able to breathe a little easier.”
Devona looked at Lazlo-who was walking around the wreckage of his cab, shaking his head and muttering- one last time, and then together we continued down the street toward Gregor’s.
The streets in the Boneyard had no names, and there were no particular landmarks, just block after block of decay and dissolution, so finding Gregor’s place wasn’t easy. Eventually we passed a large factory that looked something like a medieval castle with three towering smoke stacks pumping black clouds into the already ebon sky. An intricate lattice of metal beams and wires stretched upward from the roof of the building, and electricity sizzled as it swept through the lattice, bolts cracking like thunder as they leaped from one connection point to another. A high wrought-iron fence surrounded the facility, tipped with sharp spear points to prevent any curiosity-seekers from being tempted to climb over.
Devona gazed upon the factory with wonder. “Is that-”
I nodded. “The Foundry. Home, laboratory, and production facility of Victor Baron, otherwise known as Frankenstein’s Monster.”
“It’s bigger than I imagined,” she said.
“Baron lives to create things, and that includes his facility. He’s been expanding it for over two hundred years, and he shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.”
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“Only by reputation. From what I understand, he doesn’t leave the Foundry much.”
For the last two centuries, Victor Baron had been Nekropolis’s prime supplier of what he terms reanimation technology but which most people call meatwork. Baron is responsible for the city’s Mind’s Eye technology,
