Strange Angels Page 4

  I’d already done three loads of laundry and cleaned up the kitchen. The heater was going; it was nice and warm. I was organizing the boxes in the living room, unpacking some and arranging things. I’d already gone through some of the ammo cache and organized the clips according to the guns they were for. Dad would be oiling the rifles soon—it was about that time of the month. Taking care of your gear is essential, especially when you’re after things that may or may not be able to mess with complex machinery and electronics. That’s why Dad didn’t carry a cell phone, they were like magnets for poltergeists and other things.

  I tried not to think about it.

  My stomach growled and I felt weird, like my head was full of rushing noise. I drank four glasses of tap water through the afternoon, sucking them down in between whatever I was doing, and that helped with everything except the roaring tornado between my ears.

  Snowy light came through the windows; the blinds were pulled up. I could see a stretch of the front yard and the clogged street. Some cars had struggled by during the afternoon, none of them fishtailing, all of them wearing snow chains and rattling into their own driveways down the street.

  None of them was Dad. I checked every time I heard the clattercrunch of chains or the sound of an engine. They all trundled past to their warm garages, ignoring our lonely house out at the end of the lane. Dad had picked this house because it was solid, but also because it stood apart from the others—which is more of a rarity than you’d think in the Midwest, since they have all that prairie space to shut out.

  I was on my knees putting the last clips in the box when I heard something tapping in the kitchen.

  Tip-tap. Tip-tap. Taptaptap.

  My skin chilled, gooseflesh rising hard and fast on my arms. My head jerked up, hair falling in my eyes. It wasn’t frizzing today, for once. Go figure—the day I stay home from school I have good hair.

  What the hell is that? It wasn’t the screen door on the enclosed porch back there rattling; I already knew that sound.

  The gooseflesh didn’t go away, little nuggets of ice under my skin.

  Tap. Tap. Like little rubber-covered sticks drumming hard against a windowpane. My mouth had gone dry and my fingers were numb. Then I got the taste of oranges and salt in my mouth, and I knew something bad was about to happen. Gran called it an “arrah”; it was only later I found out she meant “aura.” Like before a migraine, or the envelope of light Gran always said you could see around people if you had enough of the touch.

  With me it was always oranges, and salt. Not real oranges, either. I can’t explain it better—it’s like wax oranges, maybe.

  Oh shit. Shit.

  The strangest thing of all was how calm I was. The light was failing—even if snow bounced back streetlight shine, it was getting darker. I always expect creepiness around dusk, and I had the howlin’ heebie-jeebies anyway.

  I got up, my legs turning to wood and shaking like an earthquake had hit. Then I scooped Dad’s spare bowie knife off the top of a half-unpacked box. The living room looked like a bomb had hit it; I realized I’d just been unpacking half a box and wandering on to the next. The taste of oranges got stronger, and the tapping came again, a creaking, scratching sound, like small nails against a window.

  I held the knife the way Dad taught me, flat along the forearm with the hilt clasped in my hand. That way you can hit someone in the face with the pommel and you can get your triceps and lats—some of the stronger muscles in your body, especially if you do triceps dips or lat pulldowns—into the action. And if you slash up you have your biceps getting busy too, plus you can keep better control of the knife.

  Go quiet, Dru. It was Dad’s voice in my head, now. A soft whisper, like he was teaching me how to concentrate on a target. Go quiet and take cover on that side of the hall. It’s coming from the kitchen. Do it like I taught you.

  I edged down the hall, cursing the boxes set along the side I should have been taking cover against. The kitchen light was on, sending a rectangle of golden glow into the hall and covering the foot of the stairs. The heater clicked off, and the tapping sped up.

  Taptaptaptap. Pause. Taptaptap. Taptap.

  My heart lodged in my throat, a chunk of beating meat. The big muscles in my thighs trembled like I’d just finished running a hard mile and a half. I slid slow and easy down the hall, little bits of the kitchen coming into view.

  The thing they don’t tell you about in situations like these—and by “they” I mean horror movies, which are generally better training for this sort of thing than you’d think—is how your field of vision constricts, everything getting narrower and narrower. You can’t see enough, and peripheral vision plays tricks on you. The eyes flick around frantically, trying to take everything in and failing miserably. I stepped in front of the stairs and saw the sink, the stove, a slice of the kitchen table.

  The window over the sink was empty, full of snowlight. I let out a soft breath through my mouth, as quiet as possible. My heart pounded in my ears like a drum solo in a pair of headphones. The taste of wax oranges got stronger, turned thick and cloying. Rotting in my mouth.

  Tap. Taptaptaptaptap. The tattoo of skritching sounds grew stronger, almost frantic.

  I stepped into the kitchen.

  The back door was set to one side of the counters, Dad’s chair at the table with its back to the wall holding the pantry. When he sat down he could see the back door and the entry to the hall, keeping his back to the safest quadrant. The door itself was a prosaic little number, a latticed glass window on top and a flimsy wooden panel with a deadbolt and a chain probably stronger than the door itself on bottom.

  My gorge rose hot and thick, fighting with my heart for control of my throat. I choked and almost dropped the knife. I could see it clearly through the squares of double-paned glass, darkening because the enclosed porch was getting dim and dark, light bleeding out of the sky as the snow whirled down.

  There was a zombie at my back door. Its eyes swung up, and they were blue, the whites already clouding with the egg rot of death. Its jaw was a mess of meat and frozen blood; something had eaten half its face. Its fingertips, already worn down to bony nubs, scraped against the window. Flesh hung in strips from its hand, and my stomach turned over hard. Black mist rose at the corners of my vision, and the funny rushing sound in my head sounded like a jet plane taking off.

  I’d know that zombie anywhere. Even if he was dead and mangled, his eyes were the same. Blue as winter ice, fringed with pale lashes.

  The zombie’s gaze locked with mine. It cocked its head like it had just heard a faraway noise.

  I let out a dry barking sound and my back hit the wall next to the hallway, smacking my hip against a stack of boxes.

  Dad bunched up his rotting fist, the meat chewed away from fingerbones by something I didn’t want to imagine or even think about, and punched his way through the window.

  CHAPTER 5

  I would have stood there forever, staring in dreamy terror at the thing that used to be my father as it battered itself against the back door—if it hadn’t been for the phone. It rang shrilly under the sound of snapping wood, and something about that garbled screech jolted me into action. I screamed, a high, girly cry of fear, and dropped the knife. The chime of it hitting linoleum was lost in the groaning noise of breakage as the zombie forced its way through the back door, staring at me. Zombies do that—if something catches their attention they turn blindly toward it and don’t stop until they’ve torn it to bits.

  Unless, of course, whoever made the zombie had given it a target. Then they don’t pay much attention to anything except shambling around in the darkest corners they can find, instinctively avoiding notice as they work their way toward their objective. Not too smart, zombies—but they’re determined. Way determined.

  I should know, I’d watched Dad kill more than a few. Zombies are like cockroaches—you never see them until there’s too many of them, and they hang on hard to whatever semblance of life bad conta
mination or dark magic’s given them.

  I scrambled back into the hall and bolted for the living room. Each step took a lifetime. My boots slipped on the carpet; I banged into a box and screamed again, diving around the corner and into the living room as the zombie let out a weird bellow. They don’t talk, the reanimated. Instead, they let out a whistling groaning noise like a cow in terrible pain, air forced through dead frozen vocal cords. Usually when someone hears that sound, it’s the last thing they hear, because zombies are eerily quick when they have their next snack in sight.

  That’s another thing about them. You can bring something resembling life back to a dead body once the soul’s gone, sure. But whatever you stick in there always ends up hungry.

  The nine-millimeter was under the arm of Dad’s camp chair in a Velcro holster. I hit the ground hard and scrabbled for it, moving too fast to bother scrambling upright, my feet tangling over each other as I heard light shuffling footsteps and the crunch of broken glass. The zombie blundered into the hall and I heard a god-awful racket—it must have tripped over a box.

  My fingers were the size of sausages and clumsy, too. I ripped the cold metal of the gun out of the holster, Velcro tearing free and the chair spinning as I shoved it away. I rolled over onto my back, hearing Dad’s voice in my head again.

  Easy there, sweetheart. Don’t point that thing at anything you don’t intend to kill. Always treat a gun like it’s loaded.

  I hoped it was loaded. I knew it probably was—Dad wouldn’t have a piece on his camp chair if it wasn’t. I’ve been shooting since I was nine and even Gran had a gun in her house and I knew gun safety, didn’t I? It was why I was Dad’s helper. I knew the right way to handle a firearm and the wrong way, too, and the thing blundered around the corner, fixing me with its terrible rotting eyes that were now unholy, glowing blue. A spark of red revolved far back in the pupils, and I smelled it.

  Zombies smell worse than anything you can imagine if you haven’t been hunting things on the dark side of the world. It’s a ripe, gassy odor, like rotting eggs and meat gone bad, crawling blind with maggots. It’s roadkill and decayed food and body odor all rolled into one package and tied up with puke.

  I screamed again, but all that came out was a whistling sound, because my throat had locked up. I pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Oh shit.

  The safety was on. The thing lunged for me, its atonal bellow rolling free of its throat again—

  —and it fell.

  Take the goddamn safety off. I scrabbled with the gun as the zombie splatted onto the carpet. It was covered in snow, wet and running with rot, and it wore Dad’s favorite green Army-surplus coat. It had tripped over a box partly blocking the entrance to the living room.

  My breath sounded harsh as a crow’s caw as the safety clicked off. I lay on my back and pointed the gun.

  Dad’s eyes met mine. The zombie scrambled to its bare, rotting feet—his shoes were gone, where were his boots?—and stretched out its hands, bits of flesh falling and plopping on the carpet. The stink roiled through my nose, filled my head, and I retched as I pulled the trigger.

  The first bullet went wide, blowing out part of the living-room wall. I was still screaming and dry-sobbing as the zombie ratcheted forward, falling toward me, its teeth snicking together as its ruined jaw ground shut again and again, practicing the chewing motion that would eat its prey alive. I kept pulling the trigger.

  I didn’t even hear the shots, though they must have been deafening. All I heard was my own sobs.

  It fell on me. Slime splashed and black blood splatted on my face. It burned like acid. It was cold like the snow outside, and it stank. Its jaws clicked twice, it shuddered, and a gout of something black and disgusting smashed out of its mouth.

  I was still screaming. Couldn’t get enough breath, so I was making a high, whining sound. The gun clicked. I was pulling the trigger, but I’d emptied the clip.

  The zombie was truly dead. There was a hole in its chest, nicely grouped shots. You have to damage the heart or the thing keeps coming. It’s something about the process of making a zombie, the meaning of the heart keeping the whole body going—or so the books say. But I hadn’t been thinking about the books. I’d been blindly following training, aiming for the bodyshot like he had taught me.

  Don’t aim for the head if you’ve got a choice. Don’t pull. Squeeze the trigger, sweetheart. Dad’s voice, in my head. With the never-ending refrain repeated so many times, I could have said it in my sleep: Don’t point that thing at something you don’t intend to kill.

  I thrashed wildly, smashing the thing on the head with the gun, hammering on it and struggling free of deadweight. Still making that high, whining sound, I crawled fast as I could across the living room until I reached the corner farthest away from the zombie. My left hand got rug burn. My right was full of the empty gun.

  I put my back in the corner and heard myself babbling. Weak, incoherent sounds bounced off the empty white walls. I was cold and covered in stinking, burning goo.

  The zombie lay facedown. Runnels of filth caved through its rotting skin. The smell was unbelievable. It wore Dad’s jacket and Dad’s jeans. Once you’ve taken the heart out, a zombie rots real quick. Even the skeleton decomposes into dust.

  I started to cry.

  The babbling turned into one word, over and over again.

  “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

  He just lay there.

  The zombie just lay there.

  CHAPTER 6

  The mall was open because the snowplows had come out. The main drags were clean and clear. They took winter seriously around here and had everything salted, sanded, scraped, and plowed to within an inch of its life. The buses were still running, too.

  Life doesn’t stop out on the prairies for a little snow. Canned Muzak still has to play, after all, and if they closed the malls, who would play it?

  I stared at the small McDonald’s cup. It was full of coffee that had been steaming hot and now just kind of sat there. My eyes burned, full of sand. I’d scrubbed the zombie rot off my skin and thrown some clothes on, shoved all the cash I could find—Dad’s billfold was gone, probably tucked into the truck somewhere or, more likely, taken—into my messenger bag and hightailed it out of the house, stopping only to turn the heat off, for some weird reason. The back door was shattered and the smell was incredible, thick as Crisco in the nose.

  Did anyone hear the shots? I didn’t think so—there had been no sirens, and our house was a pariah, set apart like it had a disease. We heard nothing from our neighbors, and that was the way Dad liked it. The snow would muffle everything, too.

  If it had killed me, nobody would even know I was dead. I’d be lying there, and . . .

  My brain stopped working, stalled like a choked engine. I shuddered, the plastic chair squeaking. The mall was as brightly lit as Heaven and people were wandering around, shopping like there wasn’t a decomposing zombie in my living room. Down on the lower level of the food court a fountain splashed, water rilling musically down squares of Art Deco concrete and sculpted, welded steel.

  The Styrofoam cup was a white circle with a brown ellipse inside it, a conical, textured shape. I could draw it. My pad was in my bag, shoved in there with hysterical haste like everything else.

  Drawing sounded good, except I couldn’t do it with my hands shaking so bad. I shivered again. I couldn’t have told you what I was wearing, only that I’d changed clothes after scrubbing the zombie goo off me.

  I shot him. I shot Daddy.

  I kept bumping up against the memory—Dad’s blue eyes with their rotting whites fixed on me, a crimson spark dancing in the depths of the clouded pupil, no longer perfectly circular but fringing at the edges as the tissue died. The gun jolting against my hands. The smell.

  I realized I was making the sound again, a low whining at the back of my throat under the fountain’s wet splishing, and killed it. I couldn’t afford to have someone
look too closely at me.

  I’d just killed my dad.

  Hello, Officer? Can you help me? My dad got turned into a zombie. You know, we’ve been traveling around getting rid of things that aren’t real, and this time they hit back. I really need someplace to stay—but can you make sure I have some holy water or something wherever it is? And some silver-jacketed bullets? That’d be sweet. Yeah, that’d be totally cool. Thanks. And while you’re at it, can you tell the guys with the straitjackets that I’m really sane? That would help.

  The coffee trembled inside the cup as I touched its rim with two fingers. Soon the mall would start closing down. It was a weeknight. Where would I go? I couldn’t get a hotel room with the ID I had on me, unless I tried the bad part of town, and that would cost more cash than I wanted to spend right at the moment. Speaking of cash, I needed to find a way to get more if I ran out, and—

  I couldn’t even think about planning that far ahead.

  I shot my daddy. Jesus Christ, I shot my dad. Tears rose hot and thick in my throat. The awful scratching sound at the back window turned into someone pulling the cheap plastic chair opposite me away from the table and dropping down into it, grinning at me through a mop of curly dark hair.

  “There you are. Skipping two days in a row. Someone call the cops.” Graves set an Orange Julius cup on the table—I’d chosen a place with my back to a wall, jumping nervously anytime someone walked behind me on their way to the restrooms. It was the spot with the best sight lines, and someone had put a fake potted plant behind my chair. Awful kind of them.

  I stared at Goth Boy instead of the coffee cup now. The silver earring in his left ear was a dangling skull and crossbones. The faint satisfaction I felt at finally getting a clear look at it was drowned in the panic rising in my throat, thumping behind my heart.

  He shook dyed, dead-black hair out of his eyes. They were more green than hazel now, cradled in the slightest of epicanthic folds, and the even caramel of his skin was something to hate him for. “Hey.” The grin faded, spilled out of his face. Today he wore a Kiss T-shirt and the usual black coat, and when he put his long hands on the table I saw he was wearing fingerless black gloves. The inverted crucifix winked at me from its silver chain, and my gorge rose again, pointlessly. “Are you okay?”