Carole Douglas - Silver Zombie

“El Demonio’s men.”

“We should have been so lucky.” Ric eyed the carnage on the office floor. “No, his henchmen were all here already ‘interrogating’ Hassard. El Demonio had left some other forces at the theater.”

“Zombies,” I guessed. “How’d you get away?”

“This is crazy, but with the practice Quicksilver and I got repulsing zombies at the Cold Creek Drive-in, we did okay.” Ric lowered his voice. “I lost my contact lens, deliberately, and found I could, ah, use it to polish up the silver discs on Quicksilver’s collar. I could focus and then bounce the … effect. It’s the weirdest thing, Del. It’s like I can dowse for the dead with my silver eye now. I can find them, raise them, or—since we’ve encountered some really rapacious ones—suck the undead life out of them. Don’t tell Tallgrass. He thinks we just fought hard and got lucky and had a dog with a mystical amount of wolf in him on our side.”

I didn’t know what to make of Ric’s account any more than Tallgrass had.

Mulling it all over, I watched as Quicksilver stepped back to lick his big paws and start swabbing his nose and mouth blood-free. Ben struggled to a sitting position, his hands wiping his unhurt face and running over his equally sound arms and chest.

“It’s a miracle,” he said. “I dreamed I was in the hands of devils with their hellfire pitchforks and then I was touched by an angel with the most beautiful blue eyes in all of heaven.” He gazed at me like a freshman nerd meeting a prom queen.

I was not about to tell Ben his real “angel” needed a major shave and a claw-cut.

“What did those devils want?” Ric asked, using the dazed man’s terms of reference.

“Some old film cans that were found in the basement of the Augusta Theater during renovation.”

“Why would you know right away about what was found there?” I asked.

“I underwrote most of the Augusta Theater restoration. Having another tourist attraction nearby would enhance the Wicked Wild West concept. My backers and I planned to rope in Dodge City’s tourist exhibitions too, make it into an auto-tour ending at Emerald City. You know, from fantastic Kansas history to extraordinary Kansas fantasy. Saloon shoot-outs to a genuine restored movie palace to the biggest Kansas-set move of all time.”

“Ben,” I said, sort of gently, but not too. “I know what was found in the Augusta’s basement, and that you realized its value and skedaddled with it to someone who could get you the CinSims you so desperately needed for the Emerald City.”

Tallgrass watched his friend like an outraged hawk. “You stole something from the civic restoration project? Something valuable?”

Ben shrugged unhappily, still rubbing his restored arms and shoulders. “It was just an old film, Tallgrass. I needed something new for the Emerald City, something modern like the bigwigs in Vegas have. CinSims.”

“Those animated celebrities?” Tallgrass asked with disdain. “We could do that with a wax museum and animatronics.”

Ben shook his head. “Last century, Tallgrass.”

“So you found a big-time buyer?” Ric asked.

“No. That was the beauty of it. He found me. The bigwig was a cinema freak. Showed up. Knew about the old film being found somehow. Already had the perfect Cin-Sims, the only ones available for Emerald City. We made the deal and everyone was happy as clams. Hundreds of thousands of clams.”

“You were cheating the theater restoration project of the proceeds of its property,” Tallgrass said.

“I donated plenty to them,” Ben said, quivering at his friend’s anger. “More than they know what to do with. I tell you, everyone was happy.”

A moment later, a sizzling bolt of lightning shivered down from high above Emerald City.

“Somebody up there sure isn’t,” I said.

Outside the complex, thunder cracked its muscles, strained its sinews to the breaking point, and strode the sky to break its back again and again.

Earth below buckled.

Emerald City towers above trembled.

Inside the massive construction, we mere humans were gripped by the oldest gods, caught tight in the fists of thunder and fixed in the fierce eyes of the lightning.

Ric’s arm clasped me tight. He whispered in my ear. “El Demonio has failed to find this film on two fronts, at the Augusta Theater and in breaking down Ben Hassard. He’s not done. I’m afraid he’s loosed his local accomplices, the weather witches, on Emerald City and us. I think they’re a bigger force here than we guessed. I’m sorry, Del.”

“I’m sorrier,” I was able to shout back into the wind. “Weather witches? Like Sheena at WTCH?”

“More than one TV weather girl is behind effects like this,” Tallgrass huffed in a basso fury. “Wichita has had an entire secret coven of weather witches going back long before the Millennium Revelation, which only empowered them more. They can blackmail and they can be bought. They’ve provided weather cover for El Demonio’s drug drives. Now that his thugs are chupacabra meat and Ric and Quicksilver scorched a crew of his zombies to ashes, he’s bought or forced the weather witches to bring us to our knees until he has what he wants. I can’t believe this is all for a few thousand feet of old film footage.”

Neither could I. Something much bigger must be at stake.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, knowing no one could hear me.

Snow’s Fortress of Solitude was about to be shattered anyway, by … weather witches and … me.

BEFORE I COULD corral my scattered thoughts or solve the whole mess or say a word, another crisis invaded the blood-and-body-strewn office.

“Chickens?” Ric demanded as a black-and-white flock flooded the floor with panicked clucking and fluttering wings. “This is insane.”

By then the Wizard of Oz CinSims were all homing on Ben Hassard’s office like pigeons caught flying in the midst of a Manhattan ticker-tape parade.

“We’ve got to get to a storm cellar,” Hunk, the future Straw Man, said, appearing at my side to grab my arm. “Come along, Dorothy. Forget the dog.”

What I’d forgotten was that my hair, after the Emerald City makeover treatment, flowed in black waves to my shoulders, as Dorothy Gale’s had after the film’s EC make-over scene. I’d also forgotten that my hair was so dark and my skin so white I looked like a ready-made CinSim with colorized blue eyes.

The CinSim Toto skittered past my ankles and I chased him, wishing for a basket.

“Storm cellar?” Tallgrass speculated to Ric. “The hotel must have lower levels.”

“I spotted a service door on the way in from the parking lot,” Ric answered. “Just outside this office wing.”

“There must be one inside as well,” Tallgrass said. “Tyohni,” he ordered. “Hunt.”

“Wait!” I cried, appalled to see Quicksilver bound away into the earth-shaking chaos outside the office area on another person’s orders. “Leave kitty!” I screamed.

“Leave the dog, Dorothy!”

Strong, callused hands held my forearms prisoner. The hands of … farmworkers. The other two Gale farm workmen were not about to let “Dorothy” run out into the storm. Hickory, the Tin Man, and Zeke, the Cowardly Lion, had already shooed Uncle Henry and Auntie Em toward Ric and Tallgrass.

“Come on,” Ric said, pulling Hickory and Zeke off me. “I’ll take care of Dorothy. You boys get the old folks.”

When Quicksilver barked from just down the hall, we herded the party to the door marked mechanics he’d found.

Those Wizard of Oz CinSims were a loyal and determined bunch, but after a small taste of running around at large in Emerald City they weren’t too pleased to be jammed back in the basement.