Mark Justice - The Green Dawn

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.

“Damon? It’s Jube. You okay, podna?”

Damon snored, causing Jubal to jump back and Fiona to emit a frightened squeal.

“Dead,” Damon said. “All dead-dead-dead.”

Jubal stepped closer to the couch and the smell hit him. It was the same fetid odor of rot that?lled Fiona’s house. It was the scent of Renee Spencer as she died and rose again.

Jubal turned on the lamp next to the couch.

Damon Ortega was covered with oozing pustules. The smell was coming from the yellowish?uid that leaked from the blisters.

“Aw, God.”

“Wha-Suze? That you?” Damon’s eyes?uttered open. Susan had been his wife. When Damon was still in high school she ran off with an economics professor from the community college in Carlsbad. Damon had never remarried. “I was too dumb for her,” Damon once told him. “You need to roust a drunk, I’m your man. But I wouldn’t know a?oating exchange rate if it jumped up and bit me on the pecker.”

“It’s me, boss.” Jubal couldn’t halt the tremor in his voice.

“J-Jubal?”

“Yeah. Fiona’s here, too.”

“Hot in here. Is the goddamn furnace on?”

Fiona moved next to Jubal, getting her?rst good look at the sheriff. She began to sob.

Damon squinted against the light.

”What’s wrong with her?”

“Oh. Well, it’s, uh, her time of the month, you know?” He tried to put a cheerful note in his voice, but he was afraid his attempt fell?at.

“Oh, I know,” Damon said. “Lock ’em outside and toss ’em some chocolate, that’s what my old man always said.” Damon started coughing. Jubal closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the color and thickness of the liquid that ran from the lips of the older man.

“What’s wrong, kid? Am I uglier than usual?”

Jubal opened his eyes. Damon was no longer squinting. The older man’s eyes were shot through with streaks of red and the whites were now yellow. He owed this man, this second father, nothing less than the truth. But as he stared into that diseased face he saw that the knowledge was already there, streaked with crimson.

“Naw,” Jubal said. “Just the usual level of ugly. Sometimes it still shocks me, that’s all.”

Damon chuckled-without expelling any?uids this time, thankfully. “How’s that woman you found at the car wash?”

Jubal could only stare at him.

“Don’t look so shocked, squirt. I’m still the sheriff and I still got contacts. My feelers are everywhere.”

The sickness momentarily forgotten, Jubal crossed his arms over his chest. “Who was it? Taylor or Red?”

“Pops Perez,” Damon said.

Jubal hadn’t even seen Pops out in the street. He wasn’t surprised, though. As much as the old-timer liked to gossip, he could also be as sly and quiet as a cat sneaking up on a bird.

“How much he tell you?”

“All of it, I reckon. She had blisters all over her face.” Damon ran his?ngers over his own face, feeling the pustules like a blind man reading Braille. “He said she was babbling some crazy talk, too.”

“Yeah,” Jubal said. “What about you, boss? You were doing a little talking when we came in. Do you remember?”

Damon looked away from his deputy, and Jubal was grateful that he didn’t have to see those yellow and red eyes.

“Just a dream I was having.”

“About what?”

Damon sighed. “Something was chasing me. It was a bunch of fellas, only they weren’t quite men.”

“What do you mean?” Jubal could feel his pulse throb in his temples.

“Well, they were shaped awful funny. Their heads were too narrow and long. Their arms were long, too. And…”

“What?”

“They were all tore up, like they had been killed by an animal or something. And some of them had parts of their faces torn off or big holes in their stomachs.” Damon met Jubal’s eyes again. “Some crazy shit, huh?”

“Yeah. Crazy shit.” Fiona walked back toward the front door. He couldn’t tell if she were still crying.

“So how is she?”

“Fiona?” Jubal said.

“The sick woman. Where’d you take her anyway?”

“Oh. To Fiona’s.”

Damon’s yellow eyes didn’t blink. “And?”

Looking his boss in the eyes as he spoke his next words was possibly the most dif?cult thing Jubal had ever done.