Стефани Перри: City Of The Dead

Something grabbed his ankle.

“No!” he shouted, whipped the gun around—

• and saw that the corpse of the hit-and-run victim was scrabbling at his boot with one blood-crusted hand, working to drag her crippled body closer. Her gasping cry of frantic hunger rose to join those of the others as she tried to bite into his foot, bloody smears of saliva drooling off her abraded chin, dripping onto the leather.

Leon fired into her upper back, the sharp, explosive crack of the massive weapon loosening her grip—and at such close range, probably obliterating her heart. Spasming, she dropped back to the pavement—

• and he turned and saw that the others were less than five feet away, and he fired twice more, the rounds splattering red flowers into the chest of the closest. The entry wounds spouted scarlet. The man in suspenders was hardly fazed by the twin gaping holes in his torso, his stagger faltering for only a second. He opened his bloody mouth and gasped out a hissing mewl of hunger, hands raised again as if to direct him to the source of relief. Must be on something, firepower like that could drop an elephant—

Backing away, Leon fired again. And again. And again. And then the empty clattered to the pavement, another was slammed in, more rounds fired. And still they kept coming, oblivious to the shots that ripped at their stinking flesh. It was a bad dream, a bad movie, it wasn’t real—and Leon knew that if he didn’t start believing, he was going to die. Eaten alive by these—

Go ahead, Kennedy, say it. These zombies. Blocked from his Jeep, Leon stumbled away, still firing.

SO MUCH FOR THE NIGHTLIFE; THIS PLACE IS deadsville.

Claire had seen a couple of people wandering around as she’d pulled into Raccoon, though not nearly as many as there should have been. In fact, the place seemed spectacularly deserted; the helmet blocked out a lot of visual evidence, but there was definitely a lack of business going on at the east end of town. A lack of traffic, as well. It struck her as weird, but considering the disasters she’d been imagining all afternoon, not all that ominous. Raccoon still existed, at least, and as she headed for the twenty-four-hour diner off Powell, she saw a fairly large group of partyers walking down the middle of a side street. Drunken frat boys, if she remembered her last visit clearly. Obnoxious, but hardly the horsemen of the apocalypse.

FOVP A

No bombed-out ruins, no dying fires, no air-raid sirens; so far, so good.

She’d planned to head straight for Chris’s apart-ment before she realized that she’d be passing Em-my’s on the way. Chris couldn’t cook worth a damn; consequently, he lived on cereal, cold sandwiches, and dinner at Emmy’s about six nights a week; even if he wasn’t there, it might be worth it to stop in and ask one of the waitresses if they’d seen him lately. As Claire pulled the Softail to a gentle stop in front of Emmy’s, she noticed a couple of rats scurrying for cover from atop a garbage can on the sidewalk. She put down the stand and unstraddled the bike, taking off her helmet and setting it on the warm seat. Shaking out her ponytail, she wrinkled her nose in disgust; from the smell of things, the trash had been sitting out for quite a while. Whatever they were throwing away gave off a seriously toxic stink. Before going in, she chafed her bare legs and arms lightly, as much to warm them as to wipe off the top layer of road grime. Shorts and a vest were no match for the October night, and it reminded her once again of how dumb she’d been to ride bare. Chris would give her one hell of a lecture ...

... but not here.

The building’s glass front gave her a clear look at the well-lit, homey restaurant, from the bolted red stools at the lunch counter to the padded booths lining the walls—and there wasn’t a soul in sight. Claire frowned, her initial disappointment giving way to confusion. Having visited Chris pretty regularly over the last few years, she’d been to the diner at all hours of the day and night; they were both night owls, often deciding to go out for cheeseburgers at three in the morning—which meant Emmy’s every time. And there was always someone at Emmy’s, chatting with one of the pink polyester-clad waitresses or hunched over a cup of coffee with a newspaper, no matter what time it was.

So where are they? It’s not even nine o’clock. . . . The sign said Open, and she wasn’t going to find out standing in the street. With a last glance at her bike, she opened the door and stepped inside. Taking a deep breath, she called out hopefully.

“Hello? Anyone here?”

Her voice seemed somehow flat in the muted silence of the empty restaurant; except for the soft hum of the ceiling fans overhead, there wasn’t a sound. There was the familiar smell of stale grease in the air, but something else, too—a scent that was bitter and yet soft, like rotting flowers. The restaurant was L-shaped, booths stretching off in front of her and to the left. Walking slowly, Claire headed straight; at the end of the lunch counter was the wait station, and past that the kitchen; if Emmy’s was open, the staff would probably be hanging out there, maybe as surprised as she was that there were no customers—

• except that wouldn’t explain the mess, would it?

It wasn’t a mess, exactly; the disorder was subtle enough that she hadn’t even noticed it from outside. A few menus on the floor, an overturned water glass on the counter, and a couple of randomly strewn pieces of silverware were the only signs of something amiss—but they were enough.

To hell with checking out the kitchen, this is too weird, something is seriously fucked up in this city—or maybe they got robbed, or maybe they’re setting up for a surprise party. Who cares? Time for you to be elsewhere.

From the hidden space at the end of the counter, she heard a gentle sound of movement, a sliding whisper of cloth followed by a muffled grunt. Some-body was there, ducked down.

Heart thumping loudly, Claire called out again.

“Hello?”

For a beat, there was nothing—and then another grunt, a muted moan that raised the hair on the back of her neck.

In spite of her misgivings, Claire hurried toward the back, suddenly feeling childish for her desire to leave; maybe there had been a robbery, maybe the custom-ers had been tied up and gagged—or even worse, so badly injured that they couldn’t cry out. Like it or not, she was involved.

Claire reached the end of the counter, pivoted left—

• and froze, eyes wide, feeling as though she’d been physically slapped. Next to a cart loaded with trays was a balding man dressed in cook’s whites, his back to her. He was crouched over the body of a waitress; but there was something very wrong about her, so wrong that Claire’s mind couldn’t quite accept it at first. Her shocked gaze took in the pink uniform, the walking shoes, even the plastic name tag still pinned to the woman’s chest, what looked like “Julie” or “Julia.” .. .

... her head. Her head is missing.

Once Claire realized what was wrong, she couldn’t force herself to un-realize it, as much as she wanted to. There was only a pool of drying blood where the waitress’s head should have been, a sticky puddle surrounded by fragments of skull and dark mashed hair and chunks of miscellaneous gore. The cook had his hands over his face, and as Claire stared in horror at the headless corpse, he let out a low, pitiful wail. Claire opened her mouth, not sure what would come out. To scream, to ask him why, how, to offer to call for help—she honestly didn’t know, and as the man turned to look up at her, hands dropping away, she was stunned to hear that nothing came out at aU. He was eating the waitress. His thick fingers were clotted with dark bits of tissue; the strange and alien face he raised into view was smeared with blood. Zombie.