Grave Creatures Read online

“Good. What about Paula? She’s still in the dark, yes?”

  Paula Rose was the head of the local company that handled public relations for the PPD. The company was called The Spin and they had the unenviable job of making all of the crazy junk the supernatural community did look like standard Vegas happenings to the normals. The problem was that she only had one easy way out of any oddity, and that was to say it was a new show in the works. People bought it because they were mostly drunk when seeing things out of the ordinary. Paula hated using that line, though. She wanted some other type of spin on at least a few things.

  “I haven’t spoken with her.”

  “Good.”

  Good for me, mostly. Paula and I used to date back in the day. It didn’t work out. That was my fault, of course. She couldn’t keep up with my libido. Very few can. I glanced again at Serena, knowing full well that she could. Fact is that I’m not the cheating type, so I’d broken up with her, explaining it was better for me to do that than to become unfaithful. She hadn’t taken it well and it made for a shaky working relationship. It had improved over the years, but I still went out of my way to avoid her whenever possible.

  “Any reports coming from other grave sites?” Rachel asked.

  “No, Ms. Cress,” Lydia replied in the robotic voice she reserved for the rest of my crew. I always found this funny because it irritated Rachel so much. “Currently everything is clear.”

  “We should probably still do some checking around,” Felicia suggested. “Just in case.”

  Everyone was nodding at that, except Chuck who was busily reading something.

  "Reading up on Zombies, Chuck?

  Chuck turned the book to reveal a bluish cover with two dudes looking smokin' hot, fierce, and snappily dressed.

  "Ah, right." I coughed lightly, recalling his relationship with Griff. "Not on work time, please."

  "It's a Montague & Strong Detective Agency novel, you idiot," said Rachel while shaking her head at me. "I have all of them."

  "Oh, sorry."

  How was I supposed to know? And what made Rachel assume I was being insensitive anyway? I was, but she didn’t know that.

  I glanced up at her and remembered how long we’d worked together. She could spot me from a mile away…. A thought struck me.

  “Turbo,” I said, leaning in, “what are the chances of you being able to create a way for us to spot these things?”

  His eyes darted around the room. “Montague & Strong Detective Agency novels?”

  “No,” I said, grimacing at him. “I’m talking about zombies. It’d be great if there was some way that we could know if something was dead before we killed it.” Turbo squinted at me. I sought to clarify. “Can you create a way for us to know who is a zombie and who isn’t?”

  “Only matters if they are one, right?” he asked. “Why do you care to know who isn’t?”

  Working with techies wasn’t my thing. They were a bit too logical for me. I asked them to build something based off of a general idea and I either got the run around, the make-Ian-look-like-an-idiot routine, or the “Sure, Chief, but it’ll take three weeks to get it done.”

  “You’re right,” I said with some effort. “My mistake. Can you create a way for us to be able to spot zombies?”

  “I suppose I could,” he said while pacing back and forth on the little desk he’d been standing on. He was moving so fast that he was nearly a blur. Finally, he stopped and said, “It’ll take me about three weeks.”

  “We don’t have three weeks,” I replied, playing the part I’d learned over my years of working with him.

  “I could do it faster, but with speed you lose quality, or money, or both.”

  At least we’d progressed to argument number two more rapidly than usual.

  “All we need is to spot the zombies accurately,” I stated. “It doesn’t have to be pretty and it doesn’t need a lot of bells and whistles. The tech simply has to allow us to identify zombies. That’s it.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, resuming his pacing. “It can be done, certainly. I think so, anyway. I could run patterns against breathing, pulse detection, and a number of other items to verify that the person is alive.”

  “I thought you said it didn’t matter if they were alive.” I couldn’t help giving him a dig. “It only mattered if they were dead.”

  “True, Chief, and well done,” Turbo said, looking impressed, “but in order to see if the person is dead, I first have to rule out them being alive.”

  I took a deep breath. “How long, Turbo? And three weeks isn’t the answer I’m looking for, either.”

  “You’re sure you don’t want anything fancy?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He tapped his little foot on the desk while adjusting his policeman’s cap. “I only ask because usually you want these things really fast and then you complain that they’re not very effective because they need some fancy bits thrown in.”

  He was right. If I wasn’t specific enough, I’d get something ridiculous, but if I was too specific, it’d never get completed. A vision of him delivering a zombie detector that was the size of a refrigerator passed before my eyes.

  “Okay, fair enough,” I said finally. “We have to be able to easily carry the device. It can’t be overly bulky and it would be best if it were hands-free so that we can still fire our weapons and do magic.”

  “Good, good,” he said as his eyes grew wide. “Yes, I can see it now.” He was doing what appeared to be calculations in the air. “No, no, don’t want to do that. But if…”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I said with a smile. He paused. “Maybe you can work this out with the help of Lydia?”

  “Yes, yes! I’ll do that.”

  “Try not to take too long,” I called after him as he zipped out of the room. “We may need these things very soon.”

  I hoped that wasn’t true, but since that little old drunk guy was likely our necromancer, and seeing as how I hadn’t taken him into custody the first time around, the likelihood was that we were going to be running into a lot more zombies before too long.

  “All right, gang,” I said finally, “let’s get to it.”

  Chapter 10

  Rachel and I hopped into the Aston Martin and started canvasing cemeteries. It wasn’t all that thrilling, but a little downtime was cool with me right about now.

  Jasmine and Felicia took the south side of town.

  Since Griff and Serena were heading back to King David, Chuck had taken Warren along with him. While that probably wasn’t the best partnership in the history of the paranormal police department, Warren could serve as backup if given time. He had sent that weakening spell at Reese a few weeks back, after all.

  “So anyway,” Rachel said as we cruised down the strip, “sorry about shooting you in the neck.”

  If you knew Rachel as well as I did, your jaw would be hitting the floor right now. It was not in her DNA to apologize for anything. She must have really felt terrible.

  “It happens,” I replied with a shrug, trying not to make a big deal out of it. Her learning to say she was sorry about stuff could be a good thing, after all. “I suppose I never formally apologized for getting you kidnapped.”

  “Nope.”

  Trying to mirror her method so that she’d feel comfortable, I said, “Yeah, well, my bad.”

  She patted my hand. “That was very heartfelt, Ian. Honestly, I nearly shed tears.”

  So much for that.

  At least we were back on “normal” terms with each other. Even though we could no longer do the boom-boom, as it were, Rachel had been my partner on the force for a long time. While I’d never admit it to her directly, she was the most important person in my life. She had my back and I had hers…when we weren’t shooting each other and getting each other kidnapped anyway. We needed to stay tight and stick together.

  I was about to flip on the radio but decided to keep the dialog going instead.

  “Meet with Dr. Vernon this week?” I asked
.

  “Not yet.” She groaned. “Hate that part of the job.”

  “Me, too.” It was probably a mistake, but I decided to open up. If nothing else, it’d put the awkward apology phase behind us. “This time she told me that I was struggling with an inferiority complex or something.”

  Rachel started nodding. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  “What?” I glanced over to see that she was smiling mischievously. “Bitch.” She giggled some more. “Anyway, before we got down to me laying on the couch and all that, she started asking me about my weapon.”

  “The Admiral?” Rachel said with a sense of surprise.

  “Not that weapon,” I replied slowly, recalling Rachel’s pet name for my other weapon, and finding it quite interesting that after five years under the “no contact” rule, she remembered it too. “I’m talking about my gun.”

  “Ohhhh, right.” The awkward apology phase had morphed into the awkward mentioning-her-pet-name-for-my-junk moment. She cleared her throat. “Sorry. Go on.”

  It was difficult to keep my gaze on the road because I wanted to turn and seriously frown at her.

  I took a deep breath and jumped on to West Oakely. I’ve been in Vegas for most of my adult life, but it wasn’t like I stopped off at graveyards much, so whenever the GPS chimed I had to spin the wheel.

  “Anyway,” I continued while thinking the idea of sharing was getting dumber by the second, “I’d taken out Boomy, removed the mag, and set it on the table.”

  “Okay?”

  “Well, Dr. Vernon took one look at it and that’s when the inferiority stuff became her angle for the day.”

  “Ah, I see. You walked in, flopped your weapon on the table, she sees that its got more ridges and accents than your normal weapon, and she starts thinking that maybe you’re starting to feel that your normal weapon just isn’t good enough.”

  It was said deadpan.

  “Nice,” I said with a sigh. “Try to open up and this is what I get.”

  She laughed even louder. “That’s what she said.”

  “Oh, come on! You’re being…”

  “Ian?” Jasmine chimed in over the connector.

  I gave another sharp look at Rachel, who was still in giggle mode. “Yes, Jasmine?”

  “We’ve got bogies at Bunkers Eden Vale Memorial.”

  “Shit.” Time to get serious. I flipped the connector and read off the cemetery name so that the GPS could find the fastest route. “How many?”

  “Hard to say,” Jasmine answered, “but definitely more than a few.”

  “On our way,” I replied while making a u-turn. “Lydia, can you get the rest of the crew out to Bunkers Ed…”

  “Already informed everyone, sweetums,” she interrupted. “They’re all en route. And before you ask, Mr. Portman has also been notified. As per our previous discussion, I’ll wait for your ‘okay’ before I inform Ms. Rose.”

  “You’re the best, Lydia.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Rachel’s humor had changed over to disgust at that interchange, which I found terrific. Jealousy? Maybe. Annoyance that Lydia didn’t give her the same friendly treatment I got? Definitely.

  “Just out of curiosity,” Rachel said in a voice that spelled trouble, “have you told Dr. Vernon about how desperately you want to have sex with the force’s A.I.?”

  “Of course not,” I answered before realizing that I’d just admitted I wanted to bone Lydia.

  I glanced over to see Rachel grinning again. “Too easy.”

  Chapter 11

  The Bunkers Eden Vale Memorial cemetery sat directly across from the Palm Downtown cemetery. But from what I could tell, only Bunkers was having a “crawl out” extravaganza on graves.

  “Notice anything strange about this?” I asked Rachel as I slowed the car at the corner of North Las Vegas Boulevard and East Searles Avenue.

  “You mean besides the zombies walking around over there?”

  “Exactly,” I said while pointing to the opposite side of the road. “There are none walking over there.”

  She did a double-take. “Huh.”

  “I also didn’t see any back at Woodlawn, but that place is much larger than Bunkers so maybe they’re just well-hidden.”

  There were multiple cemeteries in this area, but it looked like only Bunkers was facing a corpse exodus. This was probably due to the old man having only so much time and power, but I wasn’t a pro when it came to his selected profession. Seeing that Rachel’s response was simply “huh,” I assumed she wasn’t highly versed in necromancy either.

  Jasmine and Felicia were still sitting in the Camaro when we pulled up. I saw no sign of the rest of the team, but seeing that we’d been the closest when the call came in that made sense.

  “They’re just milling around again?” I said through the window to Felicia. “Wonder what they’re waiting for?”

  “No idea, Chief,” Felicia answered. “Pretty damn freaky if you ask me, though.”

  “Yeah.”

  I pulled ahead of her and parked.

  Boomy was already loaded up with fresh rounds and I had multiple mags at the ready. Rachel had gone into a light trance, which meant she wasn’t planning to go in cold like she had back at King David’s. That was good.

  I didn’t want to get too close to the zombies until everyone got here, but I did want a better view of the area. Primarily, I was looking to spot our drunk old man again. A famous Who song about not getting fooled again sprang to mind.

  “Stay here,” I said to Rachel. “I’m going to scout the area for Shitfaced Fred.”

  She opened one eye. “Who?”

  “That’s what I’m calling our fake drunkard.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged. “He looked like he was pretty wasted and I like the name Fred. Does it really matter?”

  “Right,” she replied, closing her eyes again. “Be careful.”

  I stepped out of the car and motioned Jasmine and Felicia to stay put. They didn’t like it, but I didn’t want to put them in jeopardy unless absolutely necessary. It wasn’t easy being the boss.

  While I couldn’t see the entirety of the graveyard, mostly due to the trees, it looked like there were fewer open graves than we'd faced before. It was also good that the area wasn’t immediately surrounded by housing. It’d be a long walk for any of these dead guys to slip into a house during late-night movie time.

  That begged the question why our necromancer was attacking in the outskirts. Was he just practicing for something bigger? I hoped not, but so far I had very little to go on.

  Speaking of Shitfaced Fred, I didn’t see him anywhere. Of course he could have been on top of one of the buildings, hiding in a tree, or completely gone. For all I knew, he might have even been masquerading as a tombstone.

  “Chief,” Felicia said through the connector, “Chuck and Warren just pulled up. Griff and Serena are going to hit the access street on the other side and close in that way.”

  “Good,” I whispered while continuing my study.

  Apparently my whisper didn’t go unnoticed. The air went still. The crunching of feet on grass and the moaning of reanimated corpses ceased.

  I’d been spotted and all eyes were on me.

  I gulped.

  A bloodcurdling scream ripped from the zombie closest to me. It was obviously a signal so that all his buddies could join him in ripping me to shreds, but it sounded like a naked wrestler learning what yarn feels like when a playful cat’s around.

  “Shit,” I yelled in return as I stuck a bullet between the creature’s eyes.

  It fell backward with a glorious thud, and then pushed itself right back up.

  “What the fuck?”

  I fired again. It got up again.

  “Chief,” Felicia called through the connector, “the zombies are on the move.”

  “Don’t I know it,” I replied while running at full-tilt back to the cars, unleashing Boomy at every head that came too close to me.
But it wasn’t stopping them. “Shooting them in the head isn’t working.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Felicia. It’s not working. We need some magic on these guys or something.”

  “Aim for their hearts,” Jasmine suggested.

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Good point.”

  I turned my head and fired at the closest one. It dropped and didn’t move. So the necro had moved the kill point to the heart? Great. He was working out ways to make his little zombie army tougher to kill.

  “That worked,” I said, spinning my head back and running square into the chest of a rather large corpse.

  We both hit the ground as Boomy went flying. I really needed to invest in a tether for that damn gun.

  I was lying on top of the corpse, looking down into its lifeless eyes.

  It clearly wasn’t fond of this arrangement, because it made a very odd wheezing sound and threw me up in the air. For a dead guy, he was incredibly strong. I landed on a rock, which didn’t feel all that great, but this was no time for pain. Besides, I’d heal fast enough.

  I rolled up and spun to see something I really didn’t expect.

  The zombie who had just liberated me from his person was standing still, gurgling as the rest of the corpses came to a halt around him. The mass of dead stood a couple of paces back from the big guy, seemingly curious about how the scene would unfold. They were staring so intently it was like they had seats to the event of the century. Honestly, if there’d been a popcorn vendor walking around, he’d have made a killing.

  But that wasn’t what worried me most.

  What had me on edge was the fact that the zombie boss was holding Boomy and he was pointing it at my chest.

  Chapter 12

  Now you would think that my first reaction would have been to duck, dive out of the way, run like hell, or all of the above. But instead, I stood there with my arms up while thinking, “Do I know this guy?”

  I whispered “idiot” to myself on behalf of Rachel, since she wasn’t around to do it for me.

  “Now you die, vampire,” gurgled the zombie.