The Laughing Corpse - Laurell K. Hamilton [110]
I screamed, “Here, here!” The voices hesitated, then started our way. They were making so much noise, like a herd of arthritic elephants.
“How bad is she hurt?”
“Bad.” He’d put his gun down. He was pressing his hands over her neck. Something black and liquid was spreading over his hands. God.
I knelt on the other side of Roberts, gun ready, searching the darkness. Everything was taking forever, yet it was only seconds.
I checked her pulse, one-handed. It was thready, but there. My hand came away covered in blood. I wiped it on my pants. The thing had damn near slit her throat.
Where was it?
Ki’s eyes were huge, all pupil. His skin looked leprous in the streetlight. His partner’s blood was dripping out between his fingers.
Something moved, too low to the ground to be a man, but about that size. It was just a shape creeping along the back of the house in front of us. Whatever it was had found the deepest shadow and was trying to creep away.
That showed more intelligence than a zombie had. I was wrong. I was wrong. I was fucking wrong. And Roberts was dying because of it.
“Stay with her. Keep her alive.”
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“After it.” I climbed the fence one-handed. The adrenaline must have been pumping because I made it.
I gained the yard and it was gone. A streaking shape fast as a mouse caught in the kitchen light. A blur of speed, but big, big as a man.
It rounded the corner of the house and I lost sight of it. Dammit. I ran as far from the wall as I could, my stomach tight with anticipation of fingers ripping my throat out. I came round the house gun pointed, two-handed, ready. Nothing. I scanned the darkness, the pools of light. Nothing.
Shouts behind me. The cops had arrived. God, let Roberts live.
There, movement, creeping across the streetlight around the edge of another house. Someone shouted, “Anita!”
I was already running towards the movement. I shouted as I ran, “Bring an exterminator team!” But I didn’t stop. I didn’t dare stop. I was the only one in sight of it. If I lost it, it was gone.
I ran into the darkness, alone, after something that might not be a zombie at all. Not the brightest thing I’ve ever done, but it wasn’t going to get away. It wasn’t.
It was never going to hurt another family. Not if I could stop it. Now. Tonight.
I ran through a pool of light and it made the darkness heavier, blinding me temporarily. I froze in the dark, willing my eyes to adjust faster.
“Perssisstent woman,” a voice hissed. It was to my right, so close the hair on my arms stood up.
I froze, straining my peripheral vision. There, a darker shape rising out of the evergreen shrubs that hugged the edge of the house. It rose to its full height, but didn’t attack. If it wanted me, it could have me before I could turn and fire. I’d seen it move. I knew I was dead.
“You arrre not like the resst.” The voice was sibilant, as if parts of the mouth were missing, so it put great effort into forming each word. A gentleman’s voice decayed by the grave.
I turned towards it, slowly, slowly.
“Put me back.”
I had turned my head enough to be able to see some of it. My night vision is better than most. And the streetlights made it lighter than it should have been.
The skin was pale, yellowish-white. The skin clung to the bones of his face like wax that had half-melted. But the eyes, they weren’t decayed. They burned out at me with a glitter that was more than just eyes.
“Put you back where?” I asked.
“My grave,” he said. His lips didn’t work quite right, there wasn’t enough flesh left on them.
Light blazed into my eyes. The zombie screamed, covering his face. I couldn’t see shit. It crashed into me. I pulled the trigger blind. I thought I heard a grunt as the bullet hit home. I fired the gun again one-handed, throwing an arm across my neck. Trying to protect myself as I fell half-blind.
When I blinked up into the electric-shot darkness, I was alone. I was unhurt. Why? Put me back, it had said. In my grave. How had it known what I was? Most humans couldn