Hardcore Twenty-Four (Stephanie Plum #24)(32)

“Say what?”

“Look at them. No head. No brain. Didn’t you ever notice that supermarket chickens don’t have a head?”

“I never thought about it. Maybe the zombies won’t notice.”

“Of course, they’ll notice,” I said. “These are rotisserie chickens.”

Ethel was almost entirely in the hall, looking bigger in the small space than when she was curled in the tree.

“That’s the biggest freaking snake I’ve ever seen,” Lula said. “I’m gonna get diarrhea.”

“That would be bad,” I told her. “The bathroom is on the other side of Ethel.”

Lula was dancing around, waving her arms in the air. “I got to get out of here. I got to get out of here.”

I opened the front door, and Lula rushed through it and down the makeshift stairs. I stepped out of the double-wide, locked the door, and came up behind her. She was standing dead still in the middle of the yard. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was open. No sounds were coming out of Lula, but there were low, guttural moans coming out of the woods surrounding us.

“W-w-what the hell is that?” Lula whispered, pointing to the patch of scrubby bushes beyond the car.

The area was in deep shadow, but I saw two pairs of red eyes and what appeared to be two human forms.

“Get in the car,” I whispered.

“W-w-what?”

“GET IN THE CAR!”

I gave her a shove, and we jumped into the car. I roared out of the yard and down the road. I followed a curve in the road, and something sprang out of the woods at us and bounced off my front right quarter panel. I hit the brake, jerking to a stop.

“What was that?” I asked Lula.

“It was a zombie! Lordy, lordy, you ran over one of the zombies. Okay, so they’re already dead, but I’m guessing they aren’t gonna be happy about this. Nobody likes getting run over.”

“It was an accident.”

“Yeah, but you ran over him all the same. You smacked right into him!”

I turned in my seat and looked at the road behind us. I couldn’t see anything. I got out of the car and looked around. Nothing lying in the road. Nothing lying in the scrub brush on the side of the road. I got back in the car and was about to drive away when a large man in rags rushed out of the woods at us. His arms were outstretched, his fingers were gnarled and curled, his hair was patchy and clogged with dirt. His skin was dark and shredding off his face. His eyes were glowing red.

“YOW!” Lula yelled. “In the name of the father and the son and the holy someone else . . .”

The raggedy creature slammed himself against the car, grabbing for the door handle.

“I can smell him!” Lula shrieked. “Carnations and doodie! It’s hideous. I’m going to throw up. I’m going to poop.”

I stomped on the gas, and the Lexus jumped forward. The raggedy thing lost its grip, and I sped away.

I turned onto Broad with my hands clenched on the steering wheel and my heart pounding in my chest. Breathe, I told myself. Relax the fingers. Concentrate on the road.

I cut my eyes to Lula. “You didn’t, did you?”

“What?”

“Poop yourself.”

“I don’t think so. I’m almost positive. But I need a drink, or a donut, or bacon. I don’t even have a word for what happened back there.”

I didn’t have a word for it either. I hit something I couldn’t identify. I heard some scary sounds coming from the woods. Something charged my car. It looked like a zombie. Don’t even go there, I thought. Zombies only live in Hollywood. Okay, and I feel stupid thinking that it might have been a zombie, but I saw it, and it looked like a zombie. Truth is, I saw something else. I saw a teenage boy standing in the middle of the road. I saw it for a split second before the big raggedy man rushed out of the woods at me. When I turned my attention back to the road the boy was gone.

“Did you see a boy in the middle of the road?” I asked Lula.

“A boy? Like a zombie boy?”

“No. An ordinary boy. Maybe fourteen or fifteen.”

“I didn’t see nothing but my life flashing in front of me. I’ll tell you what would be a good idea. They should stuff the chicken’s head up its butt with the rest of the giblets. Then it would be there if you need it.”





FOURTEEN


I VERY CAREFULLY and deliberately drove to the office. I parked at the curb, and Lula and I got out and looked at the Lexus. It had a dent and a gash in the front right quarter panel, and a strip of filthy cloth was caught in the gash.

“That’s a zombie rag,” Lula said. “I’d know it anywhere. It even smells like zombie. Boy, I’m glad I’m not the one who ran over him. They got no sense of humor about stuff like that. Zombies are mean buggers. You piss them off and they come to get you.”

“How do you know so much about zombies?”

“I saw that Brad Pitt movie. And then I googled zombies.”

Connie came out of the office and looked at the Lexus.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Stephanie ran over a zombie,” Lula said.

Connie looked at me. “Really?”

“I ran over something. I guess it looked like a zombie.”