A crowd gathered as the police team decorated the area in crime-scene chic. The medical examiner pronounced the bodies dead on the scene (not an intellectual stretch), and evidence techs took photos from every angle. The body wagon arrived, staffed by three ghouls, who piled out at the blood-spattered Straight Edge headquarters, showing an inappropriate amount of enthusiasm. Under the circumstances, nobody complained.
One of the ghouls retrieved Todd’s severed head, which was still lying in the street. The other two ghouls each carried a clipboard bearing a diagram of a generic human body. As they collected torn body parts and severed limbs, they made checkmarks on the diagram to make sure they had rounded up all of the pieces. In some cases, it wasn’t exactly clear which item belonged to which Straight Edger, but back at the Medical Examiner’s Bureau they would sort it all out, putting the puzzle back together.
A year ago, the ME had been reprimanded for doing exactly that—putting puzzles together out of severed body parts and then trying to reanimate them, in the grand old tradition. He managed to keep his job only after apologizing profusely and promising henceforth to engage in such work only on his own time.
“You want to go down and work with the sketch artist, Shamble?” McGoo asked. “You got a better look than I did.”
“Just a glimpse. Big, hulking, ugly.” I gestured to the blood splattered on the walls and floor, and the bodies that had been torn asunder by the creature’s bare hands. “Find anybody who meets the general description, and I’ll try to pick him out of a lineup.”
While crime scene photographers documented the operation, the ghouls hauled away the last of the disassembled Straight Edgers in plastic bags.
Queasy, McGoo said in a boneheaded attempt at levity, “Got another one for you, Shamble. What’s invisible and smells like brains?”
“You’re making jokes? Now?”
“Defuses the tension. Come on, why.”
I knew the answer this time. “Zombie farts. Got any more?”
“A million of ’em.”
“Then keep them to yourself.” I turned slowly, staring at the smashed door and windows, the sheer violence inherent in the attacker. This had to be the same thing that had wrecked the Hope & Salvation Mission. I was very thankful Mrs. Saldana had not been killed.
McGoo said, “Solve this one for me, Shamble, and I’ll buy you a beer. Scout’s honor.”
I snorted. “This has to be worth at least two beers.”
“All right. Just remember I’m on a cop’s salary.”
“And I’m on a PI’s salary.”
The body wagon pulled away, weaving from side to side as if the ghoul drivers hoped to increase their nightly business by running over a few pedestrians on the way back to the morgue.
The police radio squawked again. “Officer McGoohan, 10-16 Code 3! Zombie fight, two suspects in the middle of the street. Reporting party says it looks like they’re trying to kill each other—again.”
McGoo rolled his eyes, relieved to answer a less gruesome call. “Now, that’s the kind of disturbance I can deal with. On my way. McGoohan out.” He shook his head and turned to me. “Well, come on—if it’s two shamblers fighting, that’s your people. Maybe you can help.”
“Not exactly how I expected to spend my evening. I do have other plans.” By now, it was nearly time for me to meet Miranda Jekyll over at Basilisk.
“You’re such a social butterfly, Shamble.”
As we ran up the block, we could hear cheering and jeering. A crowd had gathered along the sidewalks on both sides of the street, laughing, making catcalls and suggestions.
Two decrepit male shamblers circled each other like boxers. They were rotted, hideous hulks to start with, not counting the further damage they were inflicting upon each other. They moved in a grueling, drooling slow-motion cage fight. One wore a sky-blue, wide-collared tux like something from a retro prom, but it was smeared with mud from the grave and discolored by leaking bodily fluids. The other zombie wore a too-tight Disneyland hoodie, also splotched with graveyard dirt stains and effluvia. (Who in the world would want to be buried in a Disneyland hoodie? Or a prom tux, for that matter?)
Disney Dude swung his left arm loosely back like a dangling maladjusted catapult and drove it upward until his fist slammed into the side of Prom Boy’s face. The blow made a wet squelching sound and a crack that signified a dislocated jaw. Two teeth sprayed from Prom Boy’s torn mouth like little white Chiclets. His eyeball bulged from the left socket, then popped out.
The audience let out a gasp, followed by more shouts and smattered applause. In retaliation, Prom Boy swung his fist in a vicious right cut that cracked into the side of Disney Dude’s ribs, sinking into the flesh and splurting out a stain that soaked through the hoodie. Another round of cheers.
Disney Dude, with a motion like a pile driver, slammed his other fist into Prom Boy’s face, smashing his nose and caving in his features.
“Go get him!” yelled a vampire from the sidelines. “Take him down, mess him up!” It wasn’t clear which of the zombies he was egging on; the rest of the crowd hooted similar encouragement.
Another blow slammed into the side of Disney Dude’s head, cracking his orbital bone. The eyeball drooped out so that it dangled by the optic nerve and blood vessels, staring down at the Sleeping Beauty Castle on his sweatshirt rather than at his opponent.
With a wordless growl, Disney Dude tried to claw the remaining shreds of flesh from his rival’s cheek, but Prom Boy grabbed the fingers and snapped them back. With a vicious yank he pulled them entirely off his opponent’s hand and tossed the fingers like Mardi Gras trinkets to the audience, much to their glee.
McGoo yelled at both shamblers in his gruff authoritarian voice. “Break it up! Aren’t you two decomposing fast enough?”
Reeling, the two brawlers separated, swayed, and let out angry moans from the bottom of their throats. Their words were slurred and incomprehensible, but I think they both said, “He started it!”
We heard a feminine wail from around the corner, and I groaned. Was this night ever going to end? Someone ran toward the scene with a lurching, cockeyed gait—a young woman with long hair, tight dress, and mismatched body parts, her face a mass of scars. I recognized Wendy the Patchwork Princess from Miss Eccles’s Parlor.
“What are you doing? Don’t do this for me—I don’t want it!” Wendy cried. The crowd parted as she tottered up, tears leaking down her cheeks. “You were idiots before, and now it’s even worse!”
The two fighting zombies turned toward her with pleading expressions on their mangled, sagging faces. Each man self-consciously tried to put a loosened eyeball back into the socket so he could focus on her.
When they tried to moan explanations, Wendy jabbed a crooked finger at them. “I don’t want your excuses! If you two don’t get over me and move on with your lives—or whatever—I swear to you, I’ll throw myself in front of a train again. And this time I’ll let you pick up the pieces!” Her shoulders hitched up and down as she wept openly. The spectators muttered.
Running up behind the Patchwork Princess came the stout, matronly Lujean Eccles. “Oh, my, my! Wendy, dear, come with me. Stay away from those louts!” She wrapped an arm around the girl’s shoulder. Like a protective mother bear, she glared at the fighting zombies, ignoring everybody else. “You should be ashamed. You’ve already hurt this poor girl more than she can endure.” Miss Eccles shook her head and made a tsk-tsk sound.
“What’s the problem here?” McGoo said. “I want an expla-nation from somebody.”
I introduced him to the sawbones. Still holding the Patchwork Princess, rocking back and forth to console her, Miss Eccles spoke. “When she was alive, poor, dear Wendy was torn between two suitors. The men claimed to love her with all their hearts, but they just couldn’t stop competing with each other. They told Wendy to choose between them, but she wasn’t ready to do that.” Miss Eccles shot a sharp glance at the reeling, embarrassed combatants. “She should have dumped them both when she had a chance.”
Wendy continued sobbing, pressing her face against Miss Eccles’s chest.
“These idiots challenged each other to an old-fashioned duel with pistols in the park to determine who got to have Wendy.”
The Patchwork Princess lifted her head. “I never, ever agreed to it!”
Miss Eccles made a raspberry sound. “That didn’t stop them. They shot each other, both died—and Wendy blamed herself. She couldn’t bear the guilt, so she threw herself in front of an oncoming train.” The woman again reprimanded the cringing zombies. “This is your fault. Look what you did to this poor girl!”
In a huff, she turned the Patchwork Princess around. “Come with me, dear. You needn’t bother with them anymore. Sorry for the disturbance, Officer.” She guided the crying, weaving Wendy away and threw a last glare over her shoulder at the mangled zombies. “She doesn’t want anything to do with either of you, ever again!”
The zombies hung their heads in regret—or maybe their necks had simply been damaged.
“All right, that’s it. Show’s over,” McGoo said. The zombies shambled off in opposite directions.
McGoo raised his voice, shooing the crowd away. “Nothing to see here. You all go home.”
The crowd dispersed, and McGoo let out a long sigh of relief. “Some crazy night, eh, Shamble? What is this, a full moon?”
“Full moon is tomorrow night. This is just a warm-up,” I said, then glanced at my watch. Miranda would be waiting for me. “I’ve got an appointment.”