Chương 29: Chapter 28 - Wake-Up Call

The faint glow of the sunrise flowed in from the north-facing windows, but it was dimmer than it should've been. On any other day, Conrad might have slept through the changing light, but there were other small differences in his room that morning. Each one added to the sense of variance and unfamiliarity, and Conrad was drawn out of his sleep to figure out what was going on. It was early. The air was colder than he would've expected. Emerra was still there.

He could feel her weight and warmth beside him in the bed, and her smell was too powerful to be a lingering trace. When he listened for it, he could hear the quiet sound of her breathing. It created a slow, peaceful rhythm. He rubbed his eye with the back of his hand and blinked a few times while debating whether to get up or lay there for a while longer. He didn't usually lounge in bed, but he was comfortable, and he didn't want to lose that feeling. Not yet.

Not when the day ahead promised to be more unrelenting work with a high chance of another attack. He rolled over. At some point in the night, Emerra must have stolen his extra pillow. It was bunched under her head. She was lying on her side, facing him, with one small hand curled up by her face. Conrad felt the urge to put his hand on her head, but he didn't want to wake her, so he resisted. Instead he studied her face.

He had only dimly become aware of his half-formed thoughts and emotions when his nose finally informed him that something was off. Conrad sat up and pushed himself back so he could lean on his headboard. He drew up his knees and put his elbows on them, then rested his forehead on his intertwined hands. All he could see was the bit of blankets between his legs. From that defensive position, he could force himself to focus. The difference was subtle.

The scent was nothing more than a thread, and even now, his nose was half convinced that it belonged there, but Conrad knew he wasn't familiar with it. He turned his head to look down at Emerra. It was coming from her. He wasn't imagining it. He went to put both hands to his forehead. As he did, his ears twitched to catch the creaks coming from above. The creaks turned into cracks and grew in volume.

My wake-up call was a wolfman wrapping his arm around my waist and throwing me out of bed while yelling, "Downstairs! Now! Move!" Punch drunk on shock and confusion, I found myself scrabbling to do as he said, but I wasn't moving fast enough for him. After he grabbed the shirt hanging off the back of his desk chair, he crossed over to me and hauled me to my feet. We ran.

I could hear the devastation happening above us—a cacophony of cracking timber and shattering glass that made my ears ache and added another gallon of panic to a system that was already overloaded. My first hysterical thought was zombies! — but that was ridiculous. Mr. Northrop would've had to make and hide a zombie the size of a mountain.

"What's happening?" I screamed over the noise.

"I don't know," Conrad yelled back. By then we'd reached the great landing. He shoved me toward the stairs.

"Downstairs! Get outside! I'm checking the guest rooms." The guest rooms. He was going to help Mrs. Park—if she was there. Good. My brain plugged itself into hero mode as I jumped down the stairs two at a time. I needed to help the others; they might not know that something was wrong. Might not know? Emerra, this is loud enough to wake the dead! They're probably already outside!

I was halfway down the stairs and still debating whether to head to the library or the one unblocked exit, when the noise suddenly stopped. I stumbled down two more steps, then stopped and held my breath to listen. There were a few distant thuds and clunks, but the absolute clamor of destruction was over. But… it's only been a few seconds! What… what happened? My chest was aching. I realized I was still holding my breath. When I resumed breathing, taking in those ragged drags of air was the loudest sound around.

I turned and crept back up the stairs. Conrad was on the great landing. He'd thrown on his T-shirt and had one hand on the banister and one foot on the stairs leading up to the third floor.

"Emerra," he said, "it's dangerous." I nodded to his ascending foot.

"You're going upstairs." He lowered his foot and looked sheepish—or, as sheepish as a guy with a wolf's face can look. A sheepy guy in wolf's clothing. I raised my voice.

"You need my eyes."

"My senses are better than yours."

"Not your sight." Pulling the I-have-magical-eyes-and-you-don't card always felt like cheating, but, oh geez, did it come in handy sometimes.

"If you're going," I said, "then I'm going. If you don't like that, you can haul my skinny butt downstairs yourself, because that's the only way I'm headed that direction." Conrad glared at me, then growled, "Come on." I ran to his side so we'd be going up the stairs together.

"Mrs. Park?" I whispered as we climbed.

"She wasn't there," Conrad muttered back. I nodded. Maybe she'd gotten her wish and fallen asleep next to Kappa, and Kappa would've been in the library since he had to "protect" Iset. It seemed like no one had wanted to be alone last night. I considered my wholesale invasion of Conrad's room. My cheeks grew hot. Anyway, there seemed to be a lot of that going around. No big deal. The higher we got, the more the air around us billowed with dust and white powder.

It was so thick that I had to wave it away until I could see through it. The faint sunlight reflected off each speck, causing the whole space to glow. I stopped while Conrad kept walking. There was no ceiling. It was gone. Debris littered the ground and covered the stairs. I looked over the banister. The ground floor under the lofted ceiling—or what had once been the lofted ceiling—was piled with rubble, shingles, and shattered pieces of wood. I looked back up through the dust clouds.

"Conrad." His name came out choked, so I tried again, louder.

"Conrad, stop." He obeyed.

"What is it?" I swallowed.

"If you go any higher, you're going to hit your head." He looked up.

"On what?"

"The top of our cage." His eyes widened. I jogged up the stairs until we were on the same level. He nodded to me, and I led the way. He stayed three steps behind. I stopped one step short of the third-floor landing, and slowly reached above me. My fingers bumped against a wall of nothing, just like they had at the road. I stood there, pushing against it with my fingertips. Behind me, Conrad did the same. There was five feet of wall left on the third floor. Anything above that had been crushed into scraps.

Think, Emerra. You have to understand this. The top of the cage must have moved. That was obvious. It wasn't easy to tell where nothing started and ended, but when I'd looked up at it before, I had the feeling that it was much higher than the top of the house. But it couldn't have been collapsing all slow-and-steady like, or we would've noticed the damage to the house long before that morning. We would've lost the roof and maybe the top foot of material because of—I don't know… something about structural damage?

I didn't know squat about construction or engineering, but I couldn't imagine that crushing the top few inches of the house would result in this kind of damage. Besides, it wasn't like the wall of nothing was still hovering above the destruction. It was right there! I was touching it. That meant that it must have dropped suddenly. And you've seen it drop before… I turned and ran down the stairs. It felt like my racing heart was caught in my throat.

"Emerra!" Conrad yelled.

"There are zombies coming! The sky falls, and then there are zombies!" He jumped down half a flight of stairs to catch up to me.

"We thought there'd be more zombies. Why are you panicking?"

"Because this row should be closer to the mansion than the last one, and Iset and the others are probably outside since the house was caving in!" Conrad swore and ran ahead. I stopped on the second floor long enough to grab the bat I had prepared the day before. There were a bunch of nail heads sticking out of it, and the word ZOMBIEBANE scrawled down its length in permanent marker. I blitzed down the backstairs and ran out to the hall between the kitchen and the washroom.

At the end of it was the last unblocked door that led to the outside. It was open. My shoes were there. I was gritting my teeth, sweating bullets, and screaming in my head—but I had to stop to put them on. Fighting zombies in my pajamas was going to be bad enough. Fighting them barefoot was one risk too many. Now properly shod, I stumbled outside into a chaos that was completely different from the one I'd been expecting. The zombies—if that's what you'd call them—were already there.

They must have come as fast as their mutant legs could carry them. They had started out as humans. You could see hints of the shape somewhere in their distorted forms, but by the time the magician had finished with them, they were more animal than human. He might as well have turned the whole bear into a zombie! Bear, moose, bison—were those shark's teeth? No two zombies were the same. Some of their limbs were elongated for speed or reach advantage. Some were condensed to give them more power.

Antlers or horns were fused to their bodies—and not always on their heads. At least one had them fixed to his forearms so he could use them as ripping tools. Too many of them had claws. I saw gorilla arms. I could see fangs and tusks. Where this pulled their mouths too much, the lips had ripped and split open to hang as ragged hunks of unmoving muscle and black scabs. The zombies' gray-tinted, blue-lined skin was stretched over their naked, malformed bodies.

A handful of the zombie chimeras were in the center of the yard, taking part in a small but frantic battle. The rest of them—the majority of them—were watching the fight from a distance. They stood motionless and stared with calculating, slightly clouded eyes. That's why he used humans. God help us—they were intelligent. The blast of the shotgun drew my attention to the battle. How many people were in there? Who had the shotgun?

It was hard to see anything in that writhing melee, but after a second, I was able to pick out the person who was fighting against them. It was Igor. All by himself. Looking as mismatched and frenzied as the zombies around him. He was in the center of the yard, shouting and swinging around like a madman. The sledge hammer was strapped to his back. The ax was in one hand. He held the shotgun in the other. My brain double-checked my eyes. Yes. He was managing the shotgun with one hand.

My brain decided it didn't know anything and shut down all but the most basic functions: breathe, get angry, fight. I started toward Igor. Several of the zombie beasts were making a valiant attempt to take down the crazed chef as a group. The rest stayed where they were, watching, never making a sound. Igor's mad laugh rolled through the chilly morning air. He slammed his ax into one zombie, ripped it out, slammed it into another, and kicked the zombie away.

Splatters of thick dark blood left trails on his arms and face. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. A horned zombie ran toward him. He raised the shotgun in a white-knuckled grip, waited… —then pulled the trigger. His arm jerked back and up. The horned zombie hit the ground. The other zombies considered their fallen comrade. Their eyes rose to Igor. He laughed again as he pushed the lever forward and whipped the barrel back toward his shoulder.

The shotgun whirled around his hand, full circle, while he held the lever action in place, feeding the next shell into the chamber. If the zombies were busy contemplating their second death with those half-rotted brains of theirs, all the better for me. Maybe I could take out one or two on the edges before the rest noticed. And where, in the name of some desperate deity, was Conrad? He could run faster than me, and he wouldn't have bothered with shoes!

Igor was terrifying, and considering how good he was with that shotgun, at least four more of the chimeras were doomed, but there were six more in the group he was fighting, at least a dozen watching from the sidelines, and who-knew-how-many still coming. My wolf-boy should have been there! —knocking zombie heads together, snapping off horns, ripping out claws! It didn't matter. I had to help Igor. He couldn't handle them alone.

As I approached the back of the nearest zombie, I raised my bat over my head and opened my mouth to let out a war cry. An arm went around my chest, and a hand clamped over my mouth. Panic poured into me. The pressure in my chest grew until I thought I would be crushed by it, and the edges of my vision went white. Through this narrowed tunnel, I saw the figure of the zombie beast grow smaller as I was pulled back. About then, my brain decided to decipher a few clues that my senses had been feeding it.

I could feel fur around my nose and cheeks. I knew the smell. I knew the voice that was growling in my ear.

"Don't make a sound," Conrad said under his breath. When we were further back, he let me go. I struggled to get my feet under my shaking legs. He took my shoulder, turned me so I'd be facing him, and put his head near my shoulder so his muzzle would be next to my ear.

"Listen— just listen," he breathed.

"Igor had a plan, but it all went to hell. I need your help. Move as quietly as you can. Don't draw their attention." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to point behind him.

"Get Iset and Mrs. Park back inside. Get under a table or some kind of sturdy cover. Lock the door—""But—" I squeaked. Conrad let out a quiet growl that reached right into my nervous system and pressed all the Certain Death Buttons. There were, apparently, several of them. I shut up.

"Lock the door," he repeated.

"Leave the rest to us." I stepped back. Tears gathered in my eyes. I pressed my lips together, my nostrils flared, and I shook my head. He put his hand on my head. The fur between his finger pads brushed over my scalp.

"Mera, please." Oh, I hated it when he used those stupid puppy-dog eyes on me! I viciously wiped away the tears and looked behind him toward the mansion. Iset was crowded against the gray stone wall. Mrs. Park was standing in front of her, wielding nothing but a pipe. Kappa was standing in front of them, gnashing his teeth. They all looked terrified. I could relate. As I ran over to them, Iset stepped away from the wall, toward Mrs. Park. She put one hand on the old woman's shoulder.

Kappa ran up to me and hopped around my feet.

"Emerra—" Iset started to say. I raised my finger to my mouth, motioning for her to be quiet. When I was closer, Iset whispered, "Igor's drawing their attention." I stumbled when my brain glitched. It was trying to process what should've been obvious. Of course that's what Igor was doing! I should've known the moment I heard him laugh. It wasn't like he was a big-time comedy fan. I glanced over my shoulder. Twenty zombie chimeras—that was my flash-guess. And every last one of them was now creeping toward Igor.

I turned around while blinking back more tears and used my bat-free hand to swipe at Mrs. Park's and Iset's shoulders, sweeping them toward the still-open door.

"Inside," I whispered.

"Fast." The four of us crept along the wall. I stopped in the doorway while the others went in.

"Get under a table in case more of the roof caves in," I said in a rush. Intellectually, I knew that the zombies were busy dancing to Igor's distraction, but that didn't stop my imagination from insisting that one of them was standing behind me, exhaling its rotted breath across the back of my neck.

"Stay on the first floor, and lock the door behind me—""Emerra—" Mrs. Park said.

"Lock the door!" I insisted. I shut the door between us harder than I should have. It rattled in the frame. I turned around while running through my mental checklist. Mrs. Park, Iset, and Kappa were inside. I'd told them to get under cover. I'd told them to lock the door. They could leave everything else to us. I saw a flash of blue-green at my feet. Kappa hopped out in front of me, then stopped to scan the grounds for any rogue zombies that might be looking our way.

He must have darted outside while I was closing the door.

"Kappa!" I whispered as fiercely as I could. He glared up at me. Okay. So we both had defiance issues. At least we understood one another.

"We are only going to fight if they need us," I told him in my best no-nonsense voice. He dropped his head in a firm nod. We went out into the yard. I crept along in a fast half-crouch. Kappa ghosted across the ground on all fours. Igor was in trouble. The rest of the chimeras had moved into attack, and he was limping worse than ever. He dragged his foot along the grass as he retreated down the slope of the yard toward the vegetable garden, drawing the zombies along with him. A small shock ran through me.

The vegetable garden! What on earth had happened to the vegetable garden? Someone had dug up the whole area, all the way to the shed! The shallow slope that had led down to the stone wall had been replaced by a much steeper slope. Whoever had dug up the yard had dug deep enough to turn the four-foot stone wall into the top border of a seven-foot pit. Large rocks were stacked across the opening to the wild yard, closing the gap in the wall.

Conrad was near the shed, fighting the back row of zombies, pushing them toward Igor. The undead beasts tore at the wolfman, claws versus claws. Conrad's forearms were ribbons. Each strike was a blunt movement that used all his strength—the elbow crashing down, slamming his claws into their body, ripping them out again, tearing away hunks of festering flesh, spilling cups of blood that splatted like heavy rain.

He took blows that jolted his massive frame, and when he returned them, the part of the zombie he hit was crushed into pulp. My eyes jerked away. I pretended it was because I knew that Conrad didn't need me, but I was cold all through and staring at the grass—which, technically, didn't need me either. Igor did need me. I ran toward him. Kappa followed. A fresh wave of zombies closed ranks around Igor when the last one fell away. Igor raised the shotgun again and pulled the trigger. It thundered over the yard.

A zombie collapsed, its limp antlers hanging from what was left of its head. Igor whirled the gun to work the lever as he turned toward the next zombie. He pulled the trigger. No thunder. He was out of ammo. Igor whipped the barrel around in a wide arc. The edge of it caught the closest zombie in the eyes. Igor tossed the shotgun up in the air, caught it with his finger outside the trigger guard, then used the barrel to bludgeon the blinded zombie. Another zombie ripped the gun out of his hand.

Igor let out a roar of pain. He tried to lift his ax, but it barely moved. Something was wrong with his arm. Three zombies descended on him at once. I couldn't see anything but a confusion of movement. And blood. So much blood.

"Igor!" I yelled. The zombies nearest me turned and stared. One of the zombies assaulting Igor stopped and stepped back to look at me. I could see Igor, dangling from the grip of another zombie, his face a mask of dark red, part of his scalp and cheek hanging loose, part of his skull concaved, his shoulder cut open—he was dead! He had to be dead! No human could survive that beating! But the largest of his two eyes was fixed on me and wide with horror. His mouth framed a curse word.

He reached into his pocket with his good arm and pulled out something small enough to fit in his hand. He raised it to his mouth, chomped down on a small tag, then jerked his hand away. The thing in his hand started to smoke. I kept running toward him. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn't see anything except Igor. All the zombies had become meaningless objects — as unimportant as trees or furniture. My friend was hurt. I had to get to him.

Beside me, Kappa had morphed into a ping-pong ball of teeth and terror, bounding from one zombie chimera to another, tearing into them and then launching himself away before they could recover. As I got closer, the off-white smoke became too thick to see through. I coughed, covered my mouth and nose with my hand, and squinted into the grimy cloud. Indistinct, inhuman shapes moved around me. I slowed to a walk but kept moving forward, Zombiebane at the ready.

All my nerves were tight with dread, waiting for a claw, a horn, or a fang to come out of the swirling smoke and tear into me. A hand shot out of the thickest part of the smoke and latched onto my arm. I almost screamed. But there were no claws. I'd seen that hand a hundred times, chopping vegetables, tearing off herbs, stirring pots. What was left of Igor's face emerged from the smoke. The flap of skin and tissue hung away from his skull. Blood oozed out of every wound like red tar.

"You have to help me walk," he said. I bent down and put myself under his arm. When I straightened up, he let out a sharp groan. I winced. His shoulder! I'd forgotten about his shoulder!

"Never mind," he said through his teeth.

"Move!" He directed me out of the smoke, toward the stone wall that was no longer so short. Kappa followed us, sneaking along the grass, his eyes wide. As Igor and I limped across the grounds together, he talked in a disconnected stream of grumbled words.

"Iset. Mrs. Park. I had to stay in the center too long. I had to draw them away."

"They're safe now," I assured him.

"Shut up." My mouth snapped shut.

"I meant to draw them into the pit. Feigned retreat." He shook his head weakly.

"They were stronger than I thought. Faster. I'm hurt." I almost said something. My body wanted to let out some kind of cry, like a howl of sympathy. I could see how hurt he was. I could feel it. Parts of his body were moving and shifting in ways no healthy, intact body would. But Igor wasn't sad, and he didn't want sympathy. His scowl reminded me of the times I had inadvertently eaten him out of an ingredient he needed to cook with. He looked pissed.

"I can't get to the gasoline fast enough," he said.

"I can't help Conrad drive them back."

"Gasoline?" I said. Igor's eye—the only one that still seemed to be working—rolled to look at me.

"We're outside. Zombies don't like fire. It makes them panic." Oh. Oh, geez. That was Igor's plan? Push them into a corner and light the suckers on fire? Even before I was done feeling horrified, my brain pointed out that, as far as plans went, it might not be a bad one.

"How can I help?" I said. We were approaching the edge of the smoke. The zombies had all stayed back in the impenetrable haze. Maybe they weren't going to move until they knew where they needed to move to, or maybe they had decided not to attack because they realized that most of the things in that fog were allies. I had no idea. But I was grateful.

"We need to get the gasoline," Igor said, "and we need to drive them up against the stone wall."

"Got it. Can you defend yourself?"

"Never mind me!" Igor spat out a string of profanity, then grabbed onto my shirt and hauled my face toward his, giving me a macro-perspective of all the gore.

"Get the gas!" I jerked my head down, nodding once.

"Drive them against the wall!" he insisted. I nodded again. Igor let me go. I turned to Kappa.

"Kappa, do you know gasoline?"

"Smelly ick!" Kappa cried.

"No drinking!"

"He knows it," Igor said.

"He can smell it."

"You get the gasoline," I told Kappa.

"I'll drive." We split up. Kappa ran into the smoke. I ran toward the part of the stone wall that was still short enough for me to launch myself over. I was almost to the garage when I realized that Igor probably hadn't meant drive- drive when he told me to drive the zombies against the wall. Oh, well, I thought as I climbed to the roof of the hut, then threw myself over the much taller stone wall that separated the driveway from the wild yard outside the curated grounds. I'm here.

I might as well grab something useful. And when you're going up against a bunch of magically enhanced zombie beast-men, few things would be more useful than Tank. It wasn't really a tank. It was a huge truck, one of the ones that looked like you could haul away a mountain if you had enough webbing and the right hitch, but to a small girl who enjoys a good power trip, it felt like a tank, and it bestowed all the unwarranted confidence you'd get from driving one. When we'd parked Mrs.

Park's car in the garage, Conrad had to open the door by pulling the release cord and hauling it up manually. Since he was there anyway, he'd opened all the other doors, just in case. And here we were! Just in casing, like we'd never cased before! I ran to Tank, opened the driver-side door, threw Zombiebane inside, and climbed in. After throwing on my seatbelt, I reached for the keys hidden in the center console.

I jammed them into the ignition, started it up, and reversed out of there so fast that Count Darius Vasil would've raised one of his impeccable eyebrows. In my haste, I scraped the side of Tank along the opening of the garage. I was beyond caring. Big Jacky and Darius would understand. Besides, what were they going to do? Dock the zero pay I received? Heck! I'd give them the whole check! I threw Tank into drive and tore down the driveway.

I took the first turn, then pulled off the driveway and shot between the old oak tree and the back of the garage, laying on the horn as I did. Conrad and Kappa would recognize the noise and get out of the way. Hopefully the zombies would be more confused and slower to react. The smoke had cleared to a faint haze. Through it, I could see Conrad off to my right.

He'd managed to fight at least half the zombies toward the corner they'd prepared, but the other zombies had left Igor and were coming up to Conrad's side— They'd left Igor. Was he dead? The moment I thought the question, I heard an echo of Igor shouting in my head: Never mind me! Drive them against the wall! I slowed the truck, shifted into low gear, and plowed through them. It was probably a good thing no one was there to see my face.

If the sight and the sound of me rolling over the zombies didn't give them nightmares, then my lopsided grimace of disgust would have. It was the thuds. And the flailing body parts. And the way I would bump over things. I had to clench my hands around the steering wheel and force myself to keep going. The chimeras turned away from everything and everyone else and launched themselves at the truck. So much for their intelligence, I thought with grim satisfaction.

Maybe they thought they were going for the biggest threat. Very wise of them. I hoped they would enjoy trying to claw their way through metal. My fifteen-mile-an-hour destructive crawl ended with me pinning five zombies against the earth and stone wall. I stopped before pinching them in half. I wanted them trapped. The top half of a zombie was still dangerous. God help me—how can I think like this? I blamed my Emergency Rational Brain.

Hopefully, it was in top shape—because, holy crap, I had gotten myself into a mess. Most, if not all, of the zombies were in the corner. But I hadn't driven them there. They had been drawn to Tank and the unknown risk it represented. I was surrounded. Along the back and sides of the truck, I could hear the scream of claws and animal horns scraping across the metal, but the zombies that were standing around the front of the truck and by my driver-side door weren't moving. They were staring through the windows at me.

That snarky comment about their intelligence came back to haunt me. They were no Einsteins, but they were smart enough. I picked up Zombiebane and pulled it into my lap. One of the zombies reached out and tapped a long claw against the window beside me. It grinned with a mouth full of animal teeth. A huge thump sounded on the roof of the truck. I involuntarily gasped and clenched my eyes shut, then forced them open. I couldn't fight while trapped in a truck—not really—but I was going to try.

I had an awesome bat, and if all I could do was slow them down, then that was something. Claws punctured the truck's roof over my head and flexed inward. I fumbled to take off my seatbelt. With a horrible noise that felt like it was tearing my ears into pieces, part of the roof was ripped back. Conrad was above me, looking through the hole he'd just created. His lip was curled over his fangs. He reached into the cab, grabbed me by the arm, and lifted me out of the truck.

I had to drop Zombiebane, and my body scraped along the raw edges of the metal, but I made it. The whole time, I could hear Conrad snarling—something about "goddamn chaos incarnate." Without pause, he dropped me on the intact portion of the truck's roof, grabbed the plastic gas can waiting by his foot, ripped off the lid, and started flinging the gas over the gathered zombies.

"Get on my back, Mera," he ordered. I jumped as high as I could and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling myself as close as possible. Conrad threw the empty gas can into the crowd, put one arm under my butt, and hoisted me higher on his back.

"Light it, Igor!" he shouted. In a quieter voice, he said, "Mera, get ready to roll. This is going to hurt." Conrad took one step, dug the claws of his bare foot into the edge of the truck's door, and launched himself over the crowd of zombies. As he landed, we both let go and tumbled across the yard. He was right. It did hurt— way worse than when he threw me in our little padded boxing ring. But thanks to that boxing ring, I knew how to roll. When the world stopped spinning, I forced myself to rise.

Every inch of my body was battered. I swayed but managed to make it to my knees. I looked toward the truck. Conrad was in front of me, already on his feet. He was watching the zombies dance and flail in the flames like wild torches. They were screaming and hissing with their husky voices, running into each other, and everything around them. As I watched with mind-numb fascination, my eyes fell on another figure in the foreground.

Backlit by the undead bonfire and burning truck, it looked like nothing but a lump, sitting motionless, enjoying the show. Conrad walked up to it. It turned its head to look up at him.

"Can you handle corralling them?" the lump asked. My breath caught in my chest, and a quiet humming filled my ears. That lump was Igor.

"Better than you can right now," Conrad said.

"Take the hammer." Conrad reached down and pulled the sledge hammer free from where it was strapped to Igor's back. He rested the hammer on his shoulder, and started walking toward the flaming zombies.

"Kappa!" Igor called. Kappa darted in from the side, planted himself on his butt in front of Igor, and gazed up at him with adoring black eyes.

"Come on," Igor grumbled. He shifted the broken pieces of his body, one by one, until he almost resembled a human.

"We have to check on Emerra. The damn fool probably got herself hurt." He turned toward me. That awful flap of tissue on the side of his head was still hanging open. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. All those old-timey movie heroines knew what they were about. I could have really used a good faint.