Bovicide, Zombie Diaries, and the Legend of the Brothers Brown
By Stephen Bills
Copyright 2011 Stephen Bills
Smashwords Edition
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Prologue: The Last Temptation of Betsy the Cow
Hmph! Delores was in Betsy’s spot again. Betsy could see the fat cow silhouetted against the farmhouse’s light, chewing her cud on the soft grass right beside the fence – in Betsy’s spot! And this after Delores had cut in line at the milking shed this morning! Soon it would be time to teach the young cow her place.
The other cows didn’t respect the Farmer like Betsy did. They didn’t understand that they were only alive because the Farmer willed it. He healed them when they were sick, ensured there was always food, brought them the bull…
The Farmer was their reason for being.
Even in this darkest of nights, with the moon but a sliver, Betsy did not fear for the Farmer kept her safe. So why couldn’t she relax? Why this feeling in her udder? The other cows sensed it too. They’d all huddled together by the farmhouse gate, but Betsy had trudged off, angry…
And now she was alone.
Betsy’s tail paused mid-flick. Had the grass just moved behind her? She lumbered around, but all was still. Had she heard something? Only the wind? No, because the rustling was behind her again. Betsy lowered her head and stared through her horns, daring anything to challenge her. The grass settled. Probably just a rabbit.
Yes, that was it. The Farmer would allow a rabbit. He wouldn’t allow anything dangerous on his hill. Tracking her. Circling her…
Betsy trotted back toward the farmhouse. There was no harm in staying with the herd.
Unless the Farmer was testing her devotion. Maybe she should stay.
A patch of white streaked effortlessly through the fresh spring grass, triggering something ancient and deep in Betsy: an instinct no amount of faith could override. Betsy redoubled her run. The Farmer would forgive her. He’d pat her and speak soothing words and make everything all ri—
Pain speared into her neck, tightening, crushing. The shock triggered new energy, strength enough to run a hundred miles with this scrawny beast hanging on her throat.
If only she wasn’t so… cold…
Betsy keeled into the dirt, thumped, rolled, and came to rest. As the pale beast stepped into her view, Betsy prayed to the Farmer that her end would be quick.
Chapter One: Lisa, Betsy, and the Barbaras
A pair of dark brown eyes stared at the messy desk. Expressive eyebrows roamed up in thought then down in frustration. A thin hand smoothed the barest hint of stubble off the pointed jaw and the mouth closed, hiding crooked white teeth.
Constable James Paddington sat back, winced at his wooden chair’s creak – he’d have to fix that – and tried to summon the will to type his reports. Not for the first time, he wished Archi would hurry up and join the twenty-first century. If the duke would let the station have a couple of computers, Paddington could just click “print” three times instead of retyping each report three times: once for his mother, once for the station’s records, and once for the duke.
“James!”
Paddington smoothed his already-neat black uniform and crossed the small space to the sergeant’s desk by the front doors.
His mother didn’t look up. “Animal attack at Richard Brown’s,” she said.
“Is Richard… sheep?” Paddington guessed.
“That’s Thomas,” Andrea said. “Richard is cows.”
The third Brown brother had got out of farming altogether; caused a bit of a stir at the time. “What’s Harold up to nowadays?” Paddington asked.
“He owns the Bleeding Heck pub.” Andrea’s beady eyes were set on an abacus. She refused to use the calculator Paddington had bought her because it was technically a computer and – like most Archians – she distrusted any technology more sophisticated than the wheel.
“Which you’d know,” she continued, “if you had a social life.”
“I’m perfectly happy with my life.”
“Don’t lie, dear.” She sounded almost weary. “Lisa Tanner is available.”
That was a new twist on an old conversation. “Anything else about the attack?” Paddington asked. “Suspects? Witnesses?”
“You remember Lisa? From school.”
“Of course I remember her,” he snapped, hoping that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t. “You were friends, weren’t you?” As always, Andrea’s falsely-innocent voice carried the faintest air of hope that Paddington might find a nice girl – or a nice-enough girl, or any girl, really, at this stage – and settle down and be happy.
“I do not want to talk about Lisa,” Paddington said. He never wanted to talk about Lisa. Andrea knew that. Why bring her up?
“Maybe she wants to talk to you…” Andrea said.
“She doesn’t.” He was twenty-eight now; this was none of Andrea’s business. Why couldn’t she let him live his own life? After all, if he didn’t want to be happy – and he wasn’t saying that he wasn’t happy – wasn’t that his decision?
“I’m sure she’s forgotten about the… incident,” Andrea said.
“You weren’t there!” Paddington yelled. Why couldn’t she drop it? She always had to push and push until he snapped. Well, now he’d snapped.
His mother’s eyes were commanding and heartless. “It was fifteen years ago, James,” she said. “It’s time you got over her.”
“A second ago you wanted me to date her! Or… do you want me to get over her by dating her?”
“Well nothing else has worked!” Andrea’s voice cracked halfway through the sentence; what had started in anger ended near tears and passed through frustration on the way. Years of arguments had brought her to breaking point. Andrea never showed emotion, or backed down, or admitted defeat. Rumour was she hadn’t even cried when Paddington’s father had died.
But she was crying now.
What should he do? Comfort her? He’d have to walk around the desk to do that and by the time he reached her the moment would probably have passed…
Andrea sniffed away the tears and muttered, “Off to Richard’s then, constable.”
They were boss and employee again; familiar footing. Probably for the best, really.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Quentin, the only other officer in Archi’s northern police station, was engrossed in his paperwork – and clearly not listening to their conversation – so he didn’t notice Paddington until Paddington was right beside the desk. In minutes, they were heading west in the police van, toward the farms.
“So… what’s happened?” Quentin asked. “At Richard’s.”
“Animal attack.” Paddington stared at the roads past the steering wheel. The stupid, narrow, winding roads. Why couldn’t someone plan a road that went straight? Was that so hard?
Beside him, Quentin stared out the window at the touches of fresh green that spring had brought. After a few streets, the new life even made Paddington feel a bit better.
“He should have called a doctor,” Quentin said.
Paddington tried to remember what they’d been talking about last. “What?” he asked, when he couldn’t.
Quentin had the expression of a monkey attempting a crossword. “If Richard’s been attacked, he should call a doctor.”
“One of his animals was attacked.”
“He should call a vet then.”
Why did they have to go through this every time? Why did Paddington have to point and shout for Quentin to notice the blindingly obvious? “Maybe the attack is suspicious.”
Quentin brightened. “Lucky we’re coming then.”
“No, it’s not lucky! He called us!”
Quentin shrugged a that’s-as-may-be and Paddington concentrated on the road again. Should he talk about Lisa? Could he trust Quentin to keep his mouth shut? Probably not, but he didn’t have a lot of options. He either talked to Quentin or no one. “Have you seen Lisa since she got back?” Paddington asked.
Quentin shrugged. “A couple of times.”
“What’s she like?” To Paddington, Lisa was still a metal-toothed ten-year-old, an image that stirred the feelings of joy and fear in his stomach into a confused paste.
Quentin winced. “Bit thin, poor thing. Not much up front, either. And her face ain’t exactly roses.”
“I thought you were dating Denise now.” Paddington could never keep up with Quentin’s relationships. Probably because there were so many of them.
“And Rose,” Quentin said. “One woman’s not enough for Quentin Appleby.”
Huh. Paddington rarely ever had one. He was too thin and wordy and intelligent, whereas Quentin’s large legs, robust arms, and ability to drain a keg were attractive qualities. Apparently.
“But I meant roses the plant,” Quentin said. “So are you going to call Lisa, Jim?”
That was the million-pound question. Paddington received enough rejection and ridicule and hurt without going looking for it. “I don’t know,” he said.
“You want to be careful talking to a Mainlander like her.” Quentin pronounced “Mainlander” like it was a disease he might catch.
“You really don’t need to fear technology,” Paddington said. Now he sounded weary.
“There’s a reason we haven’t got all the problems they do,” Quentin said, “the rapes and killings and such. Do you want to make Archi like that?”
“But if we didn’t trade with the Mainland we wouldn’t have cars, or TV, or medicine!”
“Right, b—”
“And you don’t think it’s paranoid to limit Mainland travel to one boat a year?”
“Keeps the tourists out,” Quentin said.
Paddington reached his considerable wit’s end. “But think how much better life would be!”
“Talk like that’s an insult to everything we’ve got here.”
Paddington wasn’t sure Archi offered anything worth the paranoia with which its citizens regarded the rest of the planet.
“On the other hand,” Quentin said, “you haven’t got much to lose, have you? By asking Lisa out, I mean.” Quentin held up his fingers: “Look, one, she’ll go out with you. Two, you love the Mainland and she lived there. Three… uh…”
Paddington waited, but it seemed Quentin had finished. “Thanks for that uplifting assessment of my love life.”
“I’m just saying, you could do worse,” Quentin said. “Well no you couldn’t, but you can’t do better so you might as well do her!”
Paddington laughed. He felt better for having talked to Quentin, but he wasn’t sure why. He parked the police van in front of Richard’s cottage. The whole island was spread before them: the browns and greens of the duke’s forest to the north; the red roofs charred by black chimneys to the south; and the blues and browns of the three rivers flowing to the city gardens in the island’s centre.
There was no movement through the farmhouse’s grubby windows. They circled the house and found Richard – a weather-beaten man of his early fifties – hunched in his vegetable patch. He tipped a patchy straw hat in greeting. “’Ello Quentin.” People usually ignored Paddington.
“Hello Richard,” Quentin said.
“Want some carrots?” Richard’s voice quavered; his hands moved from task to task, keeping busy rather than actually busy. “I use all me own manure.”
Paddington didn’t ask for clarification; he didn’t want any. “We’re here about your cow.”
Richard’s face was creased with crows’ feet, baked by the sun, and wet with tears, but at the mention of his cow his squinted eyes focussed. Once-busy hands wiped slowly on his blue overalls. “This way.”
They climbed on Richard’s red tractor and chugged across the paddocks to the crime scene. Richard had covered the cow’s corpse with a tarpaulin, which he reverently drew back to the neck. Paddington rolled his eyes and flung it off. How bad could it b—
Bile filled his mouth. The cow had been hollowed out. What remained of her was coated with dark red, almost brown, blood. Bones lay exposed; others had been eaten. One eye stared, terrified, into the sky. Paddington wanted to close it.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” Quentin said somewhere behind him.
“I nursed Betsy since she was a calf!” the weeping farmer said.
Paddington stared, transfixed, at the carcass. He wanted to solve proper crimes? Well, now he had one. Now he had to be professional. Concentrate on the facts, find out what happened. Ignore how disgusting it was, ignore the maggots, and find the killer. Save the next cow.
Careful not to touch the corpse, Paddington crouched. “Was there anything special about this cow? Financially?”
“Is that all yeh think about? Money?” Richard started toward Paddington, but Quentin brought him away with a soothing hand to the shoulder. Thank the Three-God that Quentin was good with people, because Paddington always found the perfect way to offend them.
“It’s okay, Richard,” Quentin said.
“Betsy was a good cow,” Richard said. “Good temperamenture.”
Quentin patted Richard’s scrawny shoulder, then said, “Jim, you don’t think that’s why she was killed, do you?”
Was Quentin referring to something two conversations ago again? “You’ve lost me,” Paddington said.
“Perhaps the other cows ran away but Betsy didn’t and that’s why it got her?”
Quentin’s problem was he was always too busy with people to look at things. Paddington pointed to a short trail of blood beside the corpse. “She ran. She tried, anyway.”
Richard bawled. Quentin soothed. Paddington examined.
The crater where Betsy had hit the earth was deep. She’d probably broken a bone or two just in the tumble. And that was before her insides were devoured. Odds were excellent that Betsy had suffered before her demise.
“Did you see anything?” Paddington asked.
Richard wiped his nose on his hand, then wiped his hand on his overalls. His bleary eyes went hard again. “I heard the girls crying out; came out to see what the fuss was and there was this… thing… eatin’ her. It ran off when it saw me, but by then Betsy was… was…” Richard collapsed into heaving cries again.
“Can you describe it? This thing?”
“Half her size, maybe,” Richard said through sniffs. “Red fur. On the belly. White on the top. And these eyes that stared right into yeh. It was evil.”
Paddington wrote that in his notebook. Evil… What else was there to ask? If anyone owned an animal this vicious everyone would know about it, but the animal couldn’t be wild or someone would have reported attacks before now. What did that make it, apart from impossible?
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm you?” Paddington asked.
“No.”
“What about Thomas?”
Richard shook his head. “That’s just harmless fun.”
“Last week you crossed his rainwater and sceptic tank lines in the name of fun. We’d better have a word with him.”
One farm across and ten minutes later, they did. Thomas, the eldest Brown brother by a matter of minutes, was a mirror of Richard: thin, average height, with a craggy face and gnarled hands. They even dressed in the same filthy overalls. Were it not for the backdrop of sheep instead of cows, they might not have moved at all.
“’Ello Quentin,” Thomas said.
“Hello Thomas,” Quentin said.
“We’re here about Betsy, one of your brother’s cows,” Paddington said.
“Which one’s Betsy?” Thomas asked.
What did that matter? One cow was the same as any other, surely.
“The friendly one,” Quentin said. “Used to hang around with Barbara.”
How would Quentin know that? And… why?
Thomas placed his hands on his hips and thrust his neck forward like a chicken ready for the block. “What’s my Barbara doing in his paddock?”
“Not your Barbara, his Barbara,” Quentin said. “With the droopy eye.”
Quentin’s knowledge of Richard’s cows was bordering on creepy, so Paddington whispered, “How do you know that?”
“He talks about them down the pub.”
“And he names them all?” Paddington asked.
“O’ course,” Thomas said.
Paddington hesitated, worried that his expectations of the Browns were about to hit bottom. “You name your sheep, don’t you?” he asked.
“Aye, they’re all called Barbara. Saves time when I want them to come to me.”
“Betsy,” Paddington said, to get them back on track, “was killed by an animal last night. Do you know anything about that?”
“I’d never hurt one of his ladies,” Thomas said. “But if there’s some nasty about, I’ll keep an eye out, don’t you worry.”
“Hey, Jim,” Quentin said, “we should do that with Richard.”
“Good idea,” Paddington said. Why hadn’t it been his? Surely he hadn’t just been out-thought by one of the Browns. That was embarrassing for most of the populace, let alone him.
They returned to Richard’s. While Quentin distracted Richard with gossip and tea, Paddington photographed the crime scene and filled plastic bags with samples of hair, blood, and grass.
Back at the station, Paddington developed his photos and Quentin suggested they talk to Harold, the third Brown brother. That was Quentin’s second helpful suggestion in one day, which made Paddington suspicious, but it was a good idea so they piled into the police van and headed south.
Harold’s pub turned out to be a single smoke-filled room with a U-shaped bar in the centre and all the atmosphere of a dark cupboard. Even before lunchtime, the Bleeding Heck housed half a dozen regulars, most of them roughly keg-shaped. On Archi, both sexes appreciated wide shoulders connected to hips by parentheses.
At the bar, Paddington stared into a face that was the spitting image of Richard’s and Thomas’s, except that it was dressed in an alcohol-drenched apron instead of dung-drenched overalls.
“Harold, is it?” Paddington asked.
“’Ello Quentin,” Harold said, ignoring Paddington. “The usual?”
“Yes please,” Quentin said.
“We’re on duty, Constable Appleby,” Paddington reminded him.
“Just a half then, Harold.”
The stink of pipe smoke and sweat hit Paddington anew. He hated these places, where everyone was crammed in together and anyone could come up behind him and trap him in some dull conversation.
Not that people did. They took every opportunity to avoid conversation with him.
Somehow, that was worse.
“Have you heard from your brothers recently?” Paddington asked Harold.
“Not much since I left the farm last year, constable,” Harold said, handing Quentin a pint-glass that was less than half empty.
“Does Richard have any enemies?” Paddington asked. Perhaps there’d been a grudge over the farm. Had Harold left on bad terms? Who had received his share of the land?
Harold blinked. “Enemies? Like how?”
Ignorance that strong couldn’t be feigned. “Never mind.” Paddington glanced around the bar. Quentin had salvaged something from this trip; maybe he could too. “Quentin, does anyone here live near the farms?”
Quentin took a long sip of his beer as he examined the crowd. “Only Lisa Tanner,” he said.
“What?” Then Paddington spotted her, sitting in a corner and nursing a shot glass, head bowed. What was she doing here? The Bleeding Heck was too far from her house to be her local…
Ah. Of course. Paddington would have to talk to his mother about acceptable boundaries for her meddling.
Quentin nudged him, eyebrows a-waggling. After taking a moment to calm himself, Paddington walked toward her. Most of the way he stared at his polished shoes. He hadn’t planned on ever speaking to Lisa again; wouldn’t be speaking to her now if she didn’t live near the farms…
And so what if she did? What did it matter if he left one stone unturned? He’d lasted three months without seeing her, knowing that nothing good could come of it, and now he was approaching her of his own free will? After what he’d done…
No. He couldn’t think about the Incident or he’d lose his nerve. The thing to do was keep it official, smile through gritted teeth, and get out as quick as possible.
Preferably before she disembowelled him.
Paddington slipped his bobby’s helmet under his arm. “Miss Tanner, I’m Constable Paddington.” He didn’t introduce Quentin because Quentin was still at the bar, chatting to Harold.
Lisa looked up from her drink. Her eyes came from deep in thought, giving Paddington enough time to really see her. Quentin was right: by Archian standards, Lisa was ugly. Her golden hair was silky, not grubby from a day’s labours. She had curves, not thick shoulders and thighs that could pull a cart because the horse had had to be shot.
How must he look? Six-foot-one and skinny; longish brown hair messed up from his helmet; crooked teeth; long face, thin nose, terrified brown eyes. Did he look as bad as he thought he did?
Lisa recognised him and her eyes lit with sapphire fire. “Jim!” Her accent was Scottish, which was as bad as wearing an “I hate Archi” badge. No wonder he hadn’t heard good things about her.
She was out of the seat and hugging him before Paddington knew what was happening. Once the shock passed, he hugged back, an awkward act with a helmet in one hand.
“Sit down,” she said, taking her own advice.
There was, officially, nothing wrong with sitting while interviewing someone, but Paddington needed all the distance he could get to keep this official. Seeing Lisa had brought back all his boyhood happiness and he wanted nothing more than to take her hand and… well, the rest of it had to do with sitting in a tree and spelling words one letter at a time.
“What brings you here?” she asked, with an accent like caramel sunset.
Also, caramel sunset? What was wrong with him?
Paddington placed pen to notepad. It gave him something to look at other than her. Other than her smile. “I understand you live to the west of the city?”
She seemed thrown by the question. “Uh, yeah.”
“Did you hear anything last night near the Brown farms?” he asked her.
“No. Why should I?” she asked quickly.
“There was an animal attack. It’s nothing to be worried about,” he added, since she looked scared, “we’re talking to everyone who might have heard anything.”
“Not me. Slept soundly all night. So how have you been?”
Now it was his turn to be thrown. “I… Fine.”
“You’re still here, I see. Still hate it?”
“Hate is a strong word,” Paddington said. How many people were listening in on their conversation?
“But you think Archi’s stupid?” Lisa asked. “Don’t worry, you’re right. It is stupid: the Mainlandphobia, the technophobia, the media blackout, all of it. It’s like a police state. Uh, no offense.”
Paddington realised that he was sitting. When had that happened?
“So the Mainland’s not like this?” he asked. Goodness he wanted to hear about the Mainland. Or kiss her. He didn’t really mind which.
No, wait. Kiss her. Yes, he’d prefer to kiss her.
But that wouldn’t be professional. He had to stay professional or he’d do something he regretted. He’d hurt her. Again.
“God no,” she said. “The duke’s paranoid. Censoring the TV? Stopping anyone from getting a computer, or even a radio that can receive broadcasts from off Archi? He’s like a dictator.” She said this all with nervous mirth. Anyone else on Archi would have cried heresy and assembled an angry mob by now; was she testing him? Seeing if he was the same as he had been as a kid?
“You came back,” Paddington said. “It can’t be all bad.”
She shrugged. “It’s clean, good sense of community, fascinating plants; I like it.”
Paddington nodded. He really should leave right now before he said something he regretted, like whether she was doing anything Friday. “So you didn’t hear anything last night?”
For a moment, Lisa looked shocked, then she blinked. “Uh, no. Not a peep.”
“Thank you for your time, miss. I’d better go.” Paddington rose and turned. There. Safe.
“Please stay,” Lisa said. Her voice was so small and pathetic that Paddington stopped. “No one else will talk to me, you see.”
Guilt rushed up his spine. He’d driven Lisa off Archi and she’d returned an outcast. Her social exile was his fault. If not for him, she wouldn’t be sitting in a dark corner of a pub at ten-thirty on a Monday morning with only five empty spirit glasses for company.
Paddington looked toward the bar. Quentin was well into another – full – pint. No rescue there. Not that Paddington deserved rescuing.
“Of course,” he said.
As he sat, Lisa inched over to him and took his hand. Hers was hard, her fingers callused and nails chipped. “So tell me, Jim: why a cop?”
She sounded interested, excited to catch up. Not at all the reaction he’d expected. Where was the yelling? The shouts that he’d ruined her life? That he’d destroyed any chance for happiness?
Did she honestly not hold a grudge? Or was she so lonely that she’d accept any company – even his – over being alone? Was she that desperate?
“Why not?” he responded at last.
“Because you always sucked at confrontation. Because from what I hear, you offend everyone you meet. Because you hate Archi and a bobby’s job is to maintain the status quo. You didn’t do it because your mother’s a cop, did you?”
“No,” he said. “Definitely not. That was actually a reason against.”
Lisa eased off her enthusiasm. “You two don’t get on?”
“She’s…” Did he want to tell her? Well, no; he didn’t want to tell anyone. But he would tell her, he knew, because he couldn’t lie to her. He’d never had been able to. “She’s disappointed in me. Thinks I’m a failure.”
“I’m sure she doesn—”
“She’s said as much. ‘You’re not the man you should be’.”
“Utter crap. You decide the man you should be.”
Paddington found himself liking Lisa even more and before he could stop it, his hand had squeezed hers. Then she smiled and he smiled back and he felt heat in his cheeks and ice in his spine and a deep sensation of being home.
“Lisa,” he said, “are you doing anything Friday?”
Chapter Two: Cellar Door
On the other side of the island, in the kitchen of a house that looked like any other on its street, Norman Winslow complained that the sudden lack of wine was ruining the after-dinner conversation.
“Well I can’t get any more,” his father said. “It hurts me old knee going up them stairs.”
“Then you shouldn’t have put your wines in the cellar,” Norm said.
“You want me to lug heavy boxes, at my age?” Samuel asked.
“Fine, I’ll get the wine!”
Norm yanked open the cellar’s steel door and flicked on the overhead bulb. After steadying himself on the doorframe, he started down the wooden steps into cool air that smelled of earth and mould. Samuel had dug the cellar himself with a candle and a shovel. It had started out as an emergency shelter, but over the years the wines had overtaken the rations.
The cave under his house had seemed exciting when Norm had been a boy. Now it was just a smelly, damp inconvenience. Why was something always going wrong in his life? If it wasn’t his boss on his back, it was the girls at the office laughing at him, or it was looking in the mirror and seeing that he was nearly fifty, nearly bald, and tubbier by the day.
The wines at the bottom of the stairs rested in racks that reached to the house’s foundations above. Norm plucked a bottle from the shelf, but it was a Church of Tipote Shiraz; too good for his father to waste on him.
Something scuttled behind the wine rack and Norm sighed. As paranoid as Samuel was about security, he let enough pests live in his house. “Shoo, ratty.” Norm replaced the wine bottle noisily. The answering scrape was… heavy. Bigger than a rat. A cat?
A figure dragged itself along behind the wine rack, sandwiched against the wall. Definitely a person. What was someone doing hiding in his father’s cellar?
Norm swallowed. “Who’s that?”
The figure reached the rack’s end and stumbled into the light. The stink of rotting meat and dirt knocked Norm back a step. His dinner burned out of his throat and onto his shoes. When he could look up, the woman was inches away, scabby arms stretched out for him. Her thin hair was matted with – was that blood? – her face was covered in sores, and her eyes were completely white, colourless.
“Blarg!” she snarled.
“Aargh!” Norm retorted. Her corpsish hands closed on his neck and yanked him close. Norm pushed her away, but skin slid off her arms and stuck to his hand like a pizza toppings. Her skin! On his hand! How could he get it off! Get it o—
Broken teeth pierced his throat.
Norm screamed as loud as he could.
“What’sa bloody holdup on that wine?”
His father was a glorious silhouette atop the stairs. A colossus. A saviour with bowed legs.
Norm ran for the stairs. The woman took a piece of his neck as he pulled away. “Help!” Norm mounted the stairs, his eyes on Samuel. He was so desperately hungry.
Samuel disappeared and Norm realised his neck hurt. He clamped his palm over the wound to slow the bleeding. Why had his father left him? Then the woman grabbed his head with rough, cold hands. Her mouth came dow—
The world exploded, leaving a high-pitched whine in its wake. What was left of the woman dropped to the dirt with wet smacks.
At the top of the stairs, Samuel lowered the smoking shotgun. “You all right?”
Norm couldn’t answer. The sight of his father had triggered a deep hunger. He had to get up there, had to. Nothing else mattered. Not the wound on his neck, or the raining dead woman, nothing. He scrambled up the steps three at a time and Samuel slammed the door in Norm’s face. Too slow! As Norm beat his hands against it, his hunger gave way to fright and shock.
His father had locked him in here with a dead woman!
“Let me out!” he shouted.
“I’m sorry son,” Samuel said through the door. “You know the rule. No zombies in the house.”
Stunned, Norm realised he did know it. As a kid, whenever he asked if a friend could come over, his father would ask, “Is he a zombie?” Only once Norm said no would Samuel acquiesce. Norm had passed it off as Samuel’s awful sense of humour.
It wasn’t funny now.
“What?” Norm yelled. “I’m not a zombie! You said the zombies were mindless corpses and I’m not dead! Or mindless!” he added. “It’s just a bite; I’ll be fine! Dad! I need a doctor!”
Norm thought he heard crying on the other side of the reinforced steel door. “Just a bite…” Samuel said. There was a sniff, then Samuel spoke clearly and loudly. “No zombies in the house.”
Norm pounded and shouted, but Samuel didn’t respond again. Eventually Norm descended the stairs and crouched beside the corpse. “What happened to you?” he asked. Her pallid skin was covered in bruises. Too much of her face was gone for Norm to recognise her. She’d been tall. Well, until his father had removed the top eight inches of her.
This was just typical. Why did he have to become a zombie? Why not Samuel, who didn’t have long to live anyway?
No, that wasn’t the way to think. Maybe he could turn this around. Turn a negative into a positive. If he really was becoming a zombie, then he should document the experience. He’d become rich and famous. But what would a zombie do with riches and fame?
Apart from buy brains, of course.
Norm stopped laughing. Obviously his father was wrong, but it was important to keep his mind occupied. Norm selected a blank page in Samuel’s wine ledger and started writing. After a moment, the tingling in his neck disappeared and prodding it produced no sensation at all. What else was there to document?
“Arh.” Norm’s hand sprang open, hurling the pen away. As he stooped to pick it up, his legs stiffened and he collapsed headfirst. Was this what awaited him? Lying in the dirt, unable to control himself? Maybe death would be like sleep.
But, if his father was right, death wouldn’t be the end.
Lifting his head, Norm spoke his name. The word echoed back to him, proof that he wasn’t mindless. Good. He forced himself up and – squeezing the pen with both hands and fighting spasms – he wrote. Each word was ten seconds of concentrated effort. Soon the page drifted out of focus as the world became blobs with blurred edges.
Norm shouted his name again, louder, trying to imbue the cellar with hope and purpose. It echoed despair. There was no point pretending life could continue as it had.
So Norm decided to give up on his life and embrace his death. If he were to become a zombie, fine. He’d become a new person: a rotting person, perhaps, but a new person nonetheless. For starters, no more complaining. He’d leave that behind.
A band of light appeared on the cellar’s dirt. Norm looked up to a fuzzy figure at the top of the stairs; probably his father, but it was impossible to even be sure it was human. The old man closed the steel door and stepped down. As Norm approached, he saw the smudge’s mouth open and close, but no sound reached him. Why couldn’t he hear what Samuel was saying? And were those tears on his father’s cheeks? Norm’s eyes travelled the wrinkled features and settled on the forehead.
There was a brain in there…
Images flashed, crisp and vibrant. Sounds, more beautiful than the finest concerto. Smells bore him forward, irresistible. Succulent, juicy brain. Pink, tender, fresh off the skull. The sensation of that first bite, of pure bliss.
Norm shook his head. He couldn’t hurt his father. Besides, Samuel needed his brain.
Brain… Brain… Slowly roasting over a spit.
Or raw!
So close, so tantalisingly close.
His feet brought him forward and his arms reached out automatically. His father didn’t need his brain half as much as Norm needed to taste Samuel’s long, full, delicious life. It was murder but Norm didn’t care. He’d never truly lived, never tasted, never loved… but with just one bite he would be complete, fulfilled.
It would be ecstasy.
* * *
Samuel wiped his eyes with his sleeve and aimed along the shotgun at his only child. No! That wasn’t his son any more. It was one of Them. Once bitten, there was nothing you could do.
“I should kill you…” Samuel said, “or it’ll spread, again…”
He’d only been a boy last time – too young to fight, trapped in his house as the world burned around him – but he remembered the heroes who’d fought the horde with lead and steel and fire.
Now it was all up to him. Samuel had to be the hero, stop the outbreak, save Archi…
Norman lumbered up another step and made a throaty noise.
“You’re not my son,” Samuel told the zombie, but he wasn’t sure he could pull the trigger. With Norman only two steps away, Samuel tucked his trembling arm into his side to steady his aim. He had to pull the trigger.
“You’re not a failure,” he told his son.
“Blarg!” Norman shouted, arms groping.
Samuel fired.
The zombie flopped facedown onto the stairs with a wet smacking sound and the lingering tinkle of broken wine bottles. Samuel dropped onto the step, hot tears streaming down his face, and prayed for forgiveness as he stared at his son’s corpse.
Which moved a finger.
A moment later, Norman lurched to his feet and spotted his left arm a few stairs farther up. His elbow leaked thick blood.
Samuel pumped another round into the shotgun’s chamber, but he couldn’t shoot his son again, not again, and he’d never reach the top of the stairs before Norman reached him.
He was as good as dead.
“Norman, this is your father!” Samuel said with as much strength as he had left. “You’ve been very naughty!”
Norman crawled up another step. “Blarg?”
“I’m serious!” Samuel shouted. “You know the rules! Go to your… cellar!”
Norman’s outstretched arm was inches from his throat.
Samuel raised the shotgun. “Tell them I’m sorry, son,” he whispered.
* * *
Norm saw the old man’s mouth move, but he couldn’t hear anything. Nothing at all. Not that it mattered. Nothing mattered but his appetite, the need to taste how Samuel saw the world. It was everything.
Again Norm shouted that he was sorry, but his father didn’t seem to hear him.
Then Norm heard a cork pop and Samuel’s head burst. His corpse toppled down the steps onto the dirt. Norm followed close behind, but with Samuel’s brain gone, reason washed back into Norm like a cool stream extinguishing the fires of his hunger.
His father had shot himself. Why? Why kill himself rather than Norm?
Oh well. Samuel was gone; no point whining about it. Best get on with things.
First, leave the cellar and find a doctor. Norm staggered up the steps and stopped at the door to the house. It was a door, wasn’t it? Even when it was shut? Of course it was. Samuel wasn’t the kind of man who built his staircases leading to walls.
How could Norm have gone his whole life without thinking about this? Why had he wasted so much time on useless things like taxation, or reading, or women? He hadn’t even been any good at them.
Now, what had he been doing?
The door! That was right. He had to open the door. Norm felt for the doorknob, but his fingers wouldn’t close on its smooth roundness. He tried again and again: with his elbow, his stump, his wrist, his mouth, his armpit. Nothing made the doorknob turn. Frustrated, he punched the cellar door with his remaining arm.
Oh well. Nothing to be done about it. Norm went back to contemplating the tricky door-wall problem while he waited for someone to come along. He had all the time in the world.
Chapter Three: Breaching Embargo
It was four days before Paddington accepted he was getting nowhere with Betsy’s murder. His best lead – a hair he’d found at the crime scene that was too smooth to belong to either the cow or her owner – had already been shown to both of Archi’s vets; neither could determine what animal it came from. When Paddington asked whether there was some Mainland test that might help, he received an official warning from his mother. It was Richard’s cow, she said, and he didn’t want Mainlanders involved.
Paddington therefore busied himself showing his photographs of Betsy’s corpse to every taxidermist on Archi. Most of the island’s men hunted on weekends – and weekdays if they could get away with it – and had a fair knowledge of local fauna. He’d circulated posters, but no information came forth. Last night had been spent rereading The Archi Animal Anthology without finding anything resembling Richard’s description.
Surely the animal needed to eat all the time, so why hadn’t anyone else reported dead cattle? Was there some grand conspiracy? Had everyone involved been sworn to secrecy? Did the creature belong to someone important, like the duke?
Or was he just wishing something interesting would happen on his boring little island?
At seven o’clock, as the sun neared the end of its daily trudge, Paddington left his cottage and drove west. The evening was still and cool and he let it rush in the windows to clear the smell of his fear. Tonight was his first date with Lisa.
Eventually he ran out of road, climbed out of his car, and trod carefully along the cracked stone path toward the ivy-hugged doorframe. In the front garden, weeds had overtaken the plants, and then bigger weeds had overtaken the weeds. What kind of gardener let that happen in her own front yard? What did that say about her?
Nothing. It didn’t have to say anything about her or the person she’d become. Since she’d left Archi. Because of him.
Paddington knocked and Lisa shouted that it was open. With a deep breath, Paddington entered. The front room was lined with shelves, stands, and cabinets all overflowing with books and memorabilia. And over here, a shelf full of snow globes and a map of Europe being used as a pincushion. The house smelled of warm cookies and felt hotter than an oven.
He followed the music and carefree singing to the back room, where he found a laptop. An actual laptop! The duke’s ban on technology meant Archians required a special licence to own a computer. Paddington’s many applications had all been rejected.
Lisa had framed her licence, given it pride of place in her living room.
What did that say about her?
Paddington ambled around and found plants just outside the open back door. They stretched easily as far as the porch light, healthy and overflowing their pots. Right beside the door was a small mango tree that looked like it had recently been uprooted and beside that was a set of overalls with a garage logo on the left side. No prizes for guessing who they had belonged to.
Dominic, a mechanic from the island’s south, was Lisa’s only other romantic entanglement since returning. Talk of the town, for a few days: a filthy Mainlander dating a purebred, hardworking, Church of Enanti-going Archian. But Dominic could never be the talk of the town for long; he was too easily pushed to the back of life’s queue.
His friends consisted of a group of testosterone-fuelled men with more energy than outlets for it who spent their evenings drinking too much and getting into fights. Paddington would call them a gang, except that the words “gang” and “Dominic” didn’t fit together in any sensible sentence.
Paddington spotted Lisa’s reflection in the glass door and quickly looked from the overalls to the sprightly plants. “So,” he said, “why is the front garden…”
“Awful?” Her eyes were fierce but smiling, intelligent, knowing, very… unArchian. Paddington wanted to know those eyes. He wanted to get himself a set.
Lisa shrugged. “Why give them pretty things if all they do is burn them? Besides, the lynch mobs were getting inconvenient.”
“Are they still using pitchforks?”
“One used a forklift.”
“How times change.”
“Care for a tour?” Lisa asked, opening the door. “Don’t worry, I shan’t bore you to death.”
Paddington followed her out. Lisa took a torch from beside the door and swung the beam around as Paddington pretended he knew what the plants were.
“So, what do you do with all these?” he asked.
“Grow them, then ship them off. Well, that’s the plan. These I cleared from the Garden of Terpo.”
“They let you remove plants from the city garden?” Paddington asked. When was the last time that had happened?
“They hired me,” she said. “Keeps me out of sight.”
“And you ship them off once a year?”
“I have an arrangement with Charlie,” Lisa said. “Once a month he fishes in a certain spot; a boat from the Mainland turns up; everyone wins.”
Paddington wished his first thought wasn’t about whether that was legal. The Embargo was ridiculous anyway; what did it matter? And why was he thinking about work now?
“Relax, Jim,” Lisa said. “The Embargo only prohibits transporting people. I checked.”
“Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.” Paddington puffed out his chest mock-heroically, but Lisa walked faster, shoulders curled inward. Was she remembering the last time she’d trusted him?
“Is it worth the effort?” he asked, touching a dumpy bush with clusters of lavender flowers. “How much could this go for?”
Lisa brought the torch around. “Nepeta Dynatos… about two thousand pounds.”
“Two thousand!” Paddington carefully retracted his hand. “But these aren’t rare.”
“Not on Archi, but we have a number of varieties not found on the Mainland.”
Paddington glanced at the endless foliage surrounding them. They had to be worth millions.
“Shall we go?” she asked. “Or do you have more questions, officer?”
There was more than playfulness in her words. Even as schoolchildren, outcasts together, Lisa had seen the real him. She knew that, unless she stopped him right now, he’d keep thinking like a policeman all night, all week, all relationship. All his life. And she was telling him she didn’t want that.
For the first time in years, Paddington found that he didn’t either.
He had something better to be than a bobby.
* * *
A light spring breeze wafted across the street. Samuel Winslow’s house beamed light onto the dark front lawn, as it had for a fortnight. Usually Samuel’s neighbours were happy to leave him alone with his weird stories and absurd paranoia, but now they were starting to worry.
One such neighbour, Gladys, was preparing morning tea for the Church of Idryo’s women’s fellowship, pausing occasionally to wonder if Samuel was all right before assuring herself that if Samuel needed anything he’d be the first to ask, loudly and brashly. But since Gladys needed a cup of sugar to finish her lemon slice, she decided to ask Samuel for it, just in case.
Gladys took off her apron, put on her jacket, picked up her measuring cup, and stepped into the night. When no one answered her knocks, she opened Samuel’s front door.
“Hello?” Lights were on in the empty living room. The kitchen table was set for two, but the scraps on the plates were growing mould. Where was Samuel? The whole house was dead silent.
Gladys crept out of the kitchen, her measuring cup in one hand, and checked the lounge. Had something happened? Samuel had always kept a loaded shotgun above the mantelpiece, “just in case”.
It was gone.
Chills shimmied along Gladys’s arms and she turned slowly and checked the bedroom, the bathroom, the lounge. Samuel had disappeared. No missing clothes, no signs of struggle, no body. What was the emergency? Why had he left so abruptly, taking nothing but his shotgun?
Unless he was still here…
Gladys turned to the steel cellar door. Samuel had always taken great pride in his cellar. Was he down there? Had he tripped and fallen? Did he need help? She threw the door open. The light inside was already on.
“Samuel?” she called. “It’s Gladys, from next door. I just want a cup of… shit.”
The empty measuring cup tok’d six times down the wooden stairs before coming to rest beside Samuel Winslow’s bloody corpse.
* * *
On Archi, privacy was a public affair.
For that reason, Paddington had hoped to keep their relationship discreet. He wasn’t ashamed of Lisa – far from it – but his job required public cooperation and most people already talked to him via Quentin. Dating a Mainlander was becoming the final nail in his already lead-laden coffin.
More worrying, it had been two weeks and Lisa still hadn’t raised their past. Paddington wasn’t sure what to expect when she did; probably a torrent of abuse, a slamming door, and never hearing from her again.
But that was the future. In the present, he was happy.
While Lisa prepared dinner, Paddington surfed the virtual waves on Lisa’s laptop and had washed up in some strange realm, the bastard child of myth and wish.
“Lisa,” he called out, “have you ever heard of the Beast of… Gévaudan?”
Lisa sighed. “Is that your latest theory?”
Paddington studied the artist’s rendition of the Beast of Gévaudan. The shape was right: long muzzle, narrow body. Even the colour. “It fits,” he said, “sort of.”
“‘Sort of’ as in ‘couldn’t possibly get here’ or ‘probably doesn’t even exist’?” she asked. When Paddington hesitated, she pounced. “James, what did I tell you about that site?”
“You don’t know they’re wrong. And the werewolves nearly fit.”
“It was a new moon the night you saw it,” Lisa snapped. “You can’t get further from a full moon than that, so shut up about the fecking werewolves!”
She was yelling. He’d never been good with yelling people. He didn’t know what they wanted him to say, especially when they were right. If anyone were a werewolf, they’d be out prowling tonight, when the full moon had gathered a posse of clouds and was lurking in the sky, bright and bold, intimidating the street lamps.
“Sorry,” he said quietly.
“Why can’t you just drop it?” Lisa stirred the soup so vigorously that it splashed up the sides of the pot and ran down the edge to sizzle in the stove’s flames.
They’d had enough arguments about Betsy’s killer for Paddington to know that he should shut up and let her anger pass. She considered his obsession unhealthy, but what if the beast came back? He couldn’t do nothing.
The website had a page explaining where the reader could leave details if he’d seen the Beast of Gévaudan so the Supernatural Help and Investigation Team could contact him. There was an electronic mail address and one for “snail mail”.
Paddington rubbed his smooth chin. “Lisa, when’s your next shipment?”
“Saturday. You plotting a raid?”
“South docks?” he asked.
“Aye. Why?”
He nearly told her the truth. Then he remembered how little she’d like it. “Just wondering.”
“Is this about that hair?” Her hands were on her hips again. Such fine hips. He’d lose those hips if he didn’t stop this.
“It’s over.” Paddington closed the laptop. “As of right now. I’m back on the Case of the Weird Graffiti.”
Lisa smiled with genuine warmth. “Good.”
“Oh, so you think that’s an investigation more befitting my abilities?”
“Wait, you have abilities?” Lisa asked, surprised.
Paddington advanced on the kitchen. “I’ll have you know, I’ve broken up at least one bar fight.”
“All by yourself? How’d that end?”
“I didn’t get knocked out, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“Because you’re so tough,” she said.
“Exactly.” He placed his hands on her hips. “Also because he passed out before he finished throwing the first punch.”
* * *
Norm had wedged himself behind the wine rack a few days ago to see if he would fit and hadn’t bothered getting out. Why should he? He wasn’t in pain, he didn’t sleep, drink, or eat; he had nothing to do but think. How long had he been down here? A week? Two? The apocalypse could have come and gone and he wouldn’t know.
No, that was daft. He was the apocalypse.
Truth be told, Norm doubted Archi would notice his absence, but how long until someone missed Samuel?
Just staying here, not eating my father, Norm said to the bottles of wine, more to hear his voice than because he was hungry. He wasn’t. Was that odd? It was hard to remember how it had felt to be the slave of desire, emotion, and need.
Hold on, had the shadows on the stairs just changed? Was he about to be discovered? Norm squirmed farther against the wall, his head scraping against the racks of wine.
There was a dull scream, then a blob reached the bottom step and crouched by his father.
A human blob.
A human blob with a brain…
Norm shut his eyes. He hadn’t eaten in weeks. He was wasting away, his once-large gut now a flap of loose skin. What better sustenance than a brain? He could practically taste it… and how long was it since he’d tasted anything? Nothing else mattered! He scrambled out of the tiny space, arms extended, and thrust himself at the visitor. He shouted, I’m sorry! but the visitor was so busy screaming that she probably didn’t hear him. Norm grabbed her dress. She tried to pull away, so he bit her neck to stop her squirming.
Norm tore away a chunk of throat but it tasted like cigar ash so he dropped it onto the ground. Blood poured from her neck and the woman sank to her knees. Her brain was right there, beneath that thinning hair. Norm held her steady and placed his teeth against her head – sweet ecstasy! – and bit…
His mouth wasn’t wide enough! He couldn’t crack the skull! The brain… He was so close! Norm roared, renewed his grip, and pressed his teeth harder against the head. When that didn’t help, he rammed his teeth against her skull. It didn’t pierce it, but one of his teeth lodged in his bloody victim. Norm pulled her head up. Maybe he could get the brain through the eye sockets…
But wait… she wasn’t a proper meal. The need to feast, to taste her world, shrank and left Norm feeling foolish and weak. His hunger shrivelled away. How was that possible? He’d been famished a second ago.
The woman scrambled for the staircase. When Norm didn’t pursue her, she grabbed a wine bottle from the rack and held it out in defence. At least, that’s what Norm thought the blur was doing.
“You bit me!” she shouted.
What did you say? Norm asked.
“Who is that? Norm?” The woman rested her back against the wall and edged up the stairs.
I can hear you! Norm said. He wanted to jump with joy but he’d probably break a leg, or hip, or both. You understand me! he said.
“Of course I do, Norm!” The woman was angry it seemed. How odd emotions were. “Have you been down here all this time?” she asked.
What time?
“No one’s seen Samuel for a fortnight!” She sounded hysterical. Her voice rose to a squeal. “What happened to him? Why are you covered in scabs? Where is your arm? And who the hell is that?”
Dad said she was a zombie, Norm said, staring at the headless female corpse. Which reminds me, you need to write a sign.
“What?”
Before you can’t move you arms.
The visitor – Samuel’s neighbour, what was her name? – would be losing muscle control every second. At least she wasn’t running away.
You have to write “Stay away” or something, Norm said.
“Why?”
We’re zombies! Perhaps he should have raised that point both earlier and more gently. Oh well. We have to stop anyone coming to the house.
“But… I don’t want to be a zombie,” Gladys said. Gladys! Was that her name? It didn’t matter. Gladys would correct him unless she, like him, wanted to be a new person. Did changing your name change who you were? Was the connection intrinsic or arbitrary? The door had been intrinsic, he’d decided: even when closed, it was still a door not a wall, because it could ope—
“Norm?”
Norm shook the thought away. Bits of scalp drifted toward the ground. It’s fine. You just need to… What are you doing?
“Nothing.” Gladys looked down and found her limbs flapping in an invisible gale. “I can’t control them!”
It’s happening too fast! Norm looked around for help. Get a pen or something!
“Norm, you’re acting crazy. There’s no such thing as zombies.”
Norm glared at the swaying floral blob.
“I mean, you’re flaking…” she said, “and the missing arm is… and you did try to eat my brain, but…” Gladys stared at the corpses, then nodded. “Okay.”
Norm’s eyes drifted back to Samuel’s corpse. I wish he was still alive, Norm said. He fought them when he was a boy. I thought he was making it up. I don’t suppose you know about zombies?
No, said Gladys. My parents never talked about it. No one did. I heard there was a fire.
Norm noticed that Gladys’s voice was clearer than before, more immediate, like a thought not a sound. Norm also had a… sense, a notion, a mental image of where Gladys was and what she was doing.
Not that I’m complaining, she said, but I don’t feel like eating brains.
Wait until you see one, Norm said, trying to ignore the lingering feeling that he’d missed another chance for perfect happiness. Maybe next time – not that he wanted there to be a next time. And he certainly wasn’t complaining.
What happens now? Gladys asked.
I don’t know, Norm said. What were zombies supposed to do if they didn’t want to kill people?
I think The Bill is starting.
* * *
Four days later, with the sun still an hour away, Paddington sat in his pale yellow Hillman Imp by the south dock. Twenty feet away, Charlie loaded the last of Lisa’s shrubs onto the deck of his trawler. Most of the other fishing boats had already left; it was now or never.
Paddington stepped out of his car and approached. Charlie froze staring at him; the veins on his neck thickening. “Hello constable!” he bellowed and shook Paddington’s hand with far too much vigour. “Fancy, uh, seeing you here this early.”
“Charlie…” Paddington said.
The large man clapped an arm around Paddington and pointed at the boat. “It’s not illegal. No breach of Embargo. It’s only people, see? Not plants. Miss Tanner checked. Ask her! It’s her plan!”
“I’m not here to arrest you!” Paddington said, mostly so Charlie would stop crushing him.
“Oh?”
Paddington separated himself and glanced around. But for the water lapping at the wooden beams beneath them, the dock was silent. “Can you take something for me?”
Like his mind, Charlie’s bushy eyebrows moved slowly. “Take what?”
“An envelope.” Paddington handed over the letter he’d written to the Supernatural Help and Investigation Team. The Beast of Gévaudan’s hair was inside.
For many long moments Charlie turned it over in his hands as Paddington shivered in the crisp morning air. Finally, Charlie said, “It’s a fiver for something this size.”
“What?”
“You heard.”
“It’s not exactly heavy!”
“Got to give the other bloke something to post it.”
“It’s already stamped!” Everything was more expensive on the Mainland, apparently, so Paddington had put on a few pounds’ worth of stamps on it. They took up much of the envelope.
“For his trouble, like.” Charlie glanced at his boat, as if worried it would overhear, and leaned in. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “you don’t tell anyone I’m working for a Mainlander and I won’t tell anyone you’re writing letters to one.”
That simple? Why the change of heart? Of course; Charlie was a respectable businessman. If word of this got out, he had far more to lose than Paddington.
“And you’ll waive the fee,” Paddington said.
Charlie shoved the envelope into his quilted jacket before Paddington could make any more demands. “Pleasure doing business, constable,” he said.
Chapter Four: Hide and Seek
A week after his clandestine Mainland shipment, Paddington woke to a kick. Last night Lisa had jogged in her sleep; today she sprinted. Paddington placed a hand on her shoulder—
And Lisa woke furious, wild blue eyes inches from Paddington’s. She lunged at him and Paddington darted back, afraid she would bite off his nose. When he didn’t feel the clamp of her jaw, he peered between his fingers and found Lisa frozen, mouth open, trying to capture the last images of her nightmare.
She noticed him and lay back down. “Sorry,” she said.
“Was it the same dream as yesterday?”
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