The Down Home Zombie Blues (26 page)

The blatantly puzzled expressions on Suzanne’s and Zeke’s faces would have been funny if the situation weren’t so serious.

Suzanne was the first, however, to catch on. “On
our
world?”

Theo was saved from answering by a soft whimper of pain from Tammy. Jorie immediately had her scanner out. Suzanne stared over Jorie’s shoulder, eyes wide.

“The implant.” Jorie pointed to an image on the screen.

“Is that a…handheld MRI?”

“It does a lot of things,” Theo told her. “Jorie will explain as much as she can later. But right now can you remove that thing?”

Suzanne reached for the scanner. “May I?”

Jorie handed it to her, and for the next few moments, the blue-walled back room of the clinic was filled with the soft sounds of the two women’s voices, the staccato barking of a dog, and the occasional shriek of a feathered companion.

Theo leaned against a grooming table, feeling useless.

“Theophilus.” Zeke flanked Theo’s right side. “What in hell is going on?”

“I could tell you, Ezequiel, but you won’t believe me.”

Suzanne raised one hand, catching Theo’s attention. “I’m going to take her into surgery. We’ll call you boys if we need anything.”

“How long?” Theo asked.

Suzanne exchanged glances with Jorie. “I want to run some tests first. That shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes. Then, if we don’t encounter any complications, half an hour to forty-five minutes. That…thing is fairly close to the surface. But I’ll want to monitor her in recovery for at least two hours after that. I suggest you two find the coffeemaker in the staff room and get it brewing.”

With that she turned and, with Jorie on one side, wheeled Tammy down the short hall.

Theo watched them go. He could feel Zeke staring at him the entire time.

“You won’t believe me,” he said before Zeke could repeat the question.

Zeke rocked back on his heels. “Try me.”

“Make some coffee. I refuse to be Baker-Acted without sufficient caffeine in my veins.”

17

It took Theo over half an hour to explain—or try to explain—about Jorie and the zombies and the Tresh. Then he sat in silence, sipping a cup of Zeke’s wonderful black-as-mud coffee, as his friend and former partner examined the Guardian laser pistol, Hazer micro-rifle, and, lastly, the cube showing holographs of Paroo.

“Looks like Tahiti,” Zeke said.

Theo leaned forward and pressed an icon on the side of the top screen. He’d figured out the zoom feature yesterday after returning from the confrontation with the zombies in the park.

“Tahiti with the cast from
Star Wars,
” Zeke amended. “Means nothing.” He handed the cube back to Theo, who pressed two sides to flatten it, then shoved it back in his pocket.

“I know. But that and the weapons are all I have right now.”

“If it was anyone but you—”

“I know.”

Zeke picked up the rifle again, hefting it. Theo glanced at his watch. Almost nine o’clock. And this wasn’t a residential neighborhood. “Okay,” he said, knowing what Zeke wanted and might finally take as proof. “One shot. Outside in the parking lot. But I’m going to turn on my strobe so we don’t get any funny calls from any passersby or Suzanne’s kennel staff reporting a strange blue flash.”

“I’ll call Nina on the kennel intercom and tell her not to worry about the strobe.” Zeke was grinning, clearly excited about seeing the rifle in action.

The air outside was still warm, muggy. Zeke propped open the clinic’s rear door with a folding chair while Theo unlocked the SUV and hit the switch for the blue strobe behind his rearview.

“Two settings,” he said, angling the Hazer so that Zeke could see the small buttons. “Stun.” A yellow light pulsed down the side of the rifle. “And dead.” The light turned blue. “You got something you don’t need?”

“Suzanne remodeled the nurses’ station last week. There are two old metal desks behind the Dumpster. They’re heavy bastards. I’ll give you a hand.”

Theo looped the rifle’s strap over his shoulder, then pushed while Zeke pulled. Theo turned the desk so the file drawers faced Zeke and were in line with the Dumpster. If the charge kept going, the Dumpster should stop it.

Then he trotted to the far end of the parking lot, Zeke by his side. “Ready?”

“Fire at will.”

“Poor Will.” Theo shouldered the rifle and took aim. “He’s always getting shot at.” He punched the trigger button.

Blue light bored through one side of the desk with nothing more than a low hum, then flared brightly against the front of the Dumpster.

“Damn!” Zeke broke into a trot, heavy-duty flashlight in one hand, and stopped to kneel in front of the smoldering three-inch hole in the desk. “It went completely through both file pedestals. Hot damn.”

Theo shut off the strobe, then walked over to the blistered, buckled section of the Dumpster. “If Suzanne catches any shit about this, let me know. I’ll kick in some bucks for a new one.” He looked at Zeke.

His friend sighed and shut off the flashlight. “Okay, so you’ve got some really sweet weapons there. But we’ve got lasers. That doesn’t prove she’s an outer-space alien.”

“I told you.” Theo grabbed the edge of the battered desk and pulled it toward the Dumpster. “I’ve been on their ship.”

“Beamed up, yeah.” Zeke pushed, grunting. “You’ve seen
The Wizard of Oz.
Little girl gets smacked by a tornado and dreams all kinds of things. You say you were out in the yard when the tornado hit—”

“Zombie,” Theo corrected.

“Tornado. Microburst,” Zeke countered. Together they shoved the desk back up against the Dumpster. “The whole thing is just a hallucination.”

“Jorie’s real. This rifle’s real.”

“She could be some kind of terrorist. Or superspy.”

“Who just happened to be in my backyard at the exact moment this supposed microburst clocked me?” Theo kicked at a stone and sent it skittering across the asphalt as he walked back toward the clinic’s open door. “And who then set up an elaborate video display of fifteen-foot-tall monsters, not only in my backyard but in the park by the mall? And, oh, the ones in my house where people beam in and out like a scene from
Star Trek
? Why, Zeke, why?” They’d reached the doorway. Theo crossed his arms over his chest. “If these are high-tech terrorists from some third-world country—who couldn’t afford this kind of technology to begin with—why me? Why a Homicide cop in a small Florida city? Why not a police chief in Miami? Or an FDLE lieutenant who would have access to far-more-sensitive information than I do? Why go to all this trouble for me?”

“Did you run NCIC on her?”

“I didn’t think NCIC included starship pilots’ licenses.”

Zeke stepped inside. “Fingerprints.”

Theo followed and closed the door. “You’re not going to find Jorie or Tammy in our databases.”

“Outer-space aliens don’t have names like Tammy.”

“Tamlynne,” Jorie’s voice said behind him. “Her name’s Tamlynne.”

Theo turned, quickly reading her face. No tears. No sadness. Hope rose that Jorie would at least be spared this heartache.

“She’s in recovery.” Suzanne was walking toward them, surgical mask loose around her neck. “She’s doing very well.”

Theo reached for Jorie. “You got it out? She’s okay?”

She took his hand. “Yes and yes. And it’s fully disabled. The Tresh have no way of tracking it.” Finally, a small smile. “Dr. Suzanne is excellently skilled. Companion med-techs always are.”

He stood staring at her, aware of the warmth of her hand in his, aware that Zeke had come to stand beside him. He didn’t care. He gave her hand a small squeeze.

“Contact lenses,” Zeke said.

“Zeke, what are you babbling about?” Suzanne sounded annoyed.

“Her.” Zeke gestured at Jorie. “She has Theo believing she’s from some other planet. The hair, the gold eyes. Has to be contacts.”

Jorie glanced at Theo. “Nils,” she said quietly, pulling her hand out of his. “I warned you.”

“Zeke,” Suzanne said, but Zeke had flicked on his flashlight and aimed it at Jorie’s face.

“But you can always see the lenses in an oblique light.”

“Zeke.” Suzanne, again.

Jorie blinked.

“Look that way.” Zeke pointed to the wall.

Jorie shrugged and turned in profile to him.

“Zeke!” Suzanne had lost patience. Theo heard that clearly. He wondered what had happened in surgery, what Jorie had told or shown her. Something, obviously. Because Suzanne didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by Zeke’s mention of “another planet.”

Suzanne—in a very familiar move—smacked Zeke on the arm. He stopped squinting at Jorie’s eyes. “Suzy—”

“I believe Jorie is who she says she is.”

“What?” Zeke straightened.

“So is Tamlynne,” Suzanne continued. “Though whether they’re actually from this Chalv, Cal…”

“Chalvash,” Jorie said.

“Thank you. Chalvash System—that, I don’t know. But I do know that small scanner of hers is far beyond any kind of medical equipment we have. Nothing I’ve seen even comes close.”

Zeke looked at his wife. “You can’t really think that—”

“I do. I watched Jorie sonically seal my incision. I do know what I’m talking about, Zeke. Nothing we have here—nothing—can do that.”

Zeke switched a look from his wife to Jorie and back to his wife again. “So she’s not wearing contacts?”

Suzanne angled her face around toward Jorie’s. “Nope. Interesting eye color, almost feline. Do you know if it’s a dominant or recessive gene?” she asked Jorie.

“It’s what my parents chose,” Jorie said.

It took a moment for Theo to realize what she said, and then it startled him. Evidently the Tresh weren’t the only ones who played with biological engineering.

Zeke shoved the flashlight back in his duty belt, disbelief playing across his features. “This is crazy.”

“I
so
know that feeling,” Theo intoned wryly. He clapped Zeke on the back. “Now that we have that settled, let me give you the bad news: Jorie and her people aren’t the only outer-space aliens here. And the zombies aren’t the only issue. We’ve got problems, big problems,
amigo.
Go fire up that coffeepot. We need to tell you about the Tresh.”

Zeke was skeptical. No, more than skeptical. He could not, did not want to believe Jorie was a Guardian who’d come to Florida via a spaceship right out of
Star Trek.
Theo could see it in the way the detective leaned back in the chair in the staff room, arms across his chest, eyes narrowed.

“C’mon, Theo,” Zeke said, when Jorie paused in her recounting of the Tresh Devastators showing up in Theo’s house. “Don’t you think NASA or NO-RAD or one of those agencies would notice a bunch of space cruisers hanging out up there?” He waved his hand in a circle over his head.

Theo rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. It was almost eleven o’clock. The end—or what should be the end—of another grueling, confusing day.

Another hour and it was Christmas.

Christ.

“We take considerable efforts not to be noticed by nil-techs,” Jorie said. She too had her arms crossed over her chest and leaned back in her chair across the small staff room from Zeke.

This was not going well.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Theo said finally. “I’m still having a difficult time processing what I’ve seen. But I can’t change the facts: these zombie things are here, the Tresh are here, and Jorie’s ship and crew are gone. We need help. But if you don’t want to get involved, I understand. Suzanne’s removing that implant from Tammy is above and beyond the call. We really have no right to ask for anything more.” His own implant could wait. He shoved himself to his feet. “If Suzanne says it’s okay, we’ll take Tammy back home now.”

Zeke grimaced, his mouth twisting slightly. “You really believe all this shit, don’t you?”

“I wish I didn’t,” Theo answered honestly.

“Let me print her,” Zeke said. “Her and her friend. I want name, DOB, everything. Run them through NCIC.”

“You’re not going to find anything.”

“Then what are you worried about?” Zeke replied smoothly.

Shit. Standard interrogation setup, and he’d walked right into it. He would have laughed out loud, but he was too tired. “You got a kit in your car? Go get it.”

Zeke strolled out and Theo explained the procedure to a frowning Jorie.

“Why would there be a record of my biological signature in your criminal files?” she asked.

“There won’t be. That’s why I’m saying it’s no big deal. Not important,” he amended. “But he’s a friend. And friends double-check each other sometimes.”

“He thinks I’m deceiving you.”

“He thinks it’s a possibility, because he hasn’t seen what I have. So he has to gather his own information, to be sure.”

“Nils,” Jorie said softly as Zeke returned, but a corner of her mouth quirked up in a grin and she let Zeke take her prints. She had no idea what a Social Security number was. Her response to his request for date of birth was equally perplexing.

“Esare three nine seven Tal one Nifarris,” she told him, and even obliged by writing it down.

“Which makes you how old?” Zeke asked.

“My age on my world? Thirty-nine.”

He’d thought she was younger, but then, he didn’t know if his years were the same as Chalvash System years, or wherever in hell she was from. She could be thirty-nine or nineteen or seventy-nine. He had no way to know.

“And you have no driver’s license, no identification?” Zeke was asking.

Jorie pulled her scanner out from under her long sweater and flicked through several screens. “This.”

Theo stepped forward, craning his neck, and saw a small head-shot image of a very serious Jorie with shorter hair, and then lines of squiggly or angular characters to the left of the image. Characters like the ones that had scrolled down the screen of Mr. Crunchy’s laptop and had graced the corridor walls of her ship.

“Can you translate that to Vekran?” he asked.

“Trans…ah!” She tapped the screen a few times. The angular letters shifted until Theo saw a somewhat recognizable alphabet.

Not totally English. But, damn, he could almost read it.