The Stupidest Angel (30 page)

"It won't spark, it's wet," said Marty in the Morning. He was trying to coax fire out of a drenched disposable lighter. The undead stood around him, looking at the pile of gasoline-sodden debris they'd piled against the side of the chapel.

"I love barbecue," said Arthur Tannbeau. "Every Sunday out at the ranch, we used to—"

"Only in California could one refer to a citrus farm as a ranch," interrupted Malcolm Cowley. "As if you and the yahoos would all go out on horseback to round up the tangerines."

"Didn't anyone find a dry lighter or matches in any of the cars?" Dale Pearson said.

"No one smokes anymore," said Bess Leander. "Disgusting filthy habit anyway."

"Said the woman who still has brain matter on her chin from that fellow in the sweater," said Malcolm.

Bess smiled coyly, most of her gums visible through her receded lips. "They were so tasty—it was like he'd never used them."

There was a chirp from the front of the chapel and all of them looked. Yellow lights flashed on one of the vehicles up there.

"Someone's making a break for it," screamed Dale. "I thought I told you to keep an eye on the roof."

"I did," said the one-armed Jimmy Antalvo. "It's dark. I can't see shit."

As they rushed down the side of the chapel toward the front, they saw a dark shadow slide off the side of the roof to the ground.

AVENGING ANGEL

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,
Theo thought. He twisted his ankle when he hit the ground; pain shot up his leg like liquid fire. He fell and rolled onto his back in the mud. He'd pushed the remote button that unlocked the Range Rover too soon. The vehicle had chirped and the lights had blinked, alerting the undead. He'd made the jump blind, and missed. They were coming for him.

He pushed himself up and started hopping toward the Range Rover, the car key ready in his right hand, his flashlight lost behind him in the mud.

"Grab him, you rotting fucks," screamed Dale Pearson.

Theo fell forward as his good foot slipped out from under him, but he rolled back to his feet, a bolt of pain shooting white-hot across his shin. He caught himself on the back window of the black Range Rover, snatching at the rear wiper for balance. He risked a glance back toward his pursuers and heard a loud thump by his head followed by a deafening screech. He turned just in time to see a skeletal woman sliding across the roof of the Range Rover, leading with her teeth. He ducked, but not before he felt fingernails raking his neck, teeth thumping into his scalp. She rode him to the ground and he could feel a grating pain in his head as the zombie tried to bite through his skull. His face was pushed into the mud. His nostrils and mouth filled with water, and amid a flashing whiteness of terror he thought,
I'm so sorry, Molly.

"Yuck! That's hideous!" said Bess Leander, spitting a couple of teeth on the back of Theo's head.

Marty in the Morning grabbed Theo by the head and licked the teeth marks that Bess had left. "That's horrible. He's stoned. I'm not eating stoned brains."

The undead moaned in disappointment.

"Get him up," said Dale.

Theo inhaled a great spray of mud along with his first breath and he went into a coughing fit as the un-dead lifted him up and held him against the back window of the Range Rover. Someone wiped the mud out of his eyes, and a stench that made him gag filled his nostrils. He could see the dead but animated face of Dale Pearson only inches from his own. The corpse's foul breath overwhelmed him. Theo tried to twist away from the evil Santa, but decaying hands held his head fast.

"Hey, hippie," said Dale. He held Theo's flashlight down by his Santa beard to illuminate his face from below. There were two stripes of bloody drool running down either side of the beard. "You're not thinking that your pot-smoking ways are going to save you, are you? Don't." He pulled a snub-nose revolver out of the pocket of his red coat and shoved it under Theo's chin. "We'll have plenty to eat. We can afford to waste you."

Dale ripped open the Velcro fasteners of Theo's jacket and started feeling around his waist. "No gun? You suck as a lawman, hippie." He went to the pockets of Theo's cop shirt. "But this! The one thing you can be depended on for."

Dale held up Theo's lighter, then reached in, tore the whole pocket off the cop shirt, and wrapped the dry fabric around the lighter. "Marty, try this. Keep it dry." Dale gave the lighter to a rotting guy with a wet Ziggy Stardust red mullet, who slogged back to the pile of debris at the side of the chapel.

Theo watched as Marty in the Morning bent over the pile of plywood, pine branches, two-by-fours, cardboard, and the torn-up body of Ben Miller. The wind was still whipping, the rain less intense now, but even so the drops stung Theo's face when they hit.

Don't light, don't light, don't light,
Theo chanted in his head, but then his hope drained away when he saw the orange flame catch on the debris, and Marty in the Morning pull away with his sleeve on fire.

Dale Pearson stepped aside so Theo could see the fire whipping up the side of the building, then put the .38 against Theo's temple. "Take a good look at our little barbecue fire, hippie. It's the last thing you're going to see. We're gonna eat your crazy wife's brains char-broiled."

Theo smiled, happy that Molly wasn't inside, wouldn't be part of the massacre.

"I didn't hear 'Shave and a Haircut,' " said Ignacio Nunez. "Did you hear 'Shave and a Haircut'?"

Tuck panned his flashlight across a dozen frightened faces, then one whole side of the chapel went orange with the light from the fire outside the windows. One woman screamed, others stared in horror as smoke started to snake in around the window frames.

"Change of plan," Tuck said. "We go now. Guys in front of your groups. Give the car keys to the next person back."

"They'll be waiting for us," said Val Riordan.

"Fine, you burn up," Tuck said. "Guys, knock over whatever gets in your way, everyone behind just keep going for the cars."

All the barricades and braces had been removed from the chapel doors. Tuck put his shoulder against one door, Gabe Fenton was on the other. "Ready. One, two, three!"

They threw their shoulders against the doors and bounced back into the others. The doors had only opened a couple of inches. Someone shone a flashlight through the gap to reveal a huge pine-tree trunk braced against one of the doors.

"New plan," shouted Tuck.

Theo tried to look at the fire, but he couldn't see beyond the undead eyes of Dale Pearson. Thought had fled. There was just fear and anger and the pressure of the gun barrel against his temple.

He heard a whooshing sound and a thump by his ear and the gun barrel was gone. Dale Pearson was stepping away from him, holding a dark stump where his gun hand had just been. Dale opened his mouth to shout something, but in that second a thin line appeared across his face at nostril level and half of his head slid to the ground. He slumped in a pile at Theo's feet. The hands that were holding Theo let go.

"Brains!" screamed one of the undead. "Crazy-woman brains!"

Theo fell on top of Dale's rekilled body, then spun around to see what was happening.

"Hi, honey," Molly said. She stood on the roof of the Range Rover, grinning, wearing a leather jacket, sweatpants, and her red Converse All Stars, holding the ancient Japanese sword in
Hasso No Kamae
before her, the blade gleaming orange in the light from the burning church. There was a dark swath across the blade where it had hewn the head of the zombie Santa. Theo had never been a religious man, but he thought in that instant that this must be what it was like to look on the face of an avenging angel.

The zombies who had been holding Theo reached for Molly's legs, and in a single motion she stepped back and brought the sword around in a low arc that sent a rain of severed hands flying into the mud. The undead wailed around her, and tried to claw their way onto the SUV with their stumps. Bess Leander tried to replicate the move she had used on Theo, stepping up the hood behind Molly and diving across the roof of the Range Rover. Molly spun and sidestepped, making a low swing with her sword that would have not looked out of place on a golf course. Bess's head rolled off the top of the Land Rover into Theo's lap. He pushed it aside and got to his feet.

"Honey, you might want to go let everyone out of the chapel before they burn up," said Molly. "I'm not sure you want to watch this."