Double Dead (6 page)

The next evening, good news awaited.

The stink of exhaust had grown stronger, not weaker, during the day.

“They’ve doubled back,” he told Creampuff. A smile spread across his face like butter in a hot pan. He licked a fang. “Let’s go eat.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Fat is Flavor

Blood pumped into his mouth and down his throat, his tongue playing in the wound like a boy splashing in a kiddie pool, and as he drank, Coburn was reminded of something an old chef friend of his used to say: “
Fat is flavor
.”

Even in blood.

Salty. Sweet. Thick.

Equal parts
milkshake
and
liver pate
.

Fucking delicious.

The fat man wobbled and swayed but did not fall, his hand still idly fingering the button on his jeans as if he still might decide to stop and take a piss here along this overgrown fencerow, the tall needled pines on the other side playing home to an army of complaining nightbirds. Coburn cupped a steadying palm under the man’s chest—his tit, really—and dug in deeper, savoring the warm and buttery blood.

Only an hour before, Coburn and Creampuff came following the dots of oil and the trail of exhaust down a back country road until it wound down a gravel drive. A sign, choked by ivy and mold, read:
Lake Towhee
.

And there, parked on a knoll overlooking a scum-topped lake, sat a big, clunky RV. A low fire, now mostly glowing embers, lay smoldering, the smoke and ash drifting in whorls toward the pregnant midnight moon above.

Coburn could smell them. Not one, but several—used to be he could identify humans by the smell of perfume, the scent of leather, the odor of mouthwash or toothpaste. Now it was mostly just a gross mélange of body odors: sweat and bad breath and piss and scum. And maybe, just maybe, an undercurrent of soap.

Oh, and blood. Coburn could
always
smell the blood.

Must’ve been four or five people up there. The buffet, it seemed, was open once more. Good thing, too, because Coburn was on the edge of a keenly-honed hunger, and hunger made a vampire do very strange things.

He and Creampuff hid amongst a nest of dry reeds, watching. A fat man came out of the camper, a windbreaker as big as a four-person tent draped across his body. Coburn marveled at the man’s size. Here it was, the end of the world, the gates of Hell ripped open so that all of its rotting souls could come tumbling out, and this shit-heel somehow managed to remain morbidly obese.

But hey, the vampire thought, who cares? Big boy means big blood. Buckets of the stuff. Gallons. His toes curled just thinking about it.

The big dude had a rifle. He leaned it up against the RV, next to the door, then tottered off toward the forest’s edge.

He was going to take a piss.

Coburn looked to Creampuff, then pressed his finger to his lips. He thought again about trying to coerce the dog to do as commanded, but before he had to, the terrier hunkered down on his belly.

“Wait here,” Coburn said, and then he stalked the fat man.

And now, here he was. Dumb fuck came up. Coburn threw a stone to distract him—and as soon as big boy turned around to look (pivoting his prodigious mountain body), Coburn bit down from behind.

“Guh,” the fat man said. Way his lips worked made him look like a fish, gasping. The blood was wonderful. Oily and sweet. This was what the Japanese called
umami
, Coburn thought. The salty satisfaction of fish sauce.

Then—

The sky split with the sound of thunder.

Coburn felt struck, as if by a fist.

The sweet smell of the blood in his nose gave way to another odor: the acrid, rankling stink of gunpowder.

It took all his will, but he wrenched his fangs free of the fat neck and let the poor bastard bleed like a stuck pig.

Behind him, a fireplug of an old man. No—not old, not exactly. Late 40s, early 50s, maybe. Weathered face. Small dark eyes. Hair going silver even now and an ill-sculpted gray beard clinging to his chin.

In his hand: a lever-action rifle. A .30-30, by the look of it. Probably the same one that fat boy here left by the RV door.

Coburn grinned, licked a goopy drop of blood from his lip before it slid down his chin and he missed the chance. He released the fat man, let the corpulent bastard drop into the brush, moaning like one of those rotting fuckers.

Then he turned to face his attacker.

The silver-hair jacked another shell into the breach.

A woman hurried over—younger, with perfect hair and makeup, even in these mad times, even in this dead world (it was on her that Coburn had smelled the soap)—and stood by him, holding his hip protectively.

“Again,” she seethed, a fire in her eyes. Coburn knew that kind of rage. Didn’t expect it in a girl who looked like that, like a painted doll.

Rifle raised, the silver-hair stared down the sight. The barrel wavered.

“He doesn’t look like a rotter,” the older man said. “Pale. But not… coming apart at the seams.” Behind him, one of the windows of the RV—protected by a clumsily-cut chain link mesh bolted into place—showed movement. A white curtain parted. Another woman stared out: a black woman with fear in her eyes, drawn by the sounds outside.

More blood!
Coburn thought. This buffet was bigger than he’d imagined.

“Shoot, Gil!” the girl hissed.

Gil winced, pulled the trigger.

Bang
.

Coburn felt a hard tap on his shoulder, not far from where the other bullet had gone in. He looked down, saw the hole in his leather jacket. Stuck a thumb through the fabric and into the wound, wiggled it around. Bummer.

“You’re a piss-poor shot, pal,” Coburn said, chuckling. “You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with the broad side of a barn.”

He popped out his thumb, thick with the black blood that populated his withered veins, then stuck it in his mouth like a lollipop.

“It’s a cannibal,” the girl said. “You saw what he was doing to Ebbie.”

The fat man—Ebbie, apparently—groaned in response to his name.

“That what you are?” Gil asked, the rifle quivering in his grip. He jerked the lever, put another bullet into play. “Goddamn man-eater? Like it isn’t bad enough we got the walking dead out there looking for a taste, we gotta worry about your type, too? You get the hell away from Ebbie. Go on. Move.”

Coburn didn’t move. Not yet.

Instead, he just shrugged. “Survival of the fittest, am I right?”

“You go to Hell.”

“Your big boy’s bleeding over here in the weeds.”

“Step away, I said.”

Coburn took one step toward Gil, grinning still. His words took on a sing-song quality: “I’m just
say
ing. He’s
go
ing to waste.”

“Kill him!” the girl screeched. “
Gil
.”

Time collapsed in on itself. Coburn saw the man’s finger tighten around the trigger, saw it pull taut, saw the girl’s eyes go wide and the corner of her lip curl into a mean vulpine smile, saw the woman at the window close
her
eyes because she didn’t want to watch, saw a pair of moths dancing a herky-jerky tango in the headlights of the RV, saw the doorknob to the vehicle twist
oh-so-slightly
—

Coburn moved fast. Faster than any human could.

In the time it took to almost pull the trigger tight, Coburn was behind the silver-hair, jacking the rifle lengthwise up against the man’s throat. The plan was simple enough: gun was lateral, the mean end pointed toward the dolled-up darling, and she’d catch a bullet as Coburn helped the man pull the trigger. Then before the man could cry out at the loss of his cradle-robbed prize with the ruby-red lipstick, Coburn would yank back on the rifle and collapse the man’s trachea, turning it to a gurgling paste.

Then he would feed.

Fill his coffers with many pennies.

Fill his jug with the finest claret.

Fill his belly with—

Well. He’d guzzle blood, that was what he’d do.

Then, everything changed.

The door to the RV swung open as Little Miss Lipstick caught up to what was going on, realized that Coburn wasn’t where he had been and was now behind her silver-haired sugar daddy. She screamed.

Another girl came hurrying out of the RV—not the black woman from the window, no, this one was even younger than the dolled-up darling, maybe in her mid-teens. Frail, bird-like, even. Big wide eyes glistening, capturing the light of the moon.

Coburn smelled peaches and cigarettes.

She walked out, held out her hands, palms forward, as she tried to catch her breath. With those doe eyes she looked him up and down, her white-blonde hair bobbing atop her bony shoulders. Her eyes were ringed with dark shadows—like faint bruises. The girl smiled: nervous, excited, terrified.

“I like the jacket,” she said. Not
wait
, not
stop
, not
oh my god
.

I like the jacket
. Well, shit. Flattery. Coburn liked flattery.

Gil gasped, struggled in Coburn’s grip, rifle tight against the man’s throat.

“It’s old,” Coburn said, smirking.

“It’s slick.”

“It’s seen some times.”

“I bet it has.” The girl circled around, still facing him. “You’ve been around.”

“Pshh. I’m young. Look at me. Tall, lean like a coffee stirrer, barely any salt in my pepper. This guy here”—Coburn demonstrated by lifting the gun and, with it, Gil—“
he’s
old. Older than his years.”

“And you? Younger than your years?”

“Maybe so.”

Gil was starting to turn blue. Eyes bulging.

The girl looked to the man. “It’ll be okay, Daddy.”

“Daddy?” Coburn asked, then offered a barking laugh. Still, he loosened his grip just enough so as not to kill the man, not yet. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming. The painted lady there, she’s damn sure not your Mommy, though. Not unless she had you when she was barely done playing with her E-Z-Bake oven. Pregnant at the ripe old age of eight? Nasty to think.”

“You sonofab—” The doll started.

“
Cecelia
,” the teen spat. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Oh!” Coburn said, surprised. “I like that. Lippy little girl.”

“What are you?” she asked.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Are you dead?”

“Do I look dead?”

She took another step closer. “Dead isn’t the same as it used to be.”

“Fair enough. Even still. I don’t smell like spoiled meat. Maggots aren’t using me like a condo complex. And all my organs? Still inside my body.”

“I know what you are,” she said.

“I doubt that.”

“You’re dead.”

“Am I?”

“But not like them. Not like the others.”

He chuckled. “I don’t smell like a dead goat that’s been bloated in the sun, for one. Don’t attract flies, either. And all my parts are still inside my body, so that’s a plus.”

“Still,” she said. “You’re different.”

Coburn showed her his set of bloody teeth. “Could be, rabbit. Could be.”

“What’s your name?”

“Coburn,” he said. What could it hurt?

“I’m Kayla.”

“Great. Whatever. I don’t normally name my food before I eat it, but whatever works for you.”

She was scared. But she crept closer just the same.

“I want to make you a deal.”

“A deal. For me. Cute. Ballsy. Not interested.”

The girl’s eyes twinkled. Something about them: she didn’t have much to lose. That intrigued him. Would’ve been the easiest thing in the world to continue with the plan: shoot the brat, choke the man, then take his time with the teen.

But something stopped him.

“Look around you,” Kayla said. “World’s gone sour. People—like,
all
people, society, civilization—didn’t make it. Not many of us left.”

“Getting bored over here. And peckish.”

“That’s the point. Bored now? Wait ’til all you got left are those rotters to keep you company. Think you’re hungry? What happens when there’s none of us left?”

If his heart still worked, it would’ve skipped a beat. Even still, the blood in his gut curdled, the dead muscles tightened. Fear and panic scrambled against his mind’s walls like a cat with its tail on fire. He remembered last night. He remembered the hunger.

He narrowed his gaze, then cleared a clot-bubble of blood out of his throat. “Go on.”

“The deal is this,” she said. “You help us, we help you. We show you food. We know where others are. Living people.
Bad
people. People who’d kill us just as soon as say hello.”

“And in return?”

“You keep us safe.” She looked to her old man. “But first you have to stop choking my Daddy. I think you’re killing him.”