Night of the Living Trekkies (13 page)

“I appreciate that,” Willy said. “But if the ceiling’s going to fall on my head, anyway, I’d feel better if I’m the only person it hits. No need to infect you guys with my goner cooties.”

Leia’s face pinked up. “Was I talking that loud?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” Willy shrugged. “Safety first and all that. I’ll walk with you guys to the door, but then you’ll be free of me.”

Together they stepped around the scaffolding and made their way toward the stairwell at the end of the hallway. Along the way, Leia gave voice to an idea. “We were looking for shoes when we found you,” she said. “Maybe your friends have something I could borrow.”

Willy looked down at her feet. “What size do you wear?”

“I don’t know men’s sizes. Something medium-ish.”

“You mean like a seven or an eight?”

Again she blushed. “A man’s size ten,” she said.

“Seriously?” Jim blurted out.

Leia shot him a look.

Willy frowned. “You’d probably have to get those at a special store, like my mom does,” he said. “She’s got chronic edema.”

“Now
there’s
a plan,” Leia said icily. “Once we’re out of here I’ll find a special store that sells gigantic shoes for my hideous, misshapen feet. Why didn’t
I
think of that?”

She stalked off down the hallway.

Jim waved good-bye to Willy. “Stay put.”

“I’d wish you good luck,” Willy told him, “but I don’t think I have any to give.”

Leia was already at the stairwell door when Jim caught up with her. He opened it a crack and looked around. Satisfied that it was empty, he closed it again. All without saying a word.

“Why the silent treatment?” Leia asked him. “You can’t possibly be mad. I’m the one who got called out over my clown feet.”

“I’m not mad,” Jim said. “I’m thinking. What you said about Willy staying here was right. This place is zombie-free. There’s food. We could hole up here for a few hours until we determine a better plan.”

“Brilliant,” Leia said. “So we go downstairs and retrieve your friends?”

“How about
I
go retrieve my friends while you stay here?”

“Screw that,” Leia said.

“Hear me out,” Jim said. “It’s a straight, zombie-free shot to seven. Once I reach the landing on their floor, I’ll use my walkie-talkie to coordinate with the guys in Matt’s suite. When they say the coast is clear, I’ll run to their room. Then we’ll reverse the procedure and bring everyone back here. It’s idiot-proof.”

Leia started to reply, then thought better of it. Instead, she felt around on her ammunition belt until she located Dexter’s walkie-talkie. She switched it on.

“Dead Meat One, this is Dead Meat Two, do you read?” she said.

“This is Dead Meat One,” came the reply. “Oh my God, is this the princess?”

“Gary?”

“Yeah. Are you all right? Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“I’m fine, too,” Jim added. “Thanks for asking.”

“We’re on the eleventh floor, about to take the stairs down to seven,” Leia said. “But first we need you to tell us something: how far is the fire-exit door from your suite?”

“There’s a fire-exit door?” Gary said.

Leia looked at Jim.

“How much of the hallway can you see from your room’s peephole? Do you have any idea how many zombies are out there?”

“There’s a lot of them,” Gary said. “Pretty much all of them.”

“Well, keep somebody at the door, because we’re going to make our play pretty soon.”

She switched off the radio.

“Your point?” Jim asked.

“My point is that you don’t have any idea what’s lurking on the stairs or waiting in that hallway. You need me.”

“I need you someplace safe,” Jim said.

“Dude, I’m not your girlfriend,” Leia laughed. “You can skip the knight-in-shining-armor routine. Let’s stay together and watch each other’s backs. Besides, no place is safe. Ask Carlisle.”

For the first time it registered to Jim that he was standing next to the vending area. He spotted, through its doorway, the bottom half of the unlucky red shirt’s legs protruding from beneath the soda machine.

“Suit yourself,” Jim said.

He drew his Taser, pushed open the fire-escape door, looked around again, and stepped inside. He held it for Leia. He was about to close it when he noticed Willy running down the hall toward them, a paper shopping bag in his hand.

“Wait!” he shouted.

Jim held the door. Willy ran up to them, panting.

“For the princess,” he said, holding out the bag.

Leia stepped back into the hallway and looked at the package suspiciously, as if it might contain a bomb.

“For your feet,” Willy said. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember these sooner.”

Willy set his grocery bag down and opened it. He withdrew what looked like an enormous plush model of the USS
Enterprise
— and then a second plush model shaped exactly like the first.

“What are those?” Leia asked.

“Slippers,” Willy explained. “It’s officially licensed merchandise. I got them at a con in Austin. They’re way too big for me. But they’re comfortable and they’ve got grippy stuff on the bottom, so you won’t slip.”

Leia looked at Willy, then at the shoes. Then back at Willy. She stepped forward, took the slippers, tossed them on the floor, and pushed her feet into them.

They went in quickly and easily.

“Cushy. Good fit,” Leia said as she walked around experimentally. “And the grippers on the bottom work great.”

“What do you think?” she asked Jim.

The sight of a six-foot-tall, nearly naked woman walking around in puffy novelty slippers as big as shoeboxes made him think a lot of things.

Things he wisely kept to himself.

“Great,” he said. “Fantastic.”

“I’ll get these back to you,” Leia promised Willy as she stepped into the stairwell.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “I doubt I’ll live long enough to wear them.”

The fire escape stairs were metal and the landings at each floor were composed of rough, unfinished concrete. To get from one level to the next, they had to descend a flight of stairs, turn around on a landing, and then descend another flight to a fire-escape door.

“Watch every turn,” Jim whispered. “Listen for footsteps.”

“I thought they couldn’t do stairs,” Leia whispered back.

“We don’t
know
that. We’re only guessing. Also, maybe one of the fire-escape doors is jammed open. There could be a dozen of those things milling around on one of the landings.”

“And then what?”

Jim thought about it. He didn’t have a clue.

“Let’s hope there’s not,” he said.

They moved quietly, slowly making their way to the tenth floor. Leia was about to start down toward the ninth when Jim motioned for her to stop.

“I hear something,” he said, pointing down.

The two of them stood motionless, listening, for what felt like an eternity.

“I hear it, too,” Leia said. “Barely.”

Jim stealthily descended the first flight of stairs to the switch-back, then gazed down the second flight. He saw the back of what he took to be a smallish woman, sitting on a step roughly halfway to the ninth-floor landing. Draped around her shoulders was an oversized man’s jacket.

Leia followed close behind. “Zombie?” she whispered.

“No,” Jim said. “Zombies don’t cry.”

Jim holstered his Taser, walked to the woman’s side, and touched her shoulder. She looked up at him with a tear-streaked face. At once Jim recognized her clunky rectangular glasses and pointy prosthetic ears.

“Oh, my God,” Jim said. “T’Poc?”

“Jim,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re trying to get to Matt’s suite,” Jim said.

T’Poc took off her glasses and wiped the right lens with the sleeve of her jacket. The left lens was shattered.

“So was I,” she said as she put the glasses back on. “Didn’t make it.”

“Rayna told us you were dead,” Jim said. “What happened?”

“You were right about the zombies. You tried to warn us and we just laughed at you.”

“Never mind that,” Jim said. “Tell me how you got up here.”

“After the Klingon Feast, Matt wanted to go back to his suite, so we rode up to the seventh floor. When the elevator doors opened, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. We thought it was a prank. Some kind of GulfCon event. The blood was everywhere—on the walls, on the ceiling. There were people behind us in the elevator, pushing us out. We had to run past the feeding frenzy. We went right down the hallway toward Matt’s room. Gary was first, then Rayna, then me, then Matt. There were lots of open doors, and the things in the rooms heard us, and they lunged as we passed. I dodged almost all of them. But then one of them grabbed my ankle. A real shoestring tackle. I fell flat on my face. Matt just leapt over me and kept on running.”

“Were you bitten?” Jim asked.

“Of course I was. I had three or four zombies on top of me.”

“And Matt didn’t help at all?”

“He didn’t even look back. By the time I kicked the creatures off me, he had the door to his suite already locked. So I kept running to the stairwell, and that’s where I met the others. I was tempted to call them survivors, but that’s not really the right word for these people. They were bitten, all of them, just hiding out and waiting to turn. One of them gave me his jacket to wear. They’re nice . . . but they won’t stay nice for long.”

Jim listened carefully. He didn’t hear any sounds coming from beneath them in the stairwell. “Where are they?”

“Two floors down,” T’Poc said. “If you hurry, maybe you can still help them.”

Jim was doubtful, but he tried to sound positive. “Sure, I’ll ask about their stay. Make sure they have everything they need. See if they’re interested in our turn-down service.” He winked at Leia. “Be right back.”

The two women watched him descend the stairs, then looked to each other.

“What’s that perfume you’re wearing?” T’Poc said.

“Excuse me?” Leia asked.

“Your perfume. It’s great.”

“I’m not wearing anything,” Leia said. “Except a metal bikini that chafes whenever I run too fast.”

“It’s a pretty awesome costume. I’m not loving the shoes, but I’ll give you big props for showing serious skin. You’ve got beautiful arms. Really well-shaped muscle definition. So why not flaunt it, right? I’m a big believer in giving the people what they want. As long as the convention center isn’t freezing.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Leia said.

“I had a friend who had the opposite problem. She used to dress as an Orion slave girl. If she got even a little bit warm, she sweated. And every time she sweated, the paint came off. One time, at a show in Baton Rouge, the con made her pay for a hotel chair she ruined.”

“Green paint is a bitch,” Leia said. “I try not to wear it any longer than I have to.”

“Take a look at my costume this time,” T’Poc said.

With a great deal of effort she stood up, then let the jacket drop from her shoulders.

“Oh, my God,” Leia said. She took a step backward.

“Awesome, isn’t it?” T’Poc said. “It’s the two-piece crew uniform from ‘Mirror, Mirror,’ the episode where Kirk and the rest of the bridge crew are transported to an alternate universe where barbarians rule and the female crewmembers dress like NBA cheerleaders. The only drawback is that I had to do crunches for weeks just to get in shape.”

Leia didn’t respond. She was too busy looking at the two deep, ragged bites on T’Poc’s stomach.

“Those don’t hurt,” T’Poc said, following her gaze. “Not anymore. At first it was so bad I thought I was going to die. But after a while it got better.”

Leia kept staring at the wounds. They definitely weren’t getting better. They wept blood. And the skin ringing them was greenish gray. Like a corpse.

“I guess that’s why I’m still hanging on. I thought I could beat the odds. But I don’t think I will. I’m weak as hell, and I’m having all sorts of strange thoughts and urges. Especially the hunger. I’m ravenous. I don’t know how much longer I can control it. I mean . . . right now we’re having a normal conversation, but I really just want to bite one of your delicious-looking biceps. Do you do Pilates?”

“Hatha yoga,” Leia said as she took a step back. “Also free weights. It’s the best way to stay toned.”

She pulled her Taser.

“I’m going to check on Jim,” she said. “Don’t you move an inch.”

She started down the stairs.

“Wait,” T’Poc said. “I have to tell you one last thing. It’s important.”

Leia hesitated.

“I’ve started hearing things in my head. They tell me to do stuff. But they also tell me . . . how this is all going to end.”

“How?” Leia said.

“We’re all going to die, Princess. You, Jim, me, every last one of us. Everywhere.”

A moan wafted up the stairwell. Then another—followed by the unmistakable mayhem of a struggle. And then Leia, swearing under her breath, launched herself down the steps toward the sounds of slaughter.

Jim quietly descended the stairs until he stood halfway down the last flight before the seventh-floor landing. He knelt and peered over the rail. What he saw turned his stomach.

The pack of decrepit figures below him weren’t waiting to become zombies as T’Poc had suggested; their transformation was already complete. Jim counted six, all crowded in a half-circle, dressed in colorful alien costumes and hunched over an unmoving body dressed in a blue uniform from the original series.

The three zombies in front, women in shiny dresses and thigh-high silver boots, crouched low over the body’s head.
What are they doing?
Jim thought, then immediately wished he could un-ask the question as all three women rose unsteadily, all struggling to wrest possession of the corpse’s naked, bloody brain. Jim didn’t know whether the wave of horror coursing through his stomach came from the unspeakable sight itself—or from his sickening realization that its perpetrators were dressed as the alien organ thieves from the episode “Spock’s Brain” and that their zombified remnants had kicked the role-play up a notch.