Night of the Living Trekkies (14 page)

He knew he should just Taser them. Stand there on the steps, just out of reach, and zap them like a firing squad. It was a rational, low-risk plan.

But as Jim watched two of the undead horrors claw through the ersatz Vulcan’s shirt and abdomen and begin quarreling over a length of large intestine, he felt rationality take a backseat to rage. Tasering was too easy for these monsters. They needed to suffer.

One of the creatures, dressed as some sort of reptilian alien soldier, turned its back to him. Slung across its back was what looked like a stainless-steel, art-deco-style ax with a long blade and a pointed tip. Unlike the smooth-edged blades that Martock was selling on the convention floor, this one appeared to be razor-sharp and in complete violation of GulfCon rules and regulations.

Another plan, one far less rational, jelled in his mind. Jim knew he could do a lot of damage very quickly with that weapon. Then he wouldn’t have to waste a bunch of Taser darts. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable strategy—or as reasonable as he could manage with the sound of his every heartbeat echoing through his ears.

And there was no one around—not Rayna, not Leia—to tell him any different.

He stood, walked quickly and quietly down the last steps, crossed the floor to the scene of the slaughter, and then ripped the weapon off the soldier zombie’s back. The creature turned, its third eye fixed on the last thing it would ever see: Jim slamming the blade down onto the center of its host’s skull, splitting it like a melon.

One down.

The other zombies, finally alerted to his presence, moaned and tottered around to face him. Jim didn’t give them time to get their bearings. He rocked the ax free of its former owner and then used it to sweep a fat Ferengi’s feet out from under him. The blade’s impact severed the zombie’s right leg just below the knee. The monster fell face-first on the concrete—still moving, but crippled.

Two down.

The trio of zombies in the shiny dresses fumbled and dropped the Vulcan’s brain; it landed on the floor with a wet splat. Against Jim’s will, a short, hysterical laugh escaped his lips.

“You like brains?” he yelled as he swung viciously, severing one creature’s head with a single stroke. “Who wants some more?” He reversed his grip, swung backhanded, and decapitated another. The third watched in confusion as the two heads landed at her feet, followed by the rest of their bodies. Then it looked back at Jim, its dead eyes caked in ‘60s-era go-go eye shadow.

He again bit down on his revulsion and swung one more right-handed arc—and then there were three headless corpses crumpled in a heap.
Hat trick!
Jim thought, feeling a grin spread across his face.

He was breathing hard. His arms burned from the exertion. And there was still one more zombie to go, the one at the rear of the pack that was keeping its back to him. It appeared to be a middle-aged man with gray, shoulder-length hair. His costume looked like it was sewn from rags. On his left hand was a glove that appeared slightly familiar.

“Who the hell are
you
supposed to be?” Jim asked, grabbing it by the shoulder and spinning it around.

The zombie moaned and staggered toward him.

Suddenly Jim’s face brightened. He remembered.

“Khan!” he shouted as he pointed his ax at the undead horror. “Khaaannnn!”

He was raising his weapon to strike when the creature suddenly stopped in its tracks, twitched like a marionette, then went slack and fell to the floor. Behind it stood Leia, Taser in hand. The thin wires that had channeled fifty thousand volts into the zombie’s back trailed from it to her weapon.

“Thanks,” Jim said. “How long were you standing there?”

“Long enough to fully appreciate what an idiot you are,” she said. “Are you out of your tiny, twenty-watt mind? You could have done all this with a Taser.”

“This was a lot more satisfying,” Jim said, still breathing heavily.

“And borderline suicidal,” Leia said. “Come here.”

Jim dropped his blood-swathed weapon on the floor and walked to the princess, who stood at the base of the stairs.

Leia performed a careful, walk-around inspection of him. Lastly, she took his hands into hers. She closely examined each digit, then ran her fingers lightly over his palms, looking for the smallest cut. She found nothing. She looked up to find Jim watching her intently.

“You’re okay,” she said, meeting his gaze.

“That was just an excuse to feel me up,” he said, smiling.

“Don’t get cute. What you did was idiotic. And you didn’t just risk your own life. One bite and you’re lost to us. Lost to your sister, lost to me. Think about that before you play hero again.”

“Heroism had nothing to do with it,” Jim said sullenly.

He heard a moan behind him. He turned to see the one-legged Ferengi, still facedown on the concrete, slowly crawling toward them.

“Excuse me,” he said.

He picked up his weapon, walked to the creature, flipped it over with his boot, and drove the corner of the ax blade into its third eye. Then he shouldered the weapon and walked back to Leia.

“I’m not a hero,” Jim said. “I just lost my mind a little. Because—well, because I saw Mr. Spock lose his.”

Jim motioned toward the mostly eaten corpse on the floor.

Then he noticed that Leia was already staring at it. And that her left hand gripped the stair rail so hard her knuckles were white.

“It moved,” she whispered. “Just a twitch, but I saw it.”

Jim walked slowly back to the body. It lay in the middle of a gooey mass of blood and gore. Its entire belly had been wrenched open. Bits of blue and pink organ meat lay strewn about. What remained of the head was better left unexamined.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Just then the right leg twitched again. A moment later the left arm did the same.

“It isn’t possible,” Leia said as she walked cautiously to his side. “There’s nothing left.”

“Look,” Jim said, pointing.

As they watched, a small white nodule sprouted just underneath the corpse’s exposed left collarbone. It expanded with startling speed. As it grew it sent long, white, spaghetti-thin tendrils snaking throughout the body. Several vined around the spine. Others raced down the ruined limbs. A bundle of them forced their way through the neck and began grasping about for pieces of skull to gather.

“I think I may get sick,” Leia said.

Jim didn’t reply. He was too busy watching the transformation of a human corpse into a zombie.

The nodule expanded to the size of an orange, then stopped. A horizontal crease formed on its surface. A moment later the crease split open, revealing a glaring red eye.

“It’s taken over the body,” Jim said. “But it’s in for a surprise.”

The invader tried to work the newborn zombie’s limbs. Leia and Jim watched as first one, then the other arm shuddered. But that was all the parasite could manage. Too many muscles were gone, too many tendons, for real movement. The severely damaged body was of no use to its new owner.

Jim knelt down beside the corpse and stared at the eye.

“I guess it sucks to be you, huh, Twitchy?” he said.

The eye stared back at him. Jim wondered where it came from. Whether it felt malice or fear or rage over its predicament—or anything at all.

He leaned closer to get a better look.

Then, closer still.

He felt an almost primal urge, welling up from deep inside his subconscious, to touch it.

Leia grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.

“What the hell were you doing?” she shouted. “You were leaning right into the damn thing.”

Jim shook his head to clear the cobwebs.

“That was close,” he said, nodding. “You don’t want to hold eye contact for very long. They can get inside your head. That’s probably what happened to Janice. They screwed with her mind and made her open the hotel doors.”

“Kill it,” Leia said.

“In a second.”

Jim plucked the can of Mace from Leia’s gun belt.

“Why do you want that?” she asked.

“Another experiment.”

He pointed the Mace at the eye and fired a stream of caustic fluid into it. The reaction was everything he’d hoped for. The corpse that the creature controlled jerked spasmodically—exactly the way a body would react if its master were in agony.

“Finish it,” Leia said.

“Why the rush?” Jim asked. “Feeling softhearted?”

“We’ve got things to do. Remember T’Poc? She’s still up there.”

“I know,” Jim said. “Believe me, I know.”

He stood up, put the Mace canister back into Leia’s belt, and then brought up his ax.

He was about to use it when the princess took the weapon from him. She leaned over the corpse and gouged out the eyeball herself.

“
That’s
how softhearted I am,” she said.

She stared at the mass of biological wreckage that had once been a person. Jim silently held out his hand for the blade. Leia lifted it—and, growling deep in her throat, thrust its sharp point back into the monstrosity three more times.

“And stay down!” she spat at the thing.

Then she handed the weapon back to Jim.

“You made it,” T’Poc said when they rounded the switchback in front of her. The look of relief on her face seemed genuine.

“I did,” Jim said. “But you knew they were already dead when you sent me down there, didn’t you?”

A tear traced down T’Poc’s left cheek.

“Yes,” she replied quietly. “Half an hour ago, some guy came running up for help from one of the lower floors and they grabbed him. I heard everything. They took forever to finish him.”

“Why did you send Jim down there?” Leia asked.

“I couldn’t help it. I knew it wasn’t safe. I knew it. But they wouldn’t let me warn you.”

“Who?” Leia said.

“Whatever’s inside me. Whatever got into my blood when that zombie prick bit me. I’m getting smaller and they’re getting bigger, and it won’t be long until I’m gone. Just talking to you is taking . . . everything that’s left of me.”

T’Poc pulled down the corner of her top, revealing a bulge near her right collarbone. It moved around fitfully, as if desperately seeking a way out.

“Think I should have this looked at?” she said.

Jim laughed. It sounded bitter and unhealthy.

He walked up the stairs to T’Poc, sat down beside her, and stared up at Leia.

“I need you to go down to the next flight and stay there,” he said. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“You’re serious?” Leia asked. “You think I can’t handle this?”

“I’m not asking for you,” he said. “I’m asking for me.”

Leia reluctantly descended the stairs, glancing once over her shoulder. T’Poc and Jim sat silently until she was out of sight.

“I really don’t want to come back,” T’Poc said. “I think it would be lame.”

“Exceedingly lame,” Jim said.

“I’m sorry you have to do this.”

“Not as sorry as me.”

“I’d kill for a cigarette right now.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Jim pulled a crushed, well-worn pack from his back pocket, fished out a smoke, and handed it to her. Then he produced a book of hotel matches and struck one.

T’Poc lit up and took a long drag. For a moment she seemed to regain a little bit of color, a little bit of her old self.

But only for a moment.

“Did you know we were going to hook up this weekend? I decided right after we met in the parking garage. Guess that’s out of the question now. Maybe next month at Dragon*Con.”

“I’ll mark my calendar,” Jim said.

He stood up, walked up two steps behind where T’Poc sat, pulled off his backpack and rummaged through it.

“You need to get Gary and Rayna away from Matt,” T’Poc said, staring straight ahead. “You can’t trust him.”

“I’m working on it.”

Jim pulled out the Glock, clicked off the safety, and chambered a round.

She didn’t turn around. “Is that a gun?”

“This won’t hurt,” he said.

“How would you know?” T’Poc asked.

She took one more drag on the cigarette and then stubbed it out on the stair.

Jim pointed the pistol at the back of T’Poc’s skull. Just before he squeezed the trigger, she spoke one last time—in a strange, empty voice that was part her, part something else. Something that was trying very hard to stop her.

“These things . . . the things that make the zombies . . . they aren’t from around here,” she said. “They don’t have thoughts, but I see images . . . pictures of darkness and emptiness and cold. They came here from someplace far away. They made the dead rise. But the zombies aren’t your only problem. There’s something else. I can sense it out there. It’s a thousand times worse than the undead or the things that made them. Because it still has its mind. And Matt . . .”

“What?” Jim said. “Tell me now, before it’s too late.”

“There’s something wrong with him, Jim. He’s worse than crazy. He has . . . a connection . . . There is a network . . .”

T’Poc’s voice stopped suddenly, as if someone grabbed her by the throat. She slumped against the stair rail, lifeless.

A moment passed. Then another.

She sat up again and turned to face Jim. The bulge on her shoulder split open as he watched, revealing a pulsating eye.

The eye locked on Jim. The thing that had been T’Poc let out a moan.

Jim pointed the Glock and fired a round directly into the big red pupil. It exploded in a spray of greenish slime.

And may God have mercy on my soul
, he thought.

Leia walked all the way back to the section of stairs just above the seventh-floor landing. She sat at the top so that she couldn’t see or smell the charnel house below.

She tried to prepare herself for the sound of the bullet. But she still jumped when the Glock’s sharp report echoed off the stairwell’s cold, blank walls.

Not long afterward Jim descended the stairs, the pistol still in his hand.

“We have to get out of here,” he said. “T’Poc started to warn me about Matt. She’s not sure what’s wrong with him, but I don’t want the guy anywhere near my sister.”