Page 80 of The Undead

Rebecca Foster was William’s now, and she intended to feed on Adam’s blood in the moonlight.

Interlude

Maggie

Shit, Maggie thought very clearly, utterly amazed, and then the gun went off and the world got very confused. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground at the bottom of a tangle of bodies.

Maggie tried to push Frank off her with one hand while she reached for her gun with the other. That didn’t work, because Frank wasn’t cooperating. He was a dead weight on top of her.

“Frank? Frankie?” McDonnell rolled to his hands and knees and moved Frank enough that she could slide out from under him. McDonnell’s eyes widened when he glanced at her; Maggie looked down and saw that her shirt was plastered wetly against her body. Since it was black, she couldn’t see the color, but when she wiped her fingers on it they came away red.

“It’s his,” Maggie said after doing a quick panicked check of her chest. They both reached for Frankie’s trenchcoat and folded it back at the same moment. The bullet wound was pouring a bright red fountain from his thigh. “Shit!”

The ambulance hadn’t left; the attendants were still sensibly hugging the grass. McDonnell twisted around and grabbed the nearest one; he didn’t bother to get him up, just dragged him prone over to Frank. The attendant, obviously shaken, hesitated long enough for McDonnell’s face to harden.

“Do something,” he simply said. There wasn’t the slightest doubt in anybody’s mind that he meant it. The attendant’s hands steadied very quickly. “You. Bowman.Getthat bitch.”

He didn’t have to tell her. She took the steps two at a time. Two of the uniformed officers followed her. Maggie’s instincts told her Foster was already gone, but she did it by the numbers anyway—if the numbers were counted by a hyperactive on speed—and she stood at the back patio door in time to see the flash of white skin as Foster disappeared down the alley.

In time to see Foster raise McDonnell’s gun and fire it at her. The bulletspanged off the concrete patio and raised a little puff of dust beforethunking solidly into the side of the house. Maggie ducked, went low, and ran for the fence. One of the uniforms got there before her and waved her on; she kicked the gate open and dived out into the dark alley. Fear nibbled around the base of her skull, too timid to jump out and take the stage; most of her mind was busy remembering the raw pulsing wound in Frank’s leg and the wild white look on Foster’s face. Thebitch.

Too dark. Maggie couldn’t see a damn thing. The alley was pitch black, shaded with trees and far from what lights there were in this neighborhood. What outlines shecouldmake out were chalky and indistinct—trash cans, amoeba-like blobs of garbage bags, empty shells of boxes. The smell of rancid diapers and rotting meat hung in the stiff air like a physical presence; even though it was cool, even a little cold, she felt sweat in her hair and trickling between her breasts.

The uniform across from her stood up. Maggie instantly reached out and waved him down; another shot whined overhead. One small point for the good guys: Foster wasn’t exactly a crack shot. Maggie was amazed she’d missed the idiot. He hugged the cracked rutted dirt as if he didn’t intend to ever get up and embraced an overflowing garbage bag like a life preserver. Maggie considered firing back, but couldn’t tell where Foster had gone. Damn, shehatedfamily-neighborhood shootouts, any minute now there’d be some idiot come running out to see what was going on who’d freeze right in the line of fire. No firing until she saw the whites of Rebecca Foster’s eyes. Maggie wasn’t about to let a bystander stopherbullet.

A patrol car screamed to a halt at the other end of the alley. The flashers lit the place up, but that wasn’t much of a help; the alley was piled with plenty of junk that could hide somebody Foster’s size, and the strobes distorted as much as they revealed. Nothing moved. Maggie felt something crawl up her spine, something unpleasant, and exchanged a look with the sweating uniforms. They waited for her to do something. Seniority.

She eased cautiously up. Nothing. The flashers strobed, red, blue, red, blue, regular as the pulse in her ears if one hell of a lot slower. She pulled in three quick breaths of the rancid air and went around the trash cans to the next pile of boxes.

Nothing. The uniforms scampered after her. There were two more uniforms advancing at the other end; if Foster showed herself now she’d be caught in a crossfire. That was nice, but right about now Maggie’s nerves screamed to just spray the goddamn alley with bullets and get it over with. This was one of those setups cops died in.

Maggie peered over the top of a pile of boxes and looked into a pair of wide unblinking eyes. Not Foster’s. It was the most terrifying sensation, as if her body had just melted and she was just a dry skeleton held together with rubber bands. She couldn’t move.

The thing came at her through the boxes and threw her on her back. Cold mud squished under her as its weight drove her down, and Maggie instinctively raised her hands to grab its throat as it lunged for hers.

The pistol was in her right hand.She fired, four quick pops, and blinked against the afterimages and sting of powder. Jesus, sweet Jesus, it could not still be moving. It scrambled on her body, front paws clawing at her breasts, rear dragging bloody furrows along her thighs. Maggie’s mind kept screaming something, but she didn’t have time to heed it; she was too busy trying to get her wrist to twist a way nature had never intended to put the gun in the thing’s mouth. With her other hand she ripped big patches of fur away. A fall of silver drifted on the still air, but the thing didn’t even notice. She finally succeeded in getting her wrist around—the longest seconds of her life—and shoved the gun in its mouth when it stretched for her throat; its long teeth clicked and grated on the metal. She pulled the trigger. The powder blasted back like hot wind over her face; she had just enough time to close her eyes before it hit. When she opened them, the thing was still there.

It took a minute for it to fall. It just looked at her with those huge horrible eyes while its brains leaked out over its face, and collapsed gracefully on her chest. Maggie pushed it off and rolled on her side, pressing her burning cheek into the mud, and saw the uniforms staring at her.

“Fuck,” one of them whispered. “Big fucking dog, man.”

“Couldn’t have been rabid. Look, it’s got tags,” another voice said.

Yeah, Maggie saw, it did, glimmering in the flashers like party jewels. La death it looked a lot smaller, but it was a big dog, some kind of silver-furred Husky cross that looked a lot like she imagined a wolf would look.

At least it didn’t look like Lassie.

“Oh, man, we’re gonna have to explain to some old fart why we shot the damn family dog. The lieutenant’s gonna have our asses.”

“My ass,” Maggie managed to croak, and grinned a little crazily. “What’s left of it, anyway.”

One of them reached down and helped her up. She looked at her gun in the irregular blue and red light and saw bright fresh scratches all along the barrel.

“What about Foster?” Maggie asked. They looked at each other again, which was all the answer she needed. “She get away?”

“We’ll get on it,” the oldest of the uniforms said soberly, and nodded at his partner. They jogged back down to the end of the alley and disappeared. Maggie glanced at the other two, who were looking apprehensively behind them every few seconds.

“You two, help me go through these yards.”

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