CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I Left My Heart in San Fransico

 

The zombie’s head snapped back, the crossbow bolt going in through the eye and sticking out the back. It coughed up a little black mist when it did so.

“Nice shot,” Coburn said.

“Mm,” Gil said. He went back over, planted his shoe on the rotter’s head, withdrew the bolt. He wore a pair of diving gloves that looked almost like chainmail. Were good in case you got bit by a moray eel or something, but were also good to make sure you didn’t get bit by some wayward rotter.

The rotters were still around, after all. Coburn’s death—his first death, or shit, maybe it was his second—ended the hunters who had been born on his blood. But though the entire zombie epidemic came from his own DNA, even still, it was never a blood-to-blood thing. At least, that was how he figured it.

“Speaking of a nice shot,” Coburn said, “that one there would be a pretty nice shot if I had a camera. That’s some picturesque shit, pops.”

“Don’t call me Pops,” Gil said. But he agreed just the same. “It is awfully pretty.”

Down there, San Francisco lay quiet, shrouded in fog. The spires of the Golden Gate Bridge peaked out of the mist, too. South of the city lay another army of cannibals and a whole lot of zombies; so they’d taken the long way and come at the city from the north.

It started to spit rain. Even still, Coburn could see a little sun up there through the pendulous cloud cover.

The sun didn’t bother him much anymore. It itched a little. Maybe that was normal. At this point, normal was meaningless. He was still dead. No heartbeat. Could still do all the things a vampire could do. But he felt stronger. And while his body still sustained itself on the blood of the living, he didn’t need to drink as much and the hunger had lost some of its teeth, so to speak.

Convincing Gil of what had happened wasn’t easy. Kayla had given herself up because she knew she couldn’t make it on her own. Enter Coburn, a vampire whose body was an undead water jug that could carry her blood or her essence or whatever-it-was with him. Gil didn’t like that. Shot Coburn a few more times. Hit him, too—the old man knew how to throw a punch.

But then it occurred to him that the vampire was taking punches in the middle of day-time. Stranger still was how sometimes Coburn spoke in the little girl’s voice—not a man speaking like a little girl, but actually with Kayla’s voice.

Gil came around.

Mostly. He still wasn’t real excited about it. Didn’t help that he was emotionally torn up over the events of that day and physically torn up from the gunshot wound. The resultant infection had run him ragged. They never got around to finding antibiotics. Instead, Coburn gave the old man a little bit of his blood and, overnight, the infection cleared like a storm sliding out to sea.

“Ready to go?” Coburn asked.

“I suppose,” Gil said, tucking the crossbow bolt back into the homemade quiver he had hanging at his side. He’d taken to using the crossbow he found in a sporting goods store because, he said, the ammo didn’t disappear on you. “Recycling,” he’d said. “Good for the planet.”

“Let’s do it, then.” Coburn snapped his fingers. “That means you too, you little sonofabitch.”

Creampuff barked, having found himself a squirrel to chew on. He came bounding up, squirrel fur still stuck in his mouth.

Together, the three descended toward the Golden Gate Bridge, heading for the City by the Bay. It was time to fulfill Kayla’s mission.

END