* * *
The morning’s first rays illuminated the bustling marketplace; brought colour where before all had been drab and grey. Red zombie chins, pallid white flesh, bursting yellow sores, all were highlighted in the fresh dawn. Paddington drew a deep breath – through his mouth, to avoid the smell – and sent it out frosty, embracing the dawn.
Today the world would end.
Fresh fruit! a storeowner called. Open all night and all day! Fresh fruit, very fresh!
Fascinated, Paddington examined the stock. “This isn’t fresh.”
What did you say, boy?
“This has gone soggy.”
The thickset vendor placed his shaking hands on his hips. If it came to a fight, Paddington wasn’t sure he could take him, but at least he could outrun him.
Are you calling me a liar? the vendor asked.
Hesitantly, Paddington prodded a lemon with his finger. It oozed brown liquid. “Yes I am. Why are you even here?”
The storeman leaned against the counter. Ah, well that’s the Great Question, innit? The big one. Why are any of us here? Is it coincidence, chance, fate?
“No, no.” Paddington caught the vendor’s eyes so there wouldn’t be any confusion. “Why… are you trying… to sell… fruit?”
The vendor stared back with pure-white globes. Because… people… are buying. If you’re not, step aside, there’s a queue forming.
Paddington looked around. There was, indeed, a sizeable line for the register, most of who were accidentally throwing fruit onto the ground as their muscles betrayed them. Paddington returned to Norm’s side. “Does that make sense to you?”
No. It’s noble that they don’t want to kill, but they must know that it’ll taste like bile, so why bother?
“Because they always used to,” Paddington said, thinking aloud. “They always used to buy fruit, so they’re doing it now. They’re following routine, pretending nothing’s happened. I bet out there zombies are tilling fields, trying to milk cows… actions devoid of context. Just doing, because they don’t know how else to be.”
Norm scoffed. This lot’ll want a mayor again, too. Can’t accept the opportunities here. Just bloody sheep.
A cow passed them with a loud moo. It looked happy, somehow. “Speaking of animals,” Paddington said, “what’s with all the cows?”
Why, you don’t like cows either? Norm asked.
Though he tried to control it, Paddington knew his voice emerged strained. “You don’t think it’s odd that there are cows everywhere?”
Cows need company. Maybe they didn’t like all the cars before. But cows aside, what do you think? Norm looked around with satisfaction.
Paddington spotted ten bodies in the marketplace. He even recognised one of them. “You leave people to rot on the street,” he said.
Well, you have to step around them, granted, but otherwise very nice. Everyone’s free to be himself.
“Maybe.” Paddington looked back at the fruit seller. “But none of it means anything.”
That depends on whether we’re more than the sum of our actions.
Norm started off again and Paddington followed. He shouldn’t stay much longer – shouldn’t have stayed this long – but it was easy to get distracted when people stood on every street corner, bathed in blood, reciting poetry or arguing about whether eating brains was the essence of zombity or whether it was a distraction from which they should free themselves to better extend their minds.
They came to an elderly, emaciated female zombie who was shouting at a sizeable audience. The blood on her audience members was still wet: fresh converts.
We must be strong during these crises, the woman said. Again Paddington heard a loud moan with his ears, but understood the words as intended. He’d have to ask McGregor how that worked. Was it telepathy? Why should any rule? the zombie asked. Every zombie is equal.
Gladys! Norm shouted.
Norm! Gladys stumbled off the pavement and wrapped her arms around Norm, shaking him. Norm pressed the stump of his left arm against her, the closest he could come to a hug. The act knocked the loosened ice cream container off Norm’s chin to dangle around his neck and revealed his few remaining teeth in what may have been a smile.
This is Norm, Gladys said to the crowd. He is the first of us, a wise and just man. And who’s this?
Detective Jim Paddington.
A new convert?
“For the fiftieth time, I’m not a zombie,” Paddington muttered, slightly off-put by Gladys’s relationship with Norm. Could zombies…
Perhaps it was best not to complete that thought.
But we can hear you, Gladys said, as if that settled the matter.
“Norm, how many times did I stop you from hurting someone?”
Is this true? Gladys asked. Was that hope in her clouded eyes?
Yes it’s true, Norm said.
With that, the horde pressed in around him, hands reaching in.
In the darkness within him, the wolf was out of his basket and ready to jump, but first Paddington had to get out of Quentin’s overlarge clothes…
After a few seconds, Paddington became aware that the zombies had stopped rushing and were now staring, confused. He readjusted his jacket and tried to relax.
You truly don’t share the brainlust? Gladys asked after an awkward moment.
Paddington looked around the circle of zombies. It was three or four deep in all directions. If he said the wrong thing here, he’d never leave the circle unbitten. What would he become then? Werezombie? Zombiewolf? Paddington really didn’t want to find out. But what was the right thing to say?
Didn’t matter. As his mother always said, tell the truth and let the liars sort each other out.
“No,” Paddington said. “I don’t have the brainlust because I’m not a z—”
He is the Chosen One! one of the younger zombies shouted. Some of the undead crunched to the ground in a poor mockery of kneeling that probably broke both their legs.
Stop that! Norm said, waving his stump at them. Whether this was an invitation for them to stand up or a threat Paddington wasn’t sure. What bloody chosen one?
Well… uh…
You don’t know, do you?
There’s always a Chosen One, another fresh zombie said, nodding. Or losing control of his neck. One who will free us and lead us to the new life.
I already did that! Norm yelled.
“Yes,” Paddington said, hoping they’d believe it, “maybe Norm’s your chosen one.”
No. The Chosen One is special.
A cold silence fell over the horde: something known but unsaid. Paddington had seen enough of the puzzle to guess the shape of the missing piece. “Someone else… special… has been here, hasn’t he?”
Gladys answered, her fingers toying clumsily at the hem of her torn dress. Harold Brown came round, raising all sorts of hell. He took a bunch to the front lines. And he was… wrong.
“Wrong how?” Paddington asked. Thomas Brown was almost certainly a vampire by now; since Conall hadn’t gone after Lisa, he must have gone to sire Richard; and now Harold was a zombie. The Three Brothers were ready. They needed to find that demon soon.
Or, they needed to convince him and his Team that the prophecy was a serious threat.
He was too quick, Gladys said, and too rotted, and he didn’t care about this place. He bit through Sophie’s head, just for being in his way.
There was horrified silence.
He… bit through her head? Norm asked. But why?
“Because,” Paddington said, “I think he actually can taste people’s thoughts. The brainlust makes you all think you can, but that’s just an instinct left over from the time when zombies were like him.”
But Harold can actually do it? Gladys asked, covering her mouth with a hand and, perhaps, wincing. It was hard to tell because one of her eyes was perennially bloodshot.
“That and more. If he’s the original form of zombie then he’s alrea
dy dead…” That would make him tricky to kill.
But you have come to save us from him! one of the youths shouted. More zombies arrived every second. Even other street preachers had joined their crowd.
Norm winced. The sagging skin on his bony face wrinkled like a pug. That’s not actually why Jim is here.
“Yes it is,” Paddington said. When Norm looked at him in shock, he added, “Remember that prophecy I told you about? The end of the world? I’m against the idea.”
The crowd began bowing. He has come to save us! The zombie messiah!
“No, I’m—”
He will challenge Harold and liberate us all!
“Shut up for—”
He is the perfect zombie!
“I’m not a bloody zombie!” Paddington yelled.
After a pregnant pause, Norm birthed the question, Then what are you?
“A wolf,” he said.
The zombies cocked heads to one side and muttered to their neighbours.
Yes, Norm said, and my what a shiny coat you have.
“I don’t care if you believe me. I’m a werewolf, the duke is a damn vampire, and the world’s going to end very soon unless Mitchell can stop it. Just promise you’ll do what you can against Harold.”
You can count on us, lord! shouted a zombie.
“Not you,” Paddington told him. “You stay here until you’re sane.”
Paddington started away. The crowd parted as he approached, which was nice. He’d been afraid that they’d force him to stay, to become either their leader or their dinner, but he kept his head up and acted like nothing could stop him and nothing did. Maybe that was half the battle: look like you knew what you were doing and nobody saw otherwise.
There were shuffling, scraping footsteps behind him. Paddington found the crowd drifting after him like a comet’s tail, Norm at the head.
Where are you going?
“To sleep, somewhere. I’ve had a long day.” Heck, the last time he’d slept was when he’d sired himself, and that hardly counted as rest because his body was reconfiguring its own DNA. Since waking up, it had been all torture and terror.
They walked in silence. Behind them, the crowd broke apart and fell away. Paddington passed another pair of corpses. “Oh and Norm, eat something. Not brains; go and buy some fruit.”
I don’t like fruit now.
“I don’t care how it tastes, eat it anyway.”
Why?
“You see this?” Paddington pointed at a skeletal figure on the ground.
That’s Dave, Norm said. He was one of the first…
“There’s no visible cause of death. No trauma, no gunshot wounds. He just keeled over, safe and far from the fighting.” Paddington paused. “You don’t feel hungry, do you Norm? Even after a month?”
No.
Paddington nodded at the corpse. “Neither did Dave.”