City Of The Dead

So much for the nightlife; this place is deadsville. Claire had seen a couple of people wandering around as she'd pulled into Raccoon, though not nearly as many as there should have been. In fact, the place seemed spectacularly deserted; the helmet blocked out a lot of visual evidence, but there was definitely a lack of business going on at the east end of town. A lack of traffic, as well. It struck her as weird, but considering the disasters she'd been imagining all afternoon, not all that ominous. Raccoon still existed, at least, and as she headed for the twenty-four-hour diner off Powell, she saw a fairly large group of partyers walking down the middle of a side street. Drunken frat boys, if she remembered her last visit clearly. Obnoxious, but hardly the horsemen of the apocalypse.



No bombed-out ruins, no dying fires, no air-raid sirens; so far, so good.



She'd planned to head straight for Chris's apart-ment before she realized that she'd be passing Em- my's on the way. Chris couldn't cook worth a damn; consequently, he lived on cereal, cold sandwiches, and dinner at Emmy's about six nights a week; even if he wasn't there, it might be worth it to stop in and ask one of the waitresses if they'd seen him lately. As Claire pulled the Softail to a gentle stop in front of Emmy's, she noticed a couple of rats scurrying for cover from atop a garbage can on the sidewalk. She put down the stand and unstraddled the bike, taking off her helmet and setting it on the warm seat. Shaking out her ponytail, she wrinkled her nose in disgust; from the smell of things, the trash had been sitting out for quite a while. Whatever they were throwing away gave off a seriously toxic stink. Before going in, she chafed her bare legs and arms lightly, as much to warm them as to wipe off the top layer of road grime. Shorts and a vest were no match for the October night, and it reminded her once again of how dumb she'd been to ride bare. Chris would give her one hell of a lecture... but not here.



The building's glass front gave her a clear look at the well-lit, homey restaurant, from the bolted red stools at the lunch counter to the padded booths lining the walls and there wasn't a soul in sight. Claire frowned, her initial disappointment giving way to confusion. Having visited Chris pretty regularly over the last few years, she'd been to the diner at all hours of the day and night; they were both night owls, often deciding to go out for cheeseburgers at three in the morning - which meant Emmy's every time. And there was always someone at Emmy's, chatting with one of the pink polyester-clad waitresses or hunched over a cup of coffee with a newspaper, no matter what time it was.



So where are they? It's not even nine o'clock...



The sign said Open, and she wasn't going to find out standing in the street. With a last glance at her bike, she opened the door and stepped inside. Taking a deep breath, she called out hopefully.



"Hello? Anyone here?"



Her voice seemed somehow flat in the muted silence of the empty restaurant; except for the soft hum of the ceiling fans overhead, there wasn't a sound. There was the familiar smell of stale grease in the air, but something else, too - a scent that was bitter and yet soft, like rotting flowers. The restaurant was L-shaped, booths stretching off in front of her and to the left. Walking slowly, Claire headed straight; at the end of the lunch counter was the wait station, and past that the kitchen; if Emmy's was open, the staff would probably be hanging out there, maybe as surprised as she was that there were no customers... except that wouldn't explain the mess, would it?



It wasn't a mess, exactly; the disorder was subtle enough that she hadn't even noticed it from outside. A few menus on the floor, an overturned water glass on the counter, and a couple of randomly strewn pieces of silverware were the only signs of something amiss, but they were enough.



To hell with checking out the kitchen, this is too weird, something is seriously fucked up in this city or maybe they got robbed, or maybe they're setting up for a surprise party. Who cares? Time for you to be elsewhere.



From the hidden space at the end of the counter, she heard a gentle sound of movement, a sliding whisper of cloth followed by a muffled grunt. Some- body was there, ducked down. Heart thumping loudly, Claire called out again.



"Hello?"



For a beat, there was nothing - and then another grunt, a muted moan that raised the hair on the back of her neck. In spite of her misgivings, Claire hurried toward the back, suddenly feeling childish for her desire to leave; maybe there had been a robbery, maybe the custom- ers had been tied up and gagged - or even worse, so badly injured that they couldn't cry out. Like it or not, she was involved. Claire reached the end of the counter, pivoted left... and froze, eyes wide, feeling as though she'd been physically slapped. Next to a cart loaded with trays was a balding man dressed in cook's whites, his back to her. He was crouched over the body of a waitress; but there was something very wrong about her, so wrong that Claire's mind couldn't quite accept it at first. Her shocked gaze took in the pink uniform, the walking shoes, even the plastic name tag still pinned to the woman's chest, what looked like "Julie" or "Julia."...... her head. Her head is missing.



Once Claire realized what was wrong, she couldn't force herself to un-realize it, as much as she wanted to. There was only a pool of drying blood where the waitress's head should have been, a sticky puddle surrounded by fragments of skull and dark mashed hair and chunks of miscellaneous gore. The cook had his hands over his face, and as Claire stared in horror at the headless corpse, he let out a low, pitiful wail. Claire opened her mouth, not sure what would come out. To scream, to ask him why, how, to offer to call for help - she honestly didn't know, and as the man turned to look up at her, hands dropping away, she was stunned to hear that nothing came out at all. He was eating the waitress. His thick fingers were clotted with dark bits of tissue; the strange and alien face he raised into view was smeared with blood.



Zombie.



A child of late-night creature features and campfire stories, her mind accepted it in the split-second it took for her to think it; she wasn't an idiot. He was deathly pale and ripe with that sickly-sweet scent of decay she'd noticed earlier, his eyes cataracted and gleaming white.



Zombies, in Raccoon. I never expected that.



With that calm, logical realization came a sudden rush of absolute terror. Claire stumbled backwards, feverish panic turning her guts into liquid as the cook continued to turn, rising from his crouch. He was huge, easily a foot over her 5'3", and broad as a barn... and dead! He's dead and he was EATING her, don't let him get any closer!



The cook took a step toward her, his stained hands clenching into fists. Claire backed up faster, almost slipping on a menu. A fork clattered away from beneath one boot.



GET OUT NOW. "I'll be on my way now," she babbled. "Really, don't bother to show me out..."



The cook staggered forward, his blind eyes glowing with dumb hunger. Another step back and Claire reached behind her, felt air, felt nothing -



- and then the cool metal of the door's handle. A shot of adrenaline triumph bolted through her as she spun, snatched at the handle...... and screamed, a short, sharp cry of horror. There were two, three more of them outside, their disinte- grating flesh pressed to the glass front of the diner. One of them had only one eye, a suppurating hole where the other should have been; another had no upper lip, a ragged, permanent grin scrawled across its lower jaw. They clawed mindlessly at the windows, their ashy, ravaged faces awash with blood - and from the shadows across the street, dark shapes shambled out into the open.



Can't get out, trapped...... Jesus, the back door!



From the edge of her vision, the glowing green exit sign shone like a beacon. Claire spun again and barely saw the cook reaching out to her from a few feet away, her full attention fixating on the only hope of escape. She ran, the booths whipping by in a flash of unseen color, her arms pumping for speed. The door opened out into the alley, she was going to hit it running and if it was locked, she was screwed. Claire slammed into the door and it flew open, crashing into the brick wall of the alley...... and there was a gun pointed at her face, the only thing that could possibly have stopped her at that second, a man with a gun... She froze, raising her arms instinctively as if to ward off a blow.



"Wait! Don't shoot!"



The gunman didn't move, the deadly-looking weap- on still aimed at her head...



- gonna kill me -"Get down!" the gunman shouted, and Claire dropped, her knees buckling as much from the com-mand as from the cold fingertips suddenly groping at her shoulder... Boom! Boom! The gunman fired and Claire snapped her head around, saw the dead cook falling backwards from directly behind her, at least one massive hole now in its forehead. Sluggish spurts of blood jetted from the wound, the white eyes filming over with red. The fallen corpse twitched, once, twice - and stopped moving. Claire turned back to the man who'd saved her life, and his uniform registered for the first time. Cop. He was young, tall - and almost as terrified-looking as she felt, his upper lip beaded with sweat, his blue eyes wide and unblinking. His voice, at least, was strong and sure as he reached down to help her up.



"We can't stay out here. Come with me, we'll be a lot safer at the police station."



As he spoke, she could hear a closing chorus of gasping moans from the street, the wails of hunger growing louder. Claire let herself be pulled up, grip-ping his hand tightly, taking small comfort in the fact that his fingers were as feverish and shaky as hers. They ran, dodging dumpsters and heaps of flat- tened boxes, chased by echoing, haunted cries as the zombies found the dark alley and started after them.