Dead Stop Read online

  “Easy,” Rachel soothed, and hugged the girl tighter. “Easy, Marisa. We’re not out of this yet.”

  She could still hear the scratching on the glass behind her, and could see Harley staring at it with hair trigger intensity. Behind him, she spotted Deke and Stacey standing frozen behind the counter and Gerald and Holly in the kitchen door. Nobody moved, and another series of thumps from the window told her that the thing was still focused on her back. The tension hung thick in the air, and Rachel knew their luck couldn’t hold out much longer.

  “Marisa,” she breathed into the crying girl’s ear, “we need to take another couple of steps away from the window. Okay?”

  For a moment she didn’t know if the girl didn’t hear her, or if she was simply having to much trouble catching her breath to talk. Then, just before she intended to repeat herself, Marisa nodded her head.

  “Okay, good,” Rachel continued, still holding the young woman for all she was worth, “We’re just going to take a couple of really slow steps backwards, and then I want you to tell me who that was. Okay?”

  No answer.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” came the muffled reply.

  “Alright then,” Rachel murmured as she gently guided the waitress backwards. “Just one sloooowww step.”

  The two moved in unison, almost as if dancing.

  “Now another.”

  The sounds behind her faded.

  “And one more.”

  The two stopped, still embraced, beside a booth on the far wall from the windows. Neither moved for a moment, and Rachel maintained her tight grip on the girl. The tall waitress had not shown one ounce of fear during this whole ordeal, but the sobs escaping her now were those of a deep and reawakened grief.

  She didn’t know what else to do but continue to hold her until sounds behind them ceased. It took a few minutes but, as Harley had mentioned, the dead didn’t seem to see through the window well, and once they lost sight of their prey it wasn’t too long until they reverted back to their still vigil at the streaming glass.

  Another flash of lightning cast their shadows on the diner wall, revealing them to be once again standing in their grim cordon.

  The danger had passed.

  “It’s okay, now,” she murmured and tried to get a look at the young woman’s face. “They’ve gone quiet again. Are you alright?”

  It surprised her, but Marisa actually straightened up and wiped her eyes.

  “Yeah,” she sniffled, seeming to struggle between embarrassment and the grief that had gripped her earlier. She sat down in the booth behind her and took a shaky breath. “Yeah…just give me a second. I’m a little messed up.”

  Rachel slid into the bench across the table from her. She watched quietly as the young Latina brought herself back under control, before gently asking the obvious question.

  “Who was it, Marisa? Who was she?”

  Marisa closed her eyes for a second, then opened them and stared at the now still wraith in the window. The pain in her face hurt for Rachel to see. She had been seeing that look in her own mirror for longer than she cared to remember.

  “That,” she swallowed, then continued, “is my big sister, Vicki…Victoria.”

  “Are you sure?” Rachel looked from the girl to the dim, death-faced figure in the window. “Can you really be certain?”

  “Oh yeah,” Marisa whispered and gave another wipe at her eyes. “My mom and I helped her make that dress for prom. You see, Vicki and I weren’t just sisters, we were best friends. I was going to wear it for my prom too, when I was old enough. But instead, I ended up taking it to the funeral home for Vicki. She died a week before the prom, and never got to wear it…so I didn’t want it anymore. At least this way she got…”

  The girl swallowed and wiped her eyes again, unable to finish the thought.

  “Marisa?” Rachel reached across the table and took her hand, “What happened to her? Why did she die so young?”

  The waitress swallowed and took another deep, shuddering breath. She stared somewhere into the darkness past Rachel’s shoulder, and the doctor knew she was looking at a scene somewhere in the past.

  “School was almost over for the year,” the girl continued, “and we were at a swimming pool. Everybody was laughing and cutting up, and having a good time. It was just a bunch of kids having a party, we weren’t doing anything wrong. We were just having fun. But sometime during all that,” Marisa closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “Vicki jumped off the high diving board…and didn’t come back up.”

  “Oh, God…” Rachel started, then faltered. She didn’t know what else to say, other than to hold the girls hand and let her finish.

  “Nobody noticed,” the waitress buried her face in her other hand, “and by the time one of our friends got up on the diving board and saw her laying on the bottom of the pool, it was too late. She was dead. She had drowned right beneath our feet, and none…and none of us…”

  “Easy,” the older woman stopped her, “I get the picture. You don’t have to say anything more.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do,” Marisa raised her head and turned her tear stained face back towards the window. “Te extrano, Vicki,” she sobbed, “Lo siento! Te extrano mucho! Perdoname!”

  “Marisa,” the older woman now grasped her by the shoulder, “that’s not your sister. It’s not Vicki.”

  As soon as Rachel said it, she knew it was true.

  Those were dead people out there. There was no way around it. And yes, those were the corpses of their loved ones standing outside in the driving storm, waiting for a chance to rip them to pieces…there was no denying that either. But it wasn’t them.

  “Doc…I know her dress…”

  “No, listen to me.” Rachel scowled at the windows herself, “It isn’t her. And my Matt isn’t out there either. Those are their bodies, and something…something obscene…has happened and has them doing this. But it isn’t them. Those aren’t our people out there.”

  “Doc, are you sure? Are you completely sure about that?”

  The desperation in Marisa’s eyes almost broke her heart.

  Damn, Rachel, she realized with a shock, Here you’ve been feeling sorry for yourself and this girl has been living with the grief and guilt of thinking she let her sister die…and now that dead sister is staring in the window at her. Guess what, you don’t have a monopoly on grief in this world.

  “Yes, I am sure,” Rachel slowly stood up and stepped out of the booth. “Yes I am…and I think I can prove it.”

  ###

  Rachel stood up from the booth and faced the windows.

  Behind her, Deke moved in and sat down in her place. Across the table, Stacey slid in next to Marisa and embraced her without saying a word. That was a bit of a relief, as Rachel figured the girl’s friends would probably be a lot more comfort to her right now.

  She looked down the long line of dead faces that stared in to the diner, and for the first time that evening…hell, in two years…she felt something other than depressed, scared, or confused about life.

  For the first time in years, Dr. Rachel Sutherland got mad.

  Whether her clients were human or animal, it didn’t change one very core fact that defined who she was. The one thing she had always dreamed of, and worked hard to be, long before she had ever met Matt. She was a doctor of medicine…a woman of science, by God…and it was about damn time she started to try and understand what was going on here. If this was something new, something outside all prior experience and wasn’t in the books, then it was her job to figure out what it was.

  It was about damn time for the world to start making sense.

  But where to start?

  She raked her memory of the past hour for clues. She called to mind her encounter with the creatures in the back door, and then what she witnessed of the fight in the back hallway. She compared those to the actions of Marisa’s dead sister at the window, seeking any commonality that might give her an insight into these th
ings. It didn’t take long.

  What first came to mind was the posture these things assumed, almost without fail, right before they attacked. The gaping jaws, the clawlike position of the hands…a posture bearing no resemblance to the stance a normal man or woman would assume in a fight or flight situation.

  Stacey had said they were like animals. Rachel was starting to think the girl might be more right than she knew.

  “Stacey,” she called softly over her shoulder, “is there a way to turn off the lights in here?”

  “Sure,” came the doubtful reply. “You want to turn off the lights?”

  “Just here in the diner,” Rachel answered, “Not in the kitchen or the store. Can you do that?”

  “Yeah, no problem. Deke, stay here with Marisa a second. I’ll be right back.”

  The little waitress got up and moved briskly towards the back. Rachel watched her go, then glanced over at where Harley once again lounged on a bar stool. He watched her intently and she got the definite feeling this guy didn’t miss a single thing going on around him, but at the same time he seemed relaxed almost to the point of being irritating. He was pouring himself another coffee as she watched, and gave a reassuring grin at her over the cup.

  A second later, the lights went out.

  “Whatcha got in mind, doc?” Harley’s drawl cut through the dark.

  Hell, Rachel grumbled to herself, the guy even sounded relaxed. Everybody else was in different degrees of panic, fear, or despair, and the only thing she could pick up from this guy was mild curiosity about what she was doing. At the same time she realized she might be being a bit churlish, and should probably be grateful there was at least one cool head in the place.

  “Something you said earlier got me thinking,” she replied “How the water running down the windows seems to blind them.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, I think that means something.” She cautiously approached a window. “And I intend to find out if I’m right.”

  “Be careful, doc. We just got them calmed down again, remember?”

  “I remember,” Rachel murmured as she fished her keys out of her pocket and found the little LED flashlight attached to her keyring. “But I’m betting it’s going to be different this time.”

  She considered her choices. She found herself faced with the decision of sliding into a booth next to a window, or going over to the fire door where she would be right in front of one of these horrors with nothing but a glass door between them. The veterinarian looked from one option to another.

  “I know I’m right,” she muttered and set her jaw.

  Squaring her shoulders, she approached the fire door.

  It was filled with the hulking silhouette of what must have once been a very large man. It towered over six feet, and the desiccated hands that hung down on each side could have easily palmed a basketball in life…now they were talons that could quite likely gut her with one powerful slash.

  “Doc,” Harley’s voice sounded a little tight now, “Be careful. You’re getting awful close.”

  “It’s okay,” Rachel murmured as she edged in even closer. She concentrated on the large deaths-head that stared blankly at the door. “It can’t see me yet. And even if it could, I’m not sure it would make sense of what it sees.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Just watch,” she shushed…and clicked her little flashlight on directly in the dead man’s face.

  The powerful little light illuminated the dripping skull. A terrified shriek and a suppressed yip of fear came from behind her as the horrible face jerked downwards to peer at the light source. The monster shifted stance, and leaned to bring its awful face down level with her little light.

  Rachel didn’t budge.

  Instead, she leaned forward herself, careful to stay behind her light, until she was only inches from the monsters face.”

  “See the pretty light?” she muttered at the thing while giving the light a little shake. “Suuurrre you do. And that’s all you see, isn’t it.”

  “Doc?” Harley warned.

  “It’s okay,” she snapped, “Just watch.”

  Rachel slowly moved the light to the right, concentrating on making the motion smooth and steady. The skull turned just as slowly to track it. She brought the flashlight to a stop and held it motionless. As she suspected, the monster didn’t move for a second, then shifted once again to bring its face near the light.

  “Lizard brain,” she muttered, “that’s what I thought.”

  “Doc?”

  “It can’t reason,” she spoke a little louder. “It can’t make the simple leap that there must be somebody behind this light. If I were to move it fast and make it act like prey, it might attack, but it would be attacking the light. This thing is running on pure hindbrain.”

  “Say again?” Deke spoke up.

  “Hindbrain,” Rachel repeated, now drawing the monster back across the door with the little light, “or Lizard brain. It’s a small part of our brain near the back, that’s a leftover from before the time our ancestors came down from the treetops. Hell it’s from before the time they went up the trees in the first place.” She hoped she wasn’t stepping on any religious toes here but decided to press on. “It’s not very smart…as a matter of fact it’s pretty much just pure instinct.”

  “So they’re like wolves?” Stacey’s voice meant she must have returned from the kitchen.

  Rachel frowned and stared at the dead man only inches away.

  “I don’t think so,” she mused while watching its shriveled eyes follow the light. “Not wolves. I’m betting they’re on a lower level, somewhere between piranhas and sharks…which in its own way is worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Yeah,” the doctor muttered. “You can scare off a wolf. Not these things. I’m betting once one of these spots prey, it doesn’t stop attacking until it either kills or is distracted by other prey.”

  “Christ,” Deke growled, “that sounds just like the one that jumped on me.”

  “Yep, I remember.” Rachel snapped off the little flashlight.

  Taking what she was now sure was unnecessary care, she backed a couple of steps away from the door. She didn’t move again until the dead thing in the doorway resumed the same waiting stance of its brethren, then she turned and returned to the booth with Stacey, Deke, and Marisa. Their faces could just be made out in the dim yellow light that filtered in through the windows from the sodium vapor lamps in the parking lot.

  “But the important thing is,” she nudged Deke over and eased into the booth beside him, “is that those aren’t human beings.”

  “They’re not?”

  “No,” Rachel emphasized, “Not even close. As a matter of fact, think of them as what the dork in the kitchen called them…zombies.” She ignored Gerald’s outraged exclamation from the direction of the kitchen door and continued. “It doesn’t matter who they were when they were alive, these things are just the bodies that have somehow had their basic nervous system jumpstarted and are running on some kind of killer instinct. Most of the brain, especially all the higher parts that make a person who they are, or even a person at all, doesn’t seem to be functioning. They don’t even have the frontal brain power to put a coherent picture together when it’s being distorted by running water on glass…at least not until it moves and gets close. They barely qualify as animals.

  “So then…” Marisa haltingly started. “You mean…”

  “That’s not Vicki,” Rachel finished for her. “It’s the body she left behind, and now it has been taken over by something else. And if she loved you half as much as you love her, and I can tell she did, then wherever she is she would be horrified to see it’s become a threat to you. So don’t confuse that thing out there with your sister…don’t give it that edge. It’s a zombie, and all it wants to do is kill and eat. It doesn’t matter what dress it’s wearing. Understand?”

  She could see the girl staring at her in the dim light, needing to believe thi
s with every fiber of her being.

  “It’s not her,” Rachel repeated. “Vicki is at peace…that thing is just a monster that stole her dress.”

  That seemed to settle it.

  Marisa looked at her a moment longer, her dark eyes huge in the dim light. Then slowly, she began to nod. She brushed the hair back from her face, continuing to nod to herself, then pushed up from the table and turned towards the window. The girl wobbled slightly, steadied herself against the table, then made her halting way towards the center of the room…where she once again faced the nightmare looking in through the glass.

  This time her tear stained face bore no expression whatsoever.

  The figure outside didn’t move. It just stood there like a grisly statue, with the wind driven rain splattering off of it with such force it had a slight halo of mist around it. Another flash of lightning revealed the gruesome face beneath the drenched matt of black hair, then darkness fell, returning the dead woman to just another silhouette against the parking lot lights..

  Marisa didn’t flinch. She just stared at it a moment longer, her face a wooden mask.

  “Usted no es Vicki,” she spoke at last. Her voice was soft and even, “y si te pones en aquí te voy a matar.”

  Without another word she turned and headed back for the kitchen. She brushed by the dark forms of Gerald and Holly, then slammed open the swinging door with the palm of her hand before marching through. The light from the kitchen rose and fell in the darkened diner as the door swung open and shut in a declining pattern.

  All eyes in the diner stayed on the door till it stopped swinging.

  Then everybody seemed to exhale at once.

  “You did good, doc.” Stacey turned back to face the older woman with a look of pure awe. “You did damn good.”

  “I just told her the truth,” Rachel sighed. “I hope she is going to be okay.”

  “She will,” the elfish girl beamed at her, “She just needs to be left alone for a while. I’ll go check on her later once she’s had time to settle. She’s been carrying that for a long time.”

  “Hell of a way to have to deal with it,” the doctor muttered.