The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten (19 page)

“No, Otto, I just have sex down here. I sleep in a normal bed upstairs.”

She slid off the bed—which was, really, a broad platform padded in black leather and fitted with D-rings and O-rings, and which appeared to have various hinged wood and metal appendages folded away underneath. Otto hadn’t looked too closely, afraid of what he’d see, and in the light of nothing but hurricane lamps the whole basement was pretty dim. Various wood and metal and leather things loomed around the edges, though, and he was pretty sure that was a cage—big, tall, narrow, with a domed top like a birdcage for a human—over in one corner, and there were definitely various whips hanging on the wall on hooks in pegboard.

Otto gestured to encompass the room. “You didn’t want to use any of this… stuff… with me?”

Julie, who was dressed in a couple of bits of leather and not much else, and who was certainly the most in-shape woman Otto had ever seen naked, if not definitely the most beautiful—Barbara when she was 19 on their wedding night was pretty hard to beat, misty as the memories were by now—pulled on a dark silk robe patterned with a Chinese dragon. “No, I just wanted to get laid. If you’re interested in the… optional extras… well, my client base has been diminished by recent events, and I’d be willing to consider new applicants.”

The light dawned on Otto. “You do this sort of thing professionally?”

“Not sex. I’m not a prostitute, But the whips, the restraints, humiliation, cages, hot wax… my customers can order prix fixe or a la carte.” She shrugged. “I developed a certain, I don’t know, authoritative bearing while I was in the service, and when I got out and was looking for civilian work, I found out some men would pay pretty well for getting screamed at by a drill sergeant in a leather corset.”

Otto thought about that. He’d had the odd thought that combined women and restraints, sure, maybe scarves tying wrists to a headboard or something, but he’d never much thought about getting tied up himself, and even in the fantasies giggling over the absurdity of the whole process seemed as likely as anything else. “Hard to imagine there’s much call for this sort of thing in Lake Woebegotten.”

“It’s not as busy as it was in Minneapolis, it’s true.” Julie sat on a stool over by a little bar and poured herself a couple fingers of whiskey. Otto was ready to politely decline a drink but she didn’t offer. “I took a hit when I came here to take over the diner, but what can you do? It’s family. I almost didn’t bother to set up the dungeon here, but I found a few local customers, and some of my old clients make the drive to see me. Well. They used to anyway. Before…” She waved her hand vaguely.

Otto nodded. “So you’re one of those, what’s it called, a dominatrix?”

“Just dom is fine. That’s what they call men who do what I do. I don’t need a special and sillier-sounding job title just because I happen to be a woman, do I?”

That distinction was a bit too esoteric for Otto, who still called flight attendants stewardesses, female actors actresses, and pretty much all waitresses “sweetheart,” so he fell back on reliable flattery: “You happen to be one heck of a woman, Julie.” He started looking around for his pants and shirt, feeling a bit self-conscious about his poochy gut—he wasn’t fat, had never run to fat, but his middle was getting saggy from too many years eating meals on the road—and his graying chest hair, and the cold air in the basement made his nipples hard, which never failed to make him feel somehow vaguely less masculine.

“You’re sweet, Otto. Thanks for coming home with me. I love older men—they’re experienced, they take their time, and they know their way around the territory.”

That “older” stung a bit, but a very beautiful young woman had just given him the best afternoon he’d had in ages, so he wouldn’t hold it against her that she’d told the truth. “I, uh, thank you, ma’am.”

She laughed. “You don’t need to call me ma’am. Makes me feel like I’m at work. Are you going on patrol today?”

Otto finished buttoning his shirt and nodded. “Yeah, taking a snow machine out with Father Edsel. That’s always an adventure.”

“Good luck. Or should I say good hunting?”

“I hope we don’t have to hunt anything.” Otto had gone out patrolling in the brutal cold three days in a row now, and apart from two zombie raccoons and a zombie housecat, he hadn’t encountered any of the ravenous dead, certainly no humans. He tended to think Harry was right—there just wasn’t going to be much of a zombie problem in Lake Woebegotten. Otto personally hoped that killing zombified wildlife was going to be the full extent of his responsibilities as a member of the Interfaith Anti-Zombie Patrol. Zombie critters didn’t worry him overmuch. Half the animals in this world would bite you if they could anyway, so your attitude toward them didn’t have to change much just because they were zombies. “You ought to join the patrols, Julie. A person with your military background could do a lot of good.” He’d been surprised when she told him about her experience as a soldier, but in retrospect, it made sense—she was tough as nails and old boot leather, even if she could be soft when she wanted.

“Maybe. Though my experience in the military is part of why I don’t want to—it looks too much like a bunch of boys playing soldiers without any idea of what they’re doing, and I’m afraid someone’s going to get hurt. Everybody’s so zombie-paranoid, they’re jumping at shadows, and I’m sure someone’s going to get hurt.”

“Oh, I don’t know, we’ve got Gunther Montcrief, he was in the military.” He was also drunk most days, but then, Ulysses S. Grant was a famous drunk, too, and it hadn’t affected his sense of strategy any. Not that Gunther exhibited much in the way of strategy, but he’d killed some zombie dogs, so he’d pulled his weight.
 
“And Stevie Ray’s pretty sharp.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

Otto wanted to leave, but didn’t want to seem like the kind of
guy
who’d want to leave, so he cleared his throat and scrabbled desperately for conversation and said, “Do you have any plans for Christmas?” It was just a few days away.

“Why? Inviting me over to your place?” She grinned, or at least showed her teeth, and when Otto stammered, she waved her hand and said, “Joking, joking. I’ll just stay here with my grandfather, and do a little reading, and hold a pistol in my hand so I can put him down as soon as he dies and, I hope, a moment before he comes back as a monster. I owe him peace.”

Otto hadn’t really considered her circumstances, but having a relative on their deathbed in this new world couldn’t be comfortable. “It’s a shame you have to go through all this, Julie. I’m sorry for it.”

“If I hadn’t had to move here to take care of him, if there were anyone else left in my family, I’d still be in Minneapolis, and based on what your nephew’s told us about events there, I’d almost certainly be dead, or in much more desperate circumstances than I am now. Being in a small town in a cold place is a pretty good strategic position, given the circumstances. Shame over half the population of America lives in cities now.” She had a faraway look on her face. “It is hard, though. And lonely. That’s why I invited you back here from the diner. I just wanted someone to tell me I was beautiful. To feel like there was still beauty in the world.”

“You’re beautiful all right. Do you think we’ll, ah, do this again?”

“It’s the other side of the end of the world, Otto. There’s no telling what might happen.”

After a few more floundering attempts at chit-chat Otto left—she said goodbye warmly enough, though she didn’t go through the ritual Lake Woebegotten insistence that he stay a while longer, have a little lunch, none of that, just went to show she’d lived away for too long—but there was no kiss or anything. Otto tromped through the snow, which wasn’t too deep yet, looking around to make sure he wasn’t observed, as if Julie’s house wasn’t at the end of a long driveway some ways away from anyone else, and got in his truck, and got it warmed up, and drove back to town. He needed to stop by the police station to pick up a gun before going to meet Father Edsel for the patrol. It was going to be boring, and the priest sure could talk, but at least he had some warm recent memories to let his mind dwell on.

He parked outside the police station and climbed out of the truck, and something the color of filthy plowed snow streaked toward him from underneath another car, and before he knew what was happening, a sharp pain jolted through his ankle, and just kept getting worse, and he howled and hopped and shook his foot, where some ball of stinking fur had its teeth sunk into him. It was a God, oh Lord Jesus it was
that
dog, Mr. Levitt’s dog, the dead dog, and how had it moved so fast with its messed-up back legs, maybe you could get around pretty good if you didn’t feel any pain, but Otto sure was feeling pain, and then the dog took off, carrying who knew how many mouthfuls of Otto’s flesh. He leaned against his truck, groaning, the whole lower half of his leg wrapped in hot pain that would only get worse, he knew. Otto limp-hopped toward the police station, then slipped on the ice, went down, banged his head good, and dragged himself toward the door. He couldn’t quite reach the handle, and he was seeing stars only the stars were made of blackness, and so he banged on the door, hoping Stevie Ray was inside, that someone could help him up, warm him up, bandage him up—

The door opened, and his nephew Rufus was there, and Otto had definitely never been happier to see the boy, stupid tattoo and all, and Rufus made a fuss, and Otto said, “Dog bit me,” and Rufus helped him up, and it seemed like everything was going to be all right.

8

A
fterward, pillow-talking—if you could call it pillow talk when there was no pillow, and it technically wasn’t even a bed—Rufus said, “That was awesome.”

“As usual,” Julie said. “I love sleeping with young men. So much passion, so much energy, so much stamina—my favorite.”

Rufus smiled, despite the melancholy he felt stealing over him, as it did more and more lately. “I’m glad we get together this way. It takes my mind off… well, everything. For a little while. The whole situation. Even with everything I saw in the cities, it didn’t really become real for me until Otto died, and changed. He was… He was my
uncle
. It wasn’t like living in a movie anymore after that, it was just
living
.”

“He was a sweet man.” Julie touched Rufus’s cheek—pretty much the tenderest gesture she’d ever shown him—then rose from the leather-covered platform Rufus privately thought of as Fuck Station Zero.

“I don’t know if I’d call him ‘sweet,’ but he was family.” Julie and Rufus had enjoyed a few conversations on the subject of family since first hooking up, not long after the New Year. “Losing him was sort of a wake-up call, and then Dolph killing that guy because he thought he was a zombie, and now with this bus crash, who knows how many zombies wandering around out in the snow… There’s never going to be ‘normal’ again.”

“We’ll find a new normal. I still say we can make this place a green zone.” She considered. “Let me show you something.”
 

Rufus wondered if she was
finally
going to break out some of the stuff in her basement for their private use—despite the surroundings they had totally vanilla sex, which was in keeping with his limited experience, but he was eager to expand his horizons, something Julie wasn’t that interested in, saying if you worked at an ice cream store you got really sick of ice cream, but heck, that didn’t mean you wouldn’t let your
lovers
have a little ice cream every once in a while, did it?—a hope that swelled as she walked into one of the more cluttered corners of the dungeon and picked up a long rattan cane, okay, not his first choice, but he had an open mind…

Julie used the cane to snag a heavy dropcloth draped over some tall object in the corner, and pulled it down, revealing a rounded iron cage about the size of a phone booth…

…with a drooling male zombie inside, arms and ankles in leather-and-chain restraints, mouth filled with a ball-gag from out of that old classic movie
Pulp Fiction
. The zombie was pretty messed-up, with big black patches of frostbite on its face and half its nose missing and bulging eyes, and it grunted and banged itself against the bars of the cage—sealed with a mighty padlock, Rufus was glad to notice—trying to get at Julie, chewing on its gag.

Unable to come up with anything that seemed like an appropriate response, Rufus fell back on the neutral politeness of his upbringing: “Well, that sure is interesting. What’s that all about?” He hoped it wasn’t any kind of kinky sex thing, because he wasn’t
that
open-minded.
 

“One of the bus crash zombies. Or so I assume. I found it in my yard. Set a trap for it, caught it, brought it down here.” She shrugged.

“Why didn’t you call old man Levitt to get rid of it?” Levitt was not technically head of the Interfaith Anti-Zombification League, but he was pretty much their go-to exterminator. “I mean, it’s dangerous leaving those things around.”

Julie gave him a look of withering scorn that was diminished not at all by the fact that she was still naked and still hot. “I can kill vermin myself, Rufus. I don’t want it dead. I want to observe it.”

“Observe it doing
what
? They don’t do much.”

She shook her head. “How do we know? We kill them pretty quickly. How smart
are
they? Can they figure out how to open doors? Climb out of a pit? Can they communicate with each other at all? Are they afraid of anything—fire, loud noises, bright lights? Most importantly, how long do they stay active? If they don’t have anything to eat, does it matter? Do they rot more slowly than normal corpses? If we truly live in a world of the living dead, if this is the new normal, then we
need
to know these things, in order to protect ourselves. It’s winter now. No one’s going too far in Minnesota for a couple more months. But spring will come, and if there are hordes of these things wandering the state looking for live food, what’s to keep them from coming for us? If they die—die again, die forever—after a few weeks or months, then we don’t have too much to worry about. But if they’re tougher than that, we need to know what we’re up against, so we can set up defenses.” She shook her head. “Just because the world has stopped making sense in this one way, because a fundamental aspect of the rational world has caved in around us, that doesn’t mean we should abandon science entirely. So I’m making observations. First rule of strategy: know your enemy. Until we know what we’re facing, we can’t adequately prepare.” She looked at the zombie for a moment longer, then draped the cloth back over it. The thumping inside gradually subsided, and the zombie in the cage was quiet.