Chapter Three: Dead Man's Party

GRISSOM

This was the point at which I suspected my team was a little on edge. Both of them were shaking, and splattered back into the Plumbing aisle were the grisly remains of another zombie—Sara's Glock had definitely put it out of commission.

Normally Greg and Sara were both dependable, professional individuals, even at gory crime scenes and autopsies, but I think it's fair to say that none of us were really prepared for our current situation—I know I wasn't. However, instead of wasting time trying to assess the causes for this contamination, I felt it was better for the three of us to get to a defendable location and plan a strategy.

That strategy included not letting Sara shoot in an enclosed space anymore. The noise had been deafening, and surely an alarm bell to any Undead still in the building. Carefully I pocketed the confiscated keys and flicked my light into Garden Shop, letting it shine over rows and rows of glittering rakes and shiny new shovels. A surge of hope rose in my chest at the sight, and I motioned with my head for Sara and Greg to come along, which they did with alacrity.

"Oh sweet!" Greg sighed, reaching for a shovel. I shook my head.

"Too heavy. Go for one of the spades," I suggested. Greg seemed to consider my comment and moved down the line, to the shorter, lighter digging tools. I turned the beam on the other side and looked at the merchandise there—hand rakes, clippers, little trowels—nothing useful in the immediate display. Then I noted the locked glass case with the machetes and hatchets in it. Much more promising, so I dug the clerk's keys out of my pocket and began hunting for the one that would open the lock while Sara kept watch on the end of main thoroughfare.

"Hurry," she ordered over her shoulder. A shoulder I dearly wanted to kiss, simply because it was bare, and sleek and tempting as always.

"Patience. I don't want to break—"

There was a resounding crash as Greg swung his spade against the front of the case, shattering it; he met my glare with a worried expression and a shrug. "Desperate measures, Grissom—we're in an aisle with open ends and we don't have time to respect commercial property, all right?"

I brushed glass fragments from my jacket and sighed. "On the other hand, giving audio cues as to where we are isn't helpful, Greg."

"Oh," he looked sheepish in the glare of the Mag-lite, and I reached for a Pulaski, hefting it in my hands. The very fact that I was considering what sort of maximum damage it could inflict with the adz edge said a lot about my casual acceptance of our circumstances. I wasn't sure I was pleased about that.

I had a weapon, and was preparing myself to use it on human flesh. Dead human flesh, but still—they had been people once.

More noise came from somewhere north of us, closer to the main front doors, taking me out of my melancholy moment. I looked out over the dark store and thought hard, hoping that the standard Manly Hammers layout held true even as I spoke softly. "Okay—as I recall, the private offices and stock warehouses are all in the back of the store—there should be at least one loading bay, and one emergency exit back there, along with a land line. I think we ought to make our way in that direction."

"Why not back out the front?" Sara asked. "I still have the keys, and that's where the cars are."

"—Annnnd a lot of open space and an unknown number of zombies," Greg filled in, sounding a little discouraged. "We don't have any idea how many may be out there, wandering the neighborhood."

"We'd get better phone reception in the open," Sara argued back. "And there are three cars out there."

"One with a dead battery," I pointed out. "And while the Denali has gas, I can't vouch for the patrol car or the other vehicle."

"The keys you snagged—any car keys?" Greg asked, looking past me into the darkness. I glanced through the ring quickly and shook my head.

"Looks like a work set—office door keys, hex keys, cabinet keys and a magnetic key card, probably for their time clock," I replied.

"Could be helpful," Sara pointed out. She winced a tiny bit—just a flinch and I looked at her sharply.

"Sara, are you all right?" I had to ask since I knew from long experience that she rarely volunteered how she was feeling.

She looked . . . uncomfortable.

SARA

Why now?

That went for everything—for Grissom asking me that question, and for the reason behind it, which was not something I wanted to mention but I was going to have to eventually anyway—

"Um, I know this isn't a good time, but . . . I have to use the bathroom," I muttered, just getting it over with. After I said that, there was this delicate little pause in the conversation, and I didn't dare look at Greg, because I was sure he was smirking over in the dark.

"Ah. Well, I do too. That gives us more imperative to move to the back of the store," Grissom replied, as if this was just some ordinary comment at an ordinary crime scene. Just another night on the job, and a few of us had full bladders—

I looked at Grissom's face in the dim backlight of the flashlight and all of a sudden I could see the strain; the worry there in his eyes. God I loved him. Here he was, pretty much out of his comfort zone with a potential stand-off against zombies, and he didn't want me to be embarrassed about having to pee.

"I have to go too—" Greg chimed in. "No more Big Gulps before shift, that's my new motto."

Another pause ensued, and when I looked at Grissom, I bit my lips not to laugh out loud. He sighed with resignation. "Well, that ends the debate about what direction to go, doesn't it?"

"Go being the operative word," Greg added.

I shifted my gun slightly. "Greg, don't take this personally, but shut up."

He grinned at me then, and reached into the broken case, picking out a firefighter's axe to go with his spade. "Gotcha."

We headed out again, in a bunched group once more, shuffling along the center aisle. It was easy to feel a little cocky at this point—so far, we'd already encountered two zombies and had managed to get around them both without much trouble.

If we got through this, it dawned on me that I could even put it on my resume, and wouldn't that piss Catherine off?

"Tell us about one of your specialty skills, Ms. Sidle—"

"Well, I don't mean to brag, but I do have some experience in disposing of zombies, both with firearms and hand-to-hand—"

"Oh crap." Greg whimpered, breaking me out of my career-planning moment.

I looked up, and both of the Mag-lite beams were shining over three people crouching in the aisle ahead of us. And taunting me right over their heads was the sign pointing the way to the restrooms.

Why was I not surprised?

After a second, I realized that only two of the people were zombies; the third one between them was . . . lunch. I had a sudden, very unpleasant flashback to pig decomp, mixed in with George A. Romero movies and a little touch of Justin Wilson.

The smell. Did I mention the smell? Some of these guys had been rotting for a while, so the air conditioning must have shut down hours ago---

My mouth was dry in that early warning way that told me I might throw up, so I clamped my teeth hard. Next to me, Grissom shifted; out of the corner of my eye, I watched him move his grasp along the handle of his axe tool from a carrying grip to something more solid. He had his flashlight tucked under his arm.

"Is it possible to reason with them?" he asked us softly. Greg gave a little dry chuckle as ahead of us, the two diners dropped their messy entrée and suddenly lunged in our direction. My finger tightened on the trigger.

"No way, Boss—you might as well try talking a Great White out of going for a bleeding surfer. Speaking of which---"

"Grissom—" I pleaded. He shook his head.

"No more shooting—we may need the bullets later," he added ominously. I winced, but didn't have time to do more because the first zombie was less than a few feet away now and picking up speed. Greg took a step forward, and brought his spade down edgewise; the velocity and force did their thing because with a disgustingly pulpy sound, like a watermelon hitting pavement, Greg split the zombie's skull open.

Oh yeah. Going to barf.

GREG

I am never ever complaining to my mother about having to carve the turkey at Thanksgiving ever again. Slicing up a well-roasted bird with an electric knife in the comfort of a happy kitchen, knowing that Mr. Tom Turkey isn't struggling off the china platter lusting for your cerebellum makes ALL the difference.

So far so good in the preemptive strike; I'd successfully--if messily—downed one of the monsters. Now to er, get my weapon free. At the moment, my spade was stuck in the thing's head, parked from the hairline to right down to between the eyes.

Not pretty.

I had the weird thought of bracing a foot on one shoulder to tug the spade out, like pulling the sword from the stone. Not that I was going to, because that would be . . . gross.

Then Grissom reached over and yanked on the handle; the working end of the spade slid free with a slurpy sound. I could hear Sara quietly throwing up, and my stomach wanted to do a nice ralphing duet with hers right then. Grissom handed me my spade and looked at the other zombie, who was nearly within an arm's reach, fingers flexing.

"One down—" He swung, one-handed with his axe and hit it, right at the neckline with the blade, taking the monster's skull off in one swing as the light beam wobbled. The zombie's head—it used to belong to some African American guy—went tumbling like a stray wet volleyball off towards some sort of mulch display.

So now, the three of us were sort of swaying in the middle of a gore pile. You know, it's one thing to process a crime scene-- to look at all the spatter and body parts objectively--and a completely different thing to look at the bloodbath and know you'd created it.

I wondered how long it had been since we arrived at this damned scene—it felt like hours. Wondered too, if we'd ever get out of this; if we'd ever find out how this all happened. Jeez, I even wondered if they missed us at our original assignment yet; I could practically hear the conversation between Brass and Dispatch:

"So where are they, Lou? Everybody's getting antsy out here."

"No idea, Captain—got a call from Sanders about an hour ago, but the connection wasn't clear. We've been trying to reach them with no success so far sir. Do we have your authorization to send another team?"

"Give it half an hour more, then if you don't hear from me, see if you can get Stokes and Willows out here. And let me know if you reach anybody. Brass out."

And that would be that. Brass would think we'd gotten lost, and nobody would be after us until morning. These were not happy thoughts, and I tightened my grip on my spade.

"Greg—" That was Grissom, pulling me out of my little moment. He had handed Sara a Kleenex from his pocket and was looking at me.

I flexed my shoulders and looked back, and right then I could tell he and I were both thinking the same thing: that no matter what else, we'd work to keep Sara safe.

"I'm okay. Just—grossed out."

"Understandable. I've never . . . decapitated anyone before myself," Grissom murmured, looking at his axe with a wince.

"Which is a good thing," I assured him. "I don't know if I'd want to keep working for a boss with that sort of extreme discipline style. Me, I'm much more receptive to a little talk in your office, or maybe a sharply worded Email—"

"—On the other hand," Grissom shot me one of those little side-long glances he does so well, "The literal threat of getting the axe might work wonders with Hodges."

At that, Sara laughed. A little choked, but it was definitely a snicker. She rose up and turned to face us, embarrassed but looking a hell of a lot better. I motioned with my chin up the aisle. "Race you to the drinking fountain."

"Bottled water," Grissom broke in. "We have no idea what started this contamination."

GRISSOM

I could see that Sara and Greg were starting to feel the effects of stress; too much adrenaline in their systems. By my estimation, we'd been here for nearly forty minutes, and biologically speaking we were all wearing down. We needed to find a place of safety and relax for a while. I looked back towards the distant front doors of Manly Hammers and saw that the first two zombies there had been joined by two more; that reconfirmed that a run for the cars was now our last viable option.

This plague or infection nagged at me, even as we continued our slow walk towards the back of the store. I tried to recall exactly where we were—the very outskirts of Vegas, closer to Indian Springs than the city proper. We weren't far from Nellis, and that had me wondering if there was a connection. I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist, but then again, we were within two hundred miles of a former atomic test site.

We reached the alcove where the restrooms were located, and I took a look at the doors. They were both closed and hinged on the inside, which meant they could be pushed open, yet I hesitated.

"They could be . . . occupied," Sara murmured unhappily.

Greg grunted. "Yeah, We don't know if these guys are smart enough to pull open a door to get outside—"

"All the more reason for caution," I reminded them. The three of us stood looking at the ladies room door for a moment longer, and then I knocked.

Immediately both Sara and Greg broke out into snickers, which annoyed me slightly—there's nothing inherently wrong with a little courtesy.

"Sorry . . . it's just sort of . . . funny," Sara told me, biting her lip. "You know, as if you expect someone to say—"

"—Hello?" came a quavery voice from behind the door. Sara flinched and Greg twitched, and I'm human enough to admit that I was smug for a moment.

"Hello. My name is Gil Grissom and . . . I'm not a zombie," I finished. It was somewhat obvious of course, but whoever the woman was, she deserved the reassurance.

"You been bitten by one?" she asked sharply. "Touched one, handled one, hell, KISSED one?"

"Kissed one? Lady, that's disgusting," Greg broke in before I could reply. The voice behind the door spoke up again, a bit more confidently.

"Sure is, but then again, you're on the outside and I'm on the inside, you dig? You sound okay, but given thecom-PLETE day from hell that I've had, I'm not really about to unblock this here door until I know for sure you're not going to open up my head like a Tupperware container, dig?"

She sounded intelligent and relatively lucid, so I spoke again. "We dig. May I ask your name, Miss?"

"My name is Louise Miller and I work part-time in the stockroom. Now who else is out there, Gil Grissom?"

"I'm Greg Sanders, " Greg offered, and Sara spoke up too.

"Sara Sidle. Um, Ms. Miller, I have to use your bathroom."

"I bet you do. Where you three from? The police?"

"We're from the Las Vegas Crime Lab," I told her, and suddenly there was a shuffling noise coming from behind us. Greg's beam caught sight of three zombies shuffling into view from one of the aisles. Bizarrely, one of them was pushing a cart, as if still determined to finish shopping despite being dead.

I spoke up again, a little bit faster this time. "Ms. Miller, I appreciate your sense of caution and I'm going to slip my ID under the door, but I have to tell you that we really would appreciate you trusting us, because there are a few . . . complications heading our way."

"ID won't do any good, Mr. Gil Grissom, since I don't have any light in here. Do you see the security gate?"

I looked around. Sure enough, there was a lattice folding security gate on one side of the alcove. Greg tugged on it, and it rolled, accordion-fashion out across the alcove, fastening with a latch on the other side—or it would have, if the lock dangling from it was open.

"Keys, you have the keys—" Sara reminded me and I fished out the clerk's ring, rapidly searching for the one that would fit the padlock.

Greg was holding the steel gate shut, and already beginning to shift his weight from foot to foot, muttering softly. "HurryuphurryuphurryUPGrissom!"

I found the key, jammed it in the lock and popped the thing open, Quickly I hooked it around the latch ends of the gate, securing it to the wall with a definite 'click.'

We were locked into the alcove now, with a bathroom on either side of us, and a little hallway behind us.

The zombies kept moving forward, and by now, even I was disconcerted by their enthusiastic moaning.