was going in that direction anyway—no harm in stopping to ask what was going on, was there?
Must’ve come out of O’Kelly’s. A pint or two too many, but as long as they’re not driving anywhere, fine by me. Am I going to feel stupid when they tell me that tonight’s the big free concert or the all-you-can-eat town barbecue. . . .
Almost giddy with relief, Leon turned the corner and squinted into the heavy shadows, looking for the pair. He didn’t see them, but there was an alley tucked between the supply store and a jewelry shop. Maybe his two drunk friends had ducked in for a bathroom break or something even less legal—
“Shit!”
Leon slammed on the brake as a half-dozen dark shapes fluttered up from the street, caught in the Jeep’s headlights like giant whirling leaves. Startled, it took him a second to realize he was seeing birds; they didn’t cry out, although he was close enough to hear the brushing of dry wings as they took to the air. Crows, enjoying a late night feast of roadkill, what looked like—
Oh, my God.
There was a human body in the middle of the road, twenty feet in front of the Jeep. Face down, but it looked like a woman—and judging from the liquid red stains that covered most of the once-white blouse, it wasn’t some beer-happy college student who’d decided to take a nap in the wrong place. Hit-and-run. Some bastard hit her and then drove away, Jesus what a mess—
Leon killed the engine and was half out the door before his racing thoughts caught him up. He hesi-tated, one foot on the asphalt, the stench of death heavy in the cool still air. His mind had latched on to an idea that he didn’t want to consider, but knew he had better; this wasn’t some training exercise, this was his life.
What if it’s not a hit-and-run? What if there’s no one around because some psycho gunman decided on a little target practice? Everyone could be inside, laying low—maybe the RPD’s on the way, and maybe those drunks weren ‘t drunk, they could’ve been shot and were trying to get help. . . .
He leaned back into the Jeep and fumbled under the passenger seat for his graduation gift, a Desert Eagle .50AE Magnum with a custom ten-inch barrel, Israeli export. His father and uncle—both cops—had gone in together on it. Not standard issue for the RPD, in fact much more powerful; as Leon grabbed a clip from the glovebox and slapped it in, feeling the solid weight of the weapon in his slightly unsteady hands, he decided it was the best present he’d ever received. He stuffed two more clips into a belt pouch on general principle; each only held six rounds. Pointing the loaded Magnum at the ground, he stepped out of the Jeep and took a quick look at his surroundings. He wasn’t all that familiar with Rac-coon at night, but he knew that it shouldn’t be as dark as it was. Several of the streetlights farther along Powell were either shot out or simply not on, and the shadows past the blood-soaked body were thick; if not for the Jeep’s headlights, he wouldn’t have even been able to see that.
He edged forward, feeling horribly exposed as he left the relative cover of the Jeep, but aware that she could still be alive; it didn’t seem likely, but he had to at least check.
A few steps closer, and he could see that it was definitely a young woman. Lank red hair obscured the face, but the clothes were right, denim pedal-pushers and flats. The wounds were mostly hidden by the bloody shirt, but there seemed to be dozens—ragged holes in the wet cloth exposed torn, glistening flesh and the crimson of muscle beneath.
Swallowing heavily, Leon quickly switched the gun to his left hand and crouched down next to her. The cool, clammy skin yielded easily beneath his finger-tips as he touched her throat, pressing his first two fingers against the carotid. A few seconds passed, seconds that made him feel horribly young and afraid as he tried to remember the procedure for CPR and prayed, at the same time, that he would feel a pulse. Five compressions, two short breaths, keep my el-bows locked and come on please don’t be dead—
He couldn’t find it, and didn’t want to wait one more second. He tucked the Magnum into his belt and grabbed her shoulders to turn her over, to check for breathing—but as he started to lift, he saw some-thing that made him lay her down again, his heart a twisting knot in his chest.
The victim’s shirt had pulled out of her pants enough for him to see that her spine and part of her ribcage were exposed, the still-fleshy knobs of verte-brae shining and red, the narrow, curving ribs disap-pearing into masses of shredded tissue. It was like she’d been knocked down and . . . chewed on. Infor-mation that Leon had disregarded as unimportant suddenly registered, and even as the few facts he had clicked into place, he felt the first inky tendrils of real fear slither into his mind.
The crows couldn’t have done this, would’ve taken them hours, and who the hell ever heard of crows flocking after dark to eat? And that shit-smell, it’s not coming from her, she died recently, and—
Cannibal. Murders.
No. No way. For that to happen, for a person to have been killed and then partially—devoured on a city street with no one to stop it—
• and with enough time to pass for scavengers to come—for that to happen, the killers would have had to slaughter most if not all of the population. Doesn’t seem likely? Fine. Then what’s that smell? And where is everyone?
Behind Leon, there was a low, soft groan. A shuf-fling footstep, and another sound. A wet sound. It took him barely a second to stand and turn, hand instinctively snatching for the Magnum. It was the couple, the drunks, staggering toward him, and they’d been joined by a third, a beefy-looking guy with—
• with blood all over his shirt. And his hands. And dripping out of his mouth, a rubbery red mouth set into his pasty, rotting face like an open sore. The other man, the big man with the work boots and suspenders, looked much the same—and the vee of the blond woman’s pink blouse revealed cleavage that was spotted with darkness, with what appeared to be mold.
The trio stumbled toward him, past his Jeep, rais-ing pale hands as they emitted moaning, hungry wails. Some dark fluid gurgled out of the beefy man’s nose and ran across his moving lips, and Leon was over-whelmed by the understanding that the terrible, shitty smell was decayed flesh, and it was coming from them—
• and there was another one, stepping out from a door stoop across the street, a young woman in a stained T-shirt, hair tied back from a slack and mindless face.
A groan from behind him. Leon shot a look over his shoulder and saw a youth with dark hair and rotting arms shamble out from the sidewalk darkness of an awning’s shadow.
Leon raised the Magnum and aimed at the closest, the man with suspenders, while his instincts screamed at him to run. He was terrified, but his trained logic continued to insist that there was an explanation for
what he was seeing, that he was not looking at the walking dead.
Control, procedure, you’re a cop—
“All right! That’s far enough! Don’t move!” His voice was strong, commanding and authorita-tive, and he was wearing his uniform, and God, why wouldn’t they stop? The man in suspenders moaned again, blind to the weapon pointed at his chest and still flanked by the others, now less than ten feet away. “Don’t move!” Leon said again, and the sound of his own panic made him back up a step, darting his gaze left and right, seeing that there were still more of the wailing, lurching people coming out of the shadows.
Something grabbed his ankle.
“No!” he shouted, whipped the gun around—
• and saw that the corpse of the hit-and-run victim was scrabbling at his boot with one blood-crusted hand, working to drag her crippled body closer. Her gasping cry of frantic hunger rose to join those of the others as she tried to bite into his foot, bloody smears of saliva drooling off her abraded chin, dripping onto the leather.