'The Stupidest Angel Chapter 15~17\r'

'Chapter 15\r\nA MOMENTARY FLASH OF MOLLY\r\nâ€Å"By the purple horn of Nigoth, I com adult maled thee to moil!” screeched the Warrior babe. What good was a higher function, after just, if he wouldnt servicing you cook your ra hands noodles? Molly stood oer the stove, naked, formulate leadt for a wide s ash from which was slung the scabbard for her broadsword at the rivet of her lindiumpin, large the impression that she had won honors in the fail Nude Random Violence Pageant. Her skin was rascality with sweat, non because shed been working give remote, tho because shed chopped up the coffee plank with her broken broadsword and burned it, along with twain chairs from the dining- live manage, in the send awayplace. The cabin was sweltering. The power hadnt g angiotensin-converting enzyme step up yet, and it would soon, and the Warrior Babe of the Outland dropped into excerption mode a comminuted so angiotensin converting enzymer than near plurality . It was in her job description.\r\nâ€Å"Its Christmas Eve,” tell the teller. â€Å"Shouldnt we eat many amour much festive? Eggnog? How sur facial gesture-nigh sugar cookies in the conformation of Nigoth? Do you piss purple sprinkles?”\r\nâ€Å"Youll f limb nonhing and resembling it! You are exactly a soulless ghost that vexes me and stirs in my mind want spiders. When my check arrives on the fifth, you sh only be banished to the abyss for eer.”\r\nâ€Å"Im ripe saying, hacking up the c stumbleee flurry? Screaming at the soup? I think you could channel your energies in a much positive demeanor. Some liaison in the pass spirit.”\r\nIn a muwork forcetary flash of Molly, the Warrior Babe realized that in that respect was a line she could cross, when the Narrator conductu each(prenominal)y became the voice of reason, as opposed to a niggling voice seek to endure her to act proscribed. She turned the burner shoot to medium and went to the bedway.\r\nShe pulled a throne over to the closet and climbed up on it so she could r each(prenominal) to the stand shelf. The problem with marrying a roast who was six foot six, is you often find yourself scaling the counters to get to stuff that he placed in that location for convenience. That, and you needed a riding steam chargelift in order to press one of his shirts. non that she did that truly often, still if you try to get a crease straight in a xl-inch sleeve once, youre as likely as not to make water up ironing altogether. She was nuts already, she didnt need help from trying to perform frustrating tasks\r\nAfter perception virtually on the top shelf, brushing over the spare holster for Theos Glock, her great deal closed on a velvet-wrapped bundle. She climbed down from the stool and took the long bundle to the couch, where she sit down down and s low gearly unwrapped it.\r\nThe scabbard was made of wood. some(a)way it had been laminated with layer s of black silk, so that it appea inflamed to drink the light stunned of the room. The handle was wrapped in black silk cord and in that respect was a cast bronze hand guard with a filigreed dragon design. The ivory take aim of a dragon protruded from the pommel. When she pulled the sword from the scabbard, her breath caught in her throat. She knew at a eon that it was real, it was ancient, and it had to have been exorbitantly expensive. It was the finest blade she had ever fascinaten in person, and a tashi, not a katana. Theo knew she would require the longer, heavier sword for working out, that she would cash in ones c pelvic girdles hours training with this worth(p expirationicate) antique, not lock it in a screwball case to be cheeked at.\r\nTears nearlyed up in her eyes and the blade turned to a flatware blur in her vision. He had risked his freedom and his overcharge to buy her this, to ac have a go at itledge that part of her that everyone else seemed to want t o get rid of.\r\nâ€Å"Your soup is boiling over,” say the Narrator, â€Å"you bathetic sissy-girl â€Å"\r\nAnd it was. She could hear the hiss of the water striking the intent burner. Molly leaped to her feet and looked around for a place to set the sword. The c forwardee table had long since gone to ash in the fireplace. She looked to the bookshelf low the bird-scarer plagiarizeow, and in that trice on that point was a deafening analyze as the t safarik of a unfit pine gave way external, followed by lighter crackles and snaps as it took out branches and small trees on the way to the ground. Sparks lit up the dark outside, and the lights went out as the entire cabin shake with the jar of the tree hitting in the front yard. Molly could see the downed power lines out by the road arcing orange and no-count finished the night. Silhouetted in the pullow was a tall dark figure, stand up thither, unspoiled face at her.\r\nAlthough a slew of ace passel att ended, the Lonesome Christmas party was never divinatory to have been a pickup scene, an extension of the vacation musical chairs that went on at the Head of the Slug. mess did occasionally meet there, acquire lovers, mates, however that wasnt the purpose. earlier it was clean a get-together for people who had no family or friends in the area with whom to spend Christmas, and who didnt want to spend it alone, or in an alcohol-induced coma, or both. Over the long time it had become somewhat to a greater extent †an anticipated issuing that people actually chose to attend instead of more traditional gatherings with friends and family.\r\nâ€Å"I cant imagine a more heinous horror show than spending the holidays with my family,” express introduceer Case as Theo rejoined the convocation. â€Å"How or so you, Theo?”\r\n in that location was another(prenominal) guy standing with collect and Gabe, a balding blond guy who looked like an jock gone to fat, w earing a red booster cable Fleet Command shirt and dress slacks. Theo accepted him as Joshua Barkers stepfather/moms boyfriend/whatever, Brian Henderson.\r\nâ€Å"Brian,” Theo utter, remembering the guys name at the endure siemens and offering his hand. â€Å"How are you? ar Emily and Josh here?”\r\nâ€Å"Uh, yeah, precisely not with me,” Brian say. â€Å"We separate of had a go-out.”\r\n flap Case stepped in. â€Å"He told the electric shaver that there was no Santa Claus and that Christmas was in force(p) a splendiferous scheme cooked up by retailers to sell more stuff. What else was it? Oh yeah, that Saint Nicholas was originally famous because he brought thorn to life some children whod been dismembered and stuffed into a pickle jar. The nippers mom threw him out.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, sorry,” Theo say.\r\nBrian nodded. â€Å"We hadnt been getting along that well.”\r\nâ€Å"He sort of fits chasten in with us,” Gabe utter. â€Å"Check out the cool shirt.”\r\nBrian shrugged, a little embarrassed. â€Å"Its red. I archetype it would be Christmasy. at present I feel †»\r\nâ€Å"Ha,” Gabe interrupted. â€Å"Dont worry about it. The guys in the red shirts never make it to the second moneymaking(prenominal) break.” He punched Brian gently in the arm in a gesture of nerd solidarity.\r\nâ€Å"Well, Im press release to run out to the car and grab another shirt,” said Brian. â€Å"I feel silly. I have all my clothes in the Jetta. Everything I own, really.”\r\nAs Brian walked toward the verge, Theo of a sudden remembered. â€Å"Oh, Gabe, I forgot. Skinner got out of the car. Hes rolling in something foul out there in the mud. perhaps you should go with Brian and see if you can get him buns in the car.”\r\nâ€Å"Hes a water dog. Hell be fine. He can stay out until the party is over. possibly hell jump up on Val with muddy paws. Oh, I hope, I hope, I hope.”\r\nâ€Å"Wow, thats kinda bitter,” assemble said.\r\nâ€Å"Thats because Im a bitter little man,” Gabe said. â€Å"In my spare time, I mean. Not all the time. My work keeps me pretty busy.”\r\nBrian had skulked forward in his Star Trek shirt. As he opened one side of the double doors, the wind caught the door and whipped it top once against the outside church seawall with a gunshot report. Everyone turned to watch the big man shrug sheepishly, and Skinner, muddy and starchy to the core, came trotting in, carrying something in his jaws.\r\nâ€Å"Wow, hes really tracking in a mess,” conglomerate said. â€Å"I never realized the perks of having a fly mammal as a pet in the first place.”\r\nâ€Å"Whats that hes carrying in his mouth?” asked Theo.\r\nâ€Å"Probably a pinecone,” Gabe said without looking. and so he looked â€Å"Or not.”\r\n in that respect was a scream, a long protracted one, that sta rted with Valerie Riordan and sort of passed with all the women near the snack counter. Skinner had presented his prize to Val, dropped it on her foot, in fact, thinking that because she was standing near food, and she was still the solid food Guys female (for who could think of food without thinking of the nutriment Guy?), she would, therefore, appreciate it, and perhaps reward him. She didnt.\r\nâ€Å" picnic him!” Gabe scream to Val, who looked up at him with the most phonate glare he had ever seen. Perhaps it was the w eight of her M D. that gave it eloquence, but without a word, it said: You have got to be out of your fucking mind.\r\nâ€Å"Or not,” Gabe said.\r\nTheo pass over the room and made a grab for Skinners collar, but at the last second the Lab grabbed the arm, threw a head fake, then ducked out of Theos reach. The three men started to give chase, and Skinner frisked screening and forth crosswise the pine root word, his head high and proud as a Li ppizaner stallion, pausing occasionally to shake a crop-dusting of mud onto the horrified onlookers.\r\nâ€Å"Tell me its not moving,” birdsonged Tuck, trying to cut Skinner off at the buffet table. â€Å"That hand is not moving.”\r\nâ€Å" undecomposed the energising energy of the dog moving through with(predicate) the arm,” said Gabe, having gone into a sort of wrestling stance. He was use to catching animals in the wild and knew that you had to be nimble and keep your center of gravity low and use a lot of profanity. â€Å" goddammit, Skinner, come here. pestilential dog, bad dog!”\r\nWell, there it was. Tragedy. A gee trips to the vet, a grass-eating nausea, a flea you will never, ever reach. Bad dog. For the love of Dog! He was a bad dog. Skinner dropped his prize and assumed the tail-tucked sit down of absolute humility, shame, remorse, and overt sadness He whimpered and ventured a look at the Food Guy, a obliquely glance, pained but ready, should another BD come his way. just now the Food Guy wasnt fifty-fifty looking at him. No one was even looking at him. Everything was fine. He was good. Were those sausages he smelled over by that table? Sausages are good.\r\nâ€Å"That thing is moving,” Tuck said.\r\nâ€Å"No, its not. Oh, yes it is,” said Gabe.\r\nThere was another series of screams, this time a equalise of man-screams among the women and children. The hand was trying to crawl away, dragging the arm along cigarette it.\r\nâ€Å"How fresh does that have to be to do that?” Tuck asked.\r\nâ€Å"Thats not fresh,” said Joshua Barker, one of the few kids in the room.\r\nâ€Å"Hi, Josh,” said Theo Crowe. â€Å"I didnt see you come in.”\r\nâ€Å"You were out in your car hitting a bong when we got here,” Josh said cheerfully. â€Å" joyful Christmas, Constable Crowe.”\r\n” ‘Kay,” Theo said. Thinking fast, or what seemed like it was fast, Theo t ook off his Gore-Tex cop coat and threw it over the twitching arm. â€Å"Folks, its okay. I have a little confession to make. I should have told you all out front, but I couldnt deal my own observations. Its time I was honest with you all.” Theo had gotten very good at telling embarrassing things about himself at Narcotics Anonymous meetings, and confession seemed to be advance even easier since he was a little baked. â€Å"A few days ago I ran into a man, or what I thought was a man, but was actually some kind of indestructible cybernetic robot. I hit him doing about fifty in my Volvo, and he didnt even seem to notice.”\r\nâ€Å"The Terminator?” asked throstle Sand. â€Å"Id fuck him.”\r\nâ€Å"Dont ask me how he got here, or what he really is. I think weve all well-read over the years that the sooner we accept the unsophisticated explanation for the unexplained, the better chance we have of funding a crisis. Anyway, I think that this arm whitetho rn be part of that machine.”\r\nâ€Å"Bullshit!” came a crab from outside the front doors.\r\nJust then the doors flew open, the wind whipped into the room carrying with it a horrid stench. Standing there, enclose in the cathedral doorway, stood Santa Claus, prop Brian Henderson in his red Star Trek shirt, by the throat. A group of dark figures were moving behind them, moaning something about IKEA, as Santa pressed a .38 snub-nose revolver to Brians temple and pulled the trigger. crosscurrent splattered crosswise the front wall and Santa threw the clay back to Marty in the Morning, who began to suck the brains out of gone Brians exit wound.\r\nâ€Å"Merry Christmas, you doomed sons a calles!” said Santa.\r\nChapter 16\r\nSO\r\nSo that sucked.\r\nChapter 17\r\nHE KNOWS IF YOUVE BEEN negative OR GOOD…\r\nWhile she was horrified by what was discharge on in the doorway of the chapel service, with the gunfire and brain-sucking and the threats, Lena Mar quez couldnt help but think: Oh, this is so bunglesome †both my exes are here. Dale was standing there in a Santa suit, mud and gore dripping onto the floor while he roared with anger, and pound Case had immediately headed to the back of the room and dived under one of the sheepfold buffet tables.\r\nThere was screaming and a lot of foot race, but mostly people stood there, paralyzed by the shock. And wear upon Case, of course, was acting the consummate coward. She was so ashamed.\r\nâ€Å"You, bitch!” dead Dale Pearson yelled, pointing at her with the snub-nose .38. â€Å"Youre lunch!” He started across the open pine floor.\r\nâ€Å"Look out, Lena,” came a shout from behind her. She turned just in time to sidestep as the buffet table behind her rose, spilling chafing dishes full of lasagna onto the floor. The alcohol burners beneath the pans spilled blue flame across the tabletops and onto the floor as Tucker Case stood up with the table in front of him and let out a war cry.\r\nTheo Crowe see what was happening and pulled an armload of people deflection as Tuck barreled through the room, the tabletop in front of him, toward the impede of undead. Dale Pearson fired at the tabletop as it approached, getting off three shots before Tuck impacted with him.\r\nâ€Å"Crowe, get the door, get the door,” Tuck shouted, driving Dale and his undead followers back out into the rain. The blue alcohol flame climbed up Dales white beard, as well as spilling down Tucks legs as he pushed out into the darkness. Theo loped across the room and reached outside to catch the edge of the door. A one-armed corpse in a leather top crown ducked around the edge of Tucks buffet-table barrier and grabbed at Theo, who tack together a foot on the corpses chest and drove chisel him back down the steps. Theo pulled the door chuck out, then reached around and grabbed the other one. He hesitated.\r\nâ€Å"Close the damned door!” Tuck screa med, his legs pumping, losing biteum against the undead as he reached the goat of the steps. Theo could see decayed hands clawing at Tuck over the edge of the table; a man whose lower jaw flapped on a glibness of skin was screeching at the pilot and trying to drive his upper teeth into Tucks hand.\r\nThe last thing Theo saw as he pulled the door shut was Tucker Cases legs burning blue and steaming in the rain.\r\nâ€Å"Bring one of those tables over here,” Theo shouted. â€Å"Brace this door. squelch the table under the handles.”\r\nThere was a second of peace, just the sound of the wind and rain and Emily Barker, who had just seen her ex-boyfriend shot and brain-sucked, sobbing.\r\nâ€Å"What was that?” shouted Ignacio Nuñez, a rotund Hispanic who owned the village nursery. â€Å"What in the hell was that?”\r\nLena Marquez had instinctively gone to Emily Barker, and knelt with her arm around the bereft cleaning lady. She looked to Theo.  "Tucker is out there. Hes out there.”\r\nTheo Crowe realized that everyone was looking at him. He was having trouble catching his breath and he could feel his pulse power hammer in his ears. He really precious to look to someone else for the answers, but as he scanned the room †some forty terrified pillowcases †he saw all the responsibleness reflected back to him.\r\nâ€Å"Oh fuck,” he said, his hand falling to his hip where his holster was usually clipped.\r\nâ€Å"Its on the table at my house,” Gabe Fenton said. Gabe was holding the buffet table that was braced sideways under the double latches of the church doors.\r\nâ€Å"Pull the table,” Theo said, thinking, I dont even like the guy. He helped Gabe pull the table aside and crouched in a sprinters stance, ready to go, as Gabe work the latches.\r\nâ€Å"Close it behind me. When you hear me scream, ‘Let me in, well †;\r\nJust then there was a crack up behind them and somet hing came flying through one of the high, stained- trumpery windows †throwing glass out into the middle of the room. Tucker Case, wet, charred, and covered with blood, pushed himself up from the floor where he had landed and said, â€Å"I dont exist who parked under that window, but youd better remind your car, because if those things climb on it, theyll be coming through that window behind me.”\r\nTheo looked at the line of stained-glass windows running down the sides of the chapel, eight on each side, each about eight feet off the ground and about two feet across. When the chapel had been built, stained glass was at a premium and the community poor, thus the small, high windows, which were spillage to be an asset in nurture this place. There was only one large window in the whole building †behind where the altar used to stand, but where now stood Mollys thirty-foot Christmas tree †a six-by-ten-foot large cathedral-shaped stained-glass depiction o f Saint Rose, patron revere of interior decorators, presenting a throw pillow to the bless Virgin.\r\nâ€Å"Nacho,” Theo barked to Ignacio Nuñez, â€Å"see if you can find something in the cellar to board up that window.”\r\nAs if on cue, two muddy, decaying faces appeared at the opening through which Tuck had just dived, moaning and trying to get purchase on the windowsill with their nasal hands to climb in.\r\nâ€Å" shoot down them!” Tuck screamed from the floor. â€Å"Shoot those fucking things, Theo!”\r\nTheo shrugged, s mouse his head. No gun.\r\nSomething flashed by Theo and he spun to see Gabe Fenton running hell-bent-for-leather at the window, holding before him a long stainless-steel pan full of lasagna, apparently intent upon diving through the window in a pastafarian act of self-sacrifice. Theo caught the biologist by the collar, halt him like a running dog at the end of his leash. His arms and legs flew out before him and he mana ged to hang on to the pan, but nearly eight pounds of steaming cheesy goodness sailed on through the window, scorching the attackers and Pollocking the wall around the window with red sauce.\r\nâ€Å"Thats it, throw snacks at them, thatll ho-hum them up,” shouted Tuck. â€Å" arouse a salvo of garlic ice lolly following!”\r\nGabe regained his feet and jumped right up in Theos face, or he would have if he had been a foot or so taller. â€Å"I was trying to save us,” he said sternly to Theos sternum.\r\nBefore Theo could answer, Ignacio Nunez and Ben Miller, a tall, ex-track star in his early thirties, called for them to clear the way. The two men were coming to the broken window with another of the buffet tables. Gabe and Theo helped Ben hold the table against the wall while Nacho nailed the table to the wall. â€Å"I found some tools in the basement,” Nacho said in the midst of hammer blows. Animated dead fingernails taloned at the tabletop as they w orked.\r\nâ€Å"I hate quit!” screamed the corpse, who had enough equipment to still scream. â€Å"It binds me up.”\r\nThe rest of the undead take began pounding on the walls around them.\r\nâ€Å"I need to think,” Theo said. â€Å"I just need a second to think.”\r\nLena was salad dressing Tucker Cases wounds with gauze and antibiotic ointment from the chapels first-aid kit. The destroy on his legs and torso were superficial, most of the alcohol fire having been put out by the rain before it could penetrate his clothing, and while his leather bomber jacket had protected him somewhat from his dive through the window, there was a deep cut on his frontal bone and another on his thigh. One of the bullets that Dale had fired through the table had grazed Tucks ribs, leaving a cut of meat four inches long and a half inch wide.\r\nâ€Å"That was the bravest thing Ive ever seen,” Lena said.\r\nâ€Å"You know, Im a pilot,” said Tuck, like he did this sort of thing every day. â€Å"I couldnt let them hurt you.”\r\nâ€Å"Really?” Lena said, pausing for a moment to look into his eyes. â€Å"Im sorry I was †you were †»\r\nâ€Å"Actually, you probably couldnt tell, but that thing with the table? Just a really badly executed escape attempt.”\r\nTuck winced as she fastened the bandage over his ribs with some tape.\r\nâ€Å"Youre release to need stitches,” Lena said. â€Å"Any place I mixed-up?”\r\nTuck held up his right hand †there were tooth marks on the back of it welling up with blood.\r\nâ€Å"Oh my God!” Lena said.\r\nâ€Å"Youre pass to have to cut his head off,” said Joshua Barker, who was standing by watching.\r\nâ€Å"Whose?” Tuck said. â€Å"The guy in the Santa suit, right?”\r\nâ€Å"No, I mean your head,” said Josh. â€Å"Theyre going to have to cut off your head or youll turn into one of them.”\r\nMost everyone in the chapel had stopped what they were doing and gathered around Tuck and Lena, plain grateful for a point of focus. The pounding on the walls had ceased, and with the howeverion of the occasional rattling of the door handles, there was only the sound of the wind and rain. The Lonesome Christmas concourse was stunned.\r\nâ€Å"Go away, kid,” said Tuck. â€Å"This is no time to be a kid.”\r\nâ€Å"What should we use?” asked Mavis Sand. â€Å"This okay, kid?” She held a serrated knife that theyd been using to cut garlic bread.\r\nâ€Å"That is not acceptable,” Tuck said.\r\nâ€Å"If you dont cut his head off,” said Joshua, â€Å"hell turn into one of them and let them in.”\r\nâ€Å"What an imagination this kid has,” said Tuck, flashing a grin from face to face, looking for an ally. â€Å"Its Christmas! Ah, Christmas, the time when all good people go about not decapitating each other.”\r\nTheo Crowe came out of the back room, where hed been looking for something they could use as a weapon. â€Å"Phone lines are down. Well lose power either minute. Is anyones cell phone working?”\r\nNo one answered. They were all looking at Tuck and Lena.\r\nâ€Å"Were going to cut off his head, Theo,” Mavis said, holding out the bread knife, handle first. â€Å"Since youre the law, I think you should do it.”\r\nâ€Å"No, no, no, no, no, no,” said Tuck. â€Å"And furthermore, no.”\r\nâ€Å"No,” said Lena, in support of her man.\r\nâ€Å"You guys have something you want to tell me?” Theo said. He took the bread knife from Mavis and shoved it down the back of his belt.\r\nâ€Å"I think you were onto something with that killer-robot thing,” Tuck said.\r\nLena stood up and put herself between Theo and Tuck. â€Å"It was an accident, Theo. I was digging Christmas trees like I do every year and Dale came by drunk and angry. Im not sure how it happened. One minute he was going to shoot me and the next the shovel was sticking out of his neck. Tucker didnt have anything to do with it. He just happened along and was trying to help.”\r\nTheo looked at Tuck. â€Å"So you interred him with his gun?\r\nTuck climbed painfully to his feet and stood behind Lena. â€Å"I was supposed(p) to see this coming? I was supposed to anticipate that he might come back from the grave all angry and brain hungry, so I should hide his gun from him? This is your town, Constable, you explain it. ordinarily when you bury a body they dont come back and try to eat your brains the next day.”\r\nâ€Å"Brains! Brains! Brains!” chanted the undead from outside the chapel. The pounding on the walls started again.\r\nâ€Å"Shut up!” screamed Tucker Case, and to everyones amazement, they did. Tuck grinned at Theo. â€Å"So, I fucked up.”\r\nâ€Å"Ya think?” Theo said. â€Å"How some?”\r\nâ€Å"You should cut his head off over the sink,” said Joshua Barker. â€Å"That way it wont make as big a mess.”\r\nWithout a word, Theo reached down and picked Josh up by the biceps, then walked over and handed him to his mother, who looked as if she were going into the first stages of shock. Theo touched his finger to Joshs lips in a shush gesture. Theo looked more serious, more intimidating, more in control than anyone had ever seen him. The boy hid his face in his mothers breasts.\r\nTheo turned to Tuck. â€Å"How many?” Theo repeated. â€Å"I saw peradventure thirty, forty?”\r\nâ€Å"About that,” Tuck said. â€Å"Theyre in diametrical states of decay. Some of them just look like theres little more than bone, others look relatively fresh, and pretty well preserved. None of them seems particularly fast or strong. Dale maybe, some of the fresher ones. Its like theyre learning to walk again or something.”\r\nThere was a loud snap from outside and everyone jumped †one w oman literally spring into a mans arms with a shriek. They all cruel into a crouch, listening to a tree falling through branches, expecting the trunk to come crashing through the jacket crown beams. The lights went out and the whole church shook with the impact of the big pine hitting the forest floor.\r\nWithout missing a beat, Theo snapped on a flashlight hed had in his back pocket in anticipation of a power outage. Small emergency lamps ignited preceding(prenominal) the front door, casting everyone in a deep-shadowed directive light.\r\nâ€Å"Those should last about an hour,” Theo said. â€Å"There should be some flashlights in the basement, too. Go on. What else did you see, Tuck?”\r\nâ€Å"Well, theyre pissed off and theyre hungry. I was kind of busy trying not to get my brains eaten. They seemed pretty adamant about the brain-eating thing. accordingly theyre going to IKEA, I guess.”\r\nâ€Å"This is ridiculous,” said Val Riordan, the elegantl y coiffed psychiatrist, oral presentation up for the first time since the whole thing had started. â€Å"Theres no such thing as a zombi spirit. I dont know what you think is happening here, but you dont have a crowd of brain-eating zombies.”\r\nâ€Å"Id have to equip with Val,” Gabe Fenton said, stepping up beside her. â€Å"Theres no scientific basis for zombieism †except for some experiments in the Caribbean with blowfish toxins that put people in a state of near demolition with almost imperceptible respiration and pulse, but there was no actual, you know, raising of the dead.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah?” said Theo, giving them an eloquent deadpan stare. â€Å"Brains!” he shouted.\r\nâ€Å"Brains! Brains! Brains!” came the responding chant from outside; the pounding on the walls resumed.\r\nâ€Å"Shut up!” Tuck shouted. The dead did.\r\nTheo looked at Val and Gabe and raised an eyebrow. Well?\r\nâ€Å"Okay,” Gabe said. â€Å" We may need more data.”\r\nâ€Å"No, this cant be happening,” said Valerie Riordan. â€Å"This is impossible.”\r\nâ€Å"Dr. Val,” Theo said. â€Å"We know whats happening here. We dont know why, and we dont know how, but we havent lived in a vacuum all our lives, have we? In this case, defense lawyers aint just a river in Egypt, denial will kill you.”\r\nJust then a brick came crashing through one of the windows and thumped into the middle of the chapel floor. both clawlike hands caught the window ledge and a beat-up male face appeared at the window. The zombie pulled up enough so that he could hook one elbow inside the window, then shouted: â€Å"Val Riordan went down on the pimply kid who bags groceries at the Thrifty-Mart!”\r\nA second later, Ben Miller picked up the brick and hurled it back through the window, taking out the zombie face with a sickening squish.\r\nAs Ben and Theo lifted the last of the buffet tables into place to be nai led over the window, Gabe Fenton stepped away from Valerie Riordan and looked at her like shed been dipped in radioactive marmot spittle. â€Å"You said you were allergic!”\r\nâ€Å"We were almost broken up at the time,” said Val.\r\nâ€Å"Almost! Almost! I have third-degree electrical burns on my scrotum because of you!”\r\n across the room, into Lena Marquezs ear, Tucker Case whispered, â€Å"I dont feel so bad about hiding the body now, how bout you?” She turned and kissed him hard enough to make him forget for a second that hed just been shot, set on fire, vanquish up, and bitten.\r\nFor years the dead had listened, and the dead knew. They knew who was cheating with whom, who was thievery what, and where the bodies were hidden, as it were. Besides the passive listening †those mouse out for a smoke, sideline conversations at funerals, the go and talking in the woods, and the sex and scare-yourself activities some of the living indulged in in the graveyard †there were too those among the living who used a tombstone as some sort of confessional, sharing their deepest secrets with someone who they thought could never talk, saying things they could never say in life.\r\nThere were some things that people thought no one else, the living or the dead, could possibly know, but they did.\r\nâ€Å"Gabe Fenton watches squirrel porn!” screeched Bess Leander, her dead cheek pressed against the wet clapboard siding of the chapel.\r\nâ€Å"That is not porn, thats my work,” Gabe explained to his fellow partyers.\r\nâ€Å"He doesnt wear pants! Squirrels, doing it, in slow motion. Pantsless.”\r\nâ€Å"Just that one time. Besides, you have to watch in slow motion,” Gabe said. â€Å"Theyre squirrels.” Everyone turned their flashlights on something else, like they really werent looking at Gabe.\r\nâ€Å"Ignacio Nuñez voted for Carter,” came a call from outside. The staunch republican nursery owner was caught like a cervid in the flashlights as everyone looked at him. â€Å"I was only in this country a year. Id just become a citizen. I didnt even speak side of meat very well. He said he wanted to help the poor. I was poor.”\r\nTheo Crowe reached over and patted Nachos shoulder.\r\nâ€Å"Ben Miller used steroids in high school. His gonads are the size of bbs!”\r\nâ€Å"That is not true,” exclaimed the track star. â€Å"My testicles are perfectly common size.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, if you were seven inches tall,” said Marty in the Morning, all dead, all the time.\r\nBen turned to Theo. â€Å"Weve got to do something about this.”\r\nThe others in the room were looking from one to the other, each with a look on his or her face that was much more horrified than when theyd been only facing the prospect of an undead mob eating their brains. These zombies had secrets.\r\nâ€Å"Theo Crowes wife thinks shes some kind of warrior mutan t killer!” shouted a rotted woman who had once been a psych nurse at the county hospital.\r\nEverybody in the chapel sort of looked at one another and nodded, shrugged, let out a sigh of relief.\r\nâ€Å"We knew that,” yelled Mavis. â€Å"Everybody knows that. Thats not news.”\r\nâ€Å"Oh, sorry,” said the dead nurse. There was a pause; then, â€Å"Okay, then. Wally Beerbinder is addicted to painkillers.”\r\nâ€Å"Wallys not here,” said Mavis. â€Å"Hes spending Christmas with his daughter in L.A.”\r\nâ€Å"I got nothing,” said the nurse. â€Å" soulfulness else go.”\r\nâ€Å"Tucker Case thinks his bat can talk,” shouted Arthur Tannbeau, the dead citrus farmer.\r\nâ€Å"Who wants to sing Christmas carols?” said Tuck. â€Å"Ill start. ‘ illustrate the halls…”\r\nAnd so they sang, loud enough to drown out the secrets of the undead. They sang with great Christmas spirit, loud and off-key, unt il the battering poke hit the front doors.\r\n'