“You know that just adding a tie to the train jammies doesn’t fool anyone, right? We still know it’s jammies.”
He grinned. “Hey, I put on a tie and a suit jacket.”
I shook my head at him.
Domino came up to us. “They’re asking if they can move the headstone, or if that will mess up what you need to learn from the zombie?”
I shook my head. “They can move it. They just need to be careful not to damage it out of respect for the family, not out of worrying about the zombie.”
“I’ll tell them,” he said, and hurried back through the tombstones toward the waiting men. He still had the shotgun over his shoulder, like I had mine in its tactical sling. Before we got the grave dug out, I’d be loading up on all my gear in the back of the truck, which would put up my customized AR and leave Nicky with the spare he’d grabbed at the Circus.
Zerbrowski said, “I thought zombies couldn’t feel emotions.”
“Normal ones can’t,” I said.
“But this one wasn’t normal?”
“Not even close,” I said.
“No,” Manny said.
“Any idea what made it go wonky?”
“Actually, yeah, he’d eaten human flesh while he was alive.”
Zerbrowski gave me wide eyes.
“Yeah, it was a first for me, too, but he got trapped up in the mountains during winter, a companion died, and they had enough meat to survive.”
“And you think that’s what made him go weird?”
“We both do,” Manny said.
I nodded. “I’ll write a paper about it for the academic publications, and just put the word out to add that to the list of things that put a big fat do not raise this corpse sign over a site.”
The backhoe was at the graveside, so we moved farther back so we could hear ourselves talk.
“What else is on the list?” he asked.
Manny answered and I let him. “Anyone who was a priest or priestess in real life of any religion is a question mark, but if they were voodoo practitioners then you don’t raise them from the dead, ever. Any psychic abilities, a witch, sorcerer, anyone who was involved in a supernatural event while alive is iffy and best avoided.”
I was wondering where Nicky was with the extermination crew. They’d have flamethrowers and the protective suits that went with them; if Warrington came out of the grave still ravenous we’d need them. Nicky had gone up to the main road to lead the crew back to us. He had also made sure that all three of us ate a protein bar from the stash Nathaniel had started putting in my car. It wasn’t dinner, but it helped to keep us from having the blood sugar crashes that could make me drain energy from the people I was connected to metaphysically. The grave diggers had already gotten lost and had to reload the backhoe back on their truck once and drive to the right location, which had taken time we didn’t have. We had to dig the grave up before dawn or the zombie might be dead to the world because it was dawn, and we still wouldn’t know what happened once darkness fell inside his coffin. His—there, I’d thought it again; even though he was a zombie, a fleshcraving zombie, there was enough mind left that he was still Warrington to me. He could still be down there thinking and feeling, and I had to know before I walked away tonight; I had to know.
I stared off into the darkness and wondered again where Nicky was, and . . . It was as if the energy had changed in the cemetery just since earlier tonight. It had that feeling that places get sometimes when people have been performing rites that can affect the sanctity of holy ground, or as if something metaphysical has happened between one visit and the next.
“Do you feel it, Manny?” I asked.
“Feel what?” he asked.
“The cemetery had better energy earlier tonight.”
“I haven’t been to this one before, but a lot of the older cemeteries feel like this, Anita.”
“I swear it didn’t earlier tonight.”
“Or maybe you just feel guilty,” he said.
“What do you mean, it feels different?” Zerbrowski asked.
“Sometimes older graveyards can sort of run out of holiness,” I said.
“If they haven’t had a new grave and funeral in a long time, it’s as if the holy ground doesn’t last,” Manny said.
“So this is no longer holy ground?” Zerbrowski asked.
Manny made a waffling gesture with his hand.
“A priest can do one quick ceremony, basically walk the boundaries with holy water, or another funeral could fix it,” I said.
“Ghouls can disrupt holy ground,” Manny said.
I shook my head. “I think the holy wears off and then some of the bodies rise as ghouls.”
“Wait, what?” Zerbrowski asked.
“Ghouls are the most mysterious undead, and there’s a debate even among animators and witches whether ghouls move into a graveyard and somehow damage the sanctity of it, or if ghouls only crawl out of the graves once the holy ground is no longer holy.”
“Sort of a ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg’ debate,” Zerbrowski said.
“Exactly,” I said.
“It’s the one kind of undead I’ve never seen,” he said.
Manny said, “They’re harmless cowards. You say boo, and they hide.”
I looked at him. “If you believe that, then you’ve only seen regular ghouls.”
“Ah, I forgot, you’ve seen them when they turn predatory,” he said.