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CHAPTER 9

Moondance


Anyone who has driven into New Orleans on I-10 and is not blind has noticed that at one point it is flanked by massive, aboveground cemeteries. If you’re headed into town, Greenwood is the one on the left and Metairie is the one on the right.

Metairie is newer and fancier. The mausoleums there run to two stories and are real works of art. It is carefully maintained.

Greenwood is older. It is about one-third mausoleums and two-thirds sarcophagi, packed freaking cheek to jowl. It is not as well maintained but still a very nice place. Lots of history.

Both are absolutely enormous, complex, and one hell of a place to be in the middle of the night, more or less on your own, hunting undead. They are creepy as hell without zombies moaning in the moonlight.

There is a low, iron fence around Greenwood that was holding back some shamblers as I pulled up next to the NOPD car.

“Your guy went in,” the cop shouted through his window. “About thirty minutes ago. Haven’t heard from him since.”

I never want to be a team leader but if I ever run a team, its motto is going to be: Habes intrare exire non habetis. You have to go in, you don’t have to come out.

“Greg,” I said, touching my radio as I parked. “You there, Greg?”

No response.

Zombies can be a pain, but the kind someone raises out of a cemetery were slow and dumb. Greg had not been doing this for very long, but I had been told he knew his business. I didn’t see Greg getting taken down by a bunch of shamblers. Not in a place like this. Which meant there was probably something else in there.

“Greg, if you can hear me, just hunker down.”

“Your friend is one with us,” a voice said on the radio. The accent wasn’t local. Islands in general. Maybe Haitian. “He has joined the darkness.”

“I don’t know who you are, partner,” I radioed. “But you are about to get a .45 caliber enema.”

The man laughed, a booming psychotic laugh.

Jeeze, one of those, I thought. Another freaking necromancer thinks he’s king of the world. Just my luck.

“You are weak and fragile compared to my children!” Cheeeeel-dren! “You shall become one with the darkness.”

My first inclination was to go in there and kick his ass. There was one problem. Greg and Trevor had been right. I’d been going through .45 like water. Ten loaded mags were not enough. I had to top off before I could go in.

I opened up the trunk and collected all my mags, then started reloading. While I did that, more shamblers collected.

“Hey!” the cop boomed over his PA. “You going to do anything about this?”

The fence was only about waist height but had spikes on top. They were stuck on the spikes. It turned out that being familiar with the hoodoo, when they built cemeteries in this town, it was usually with the idea of keeping the residents inside.

I used semiauto to carefully tap every shambler in the head, starting with the ones who weren’t stuck, then moving to the ones who were. From time to time I paused and did a 360. Still nothing major. I could hear more moaning in the graveyard. They were trying to come to the lights.

I went back to Honeybear, got out another can of Bud, took a sip and topped off the mag I’d just used. I decided I might need my night vision goggles and grabbed that heavy pouch too. As shamblers would find us, I’d walk over and tap them. It was getting silly. I finished off the shamblers at the fence, then went to find the gate. There are several gates to the massive cemetery. The one I was using was at the corner of Canal Boulevard and Rosedale Drive. Canal Boulevard was not to be confused with Canal Avenue, Canal Street, Canal Court, or Canal Way, by the way.

It was locked, so I walked back to the police car.

“You wouldn’t happen to have the key to the dread…the gate, would you?”

“Your buddy took it with him,” he yelled through the glass.

So much for the easy way. I called it in to Trevor, then climbed over the fence, trying not to catch my balls on the iron spikes.

The drive there had trees on the right side and mausoleums and sarcophagi on the left. Beyond the trees was an open field, then the main buildings. Beyond the mausoleums and sarcophagi were more mausoleums and sarcophagi stretching beyond what I could see in the moonlight.

I had no idea where this necromancer shithole was hiding but he’d raised a fair passel of zombies. Every so often some moaning shambler would come stumbling out of the darkness. I was less worried about the ones on the tomb side than the tree side. There were bushes under the trees and they blocked my view.

I stayed to the middle of the road and used semiauto. Cleanup was going to be a bitch on this one.

There were some shambler bodies already down. I followed Greg’s path, keeping a careful eye out for what might have gotten him.

Then a shambler came out of the darkness and it was Greg. Shit. His throat had been torn out and one arm was missing. The wounds on his body were massive. That wasn’t shambler damage. There was something far worse in here.

I gave him requiescat in pace, reloaded and kept moving.

I came to a set of tombs that were stairsteps. There was a sarcophagi, a one-story tomb and a two-story tomb. I bounded up and up and up.

I turned off my lights, pulled out my NVGs and looked around.

The goggles were huge, awkward, heavy, and had cost a fortune, but the cemetery was an eerie green under night vision, and it was amazing how much I could see.

There were shamblers moving between the tombs but nothing fast or that looked particularly powerful. A shambler horde could have done the damage. They can rip your arm off. He’d have to have gotten swarmed for that to happen. That’s the first lesson of shamblers: don’t let yourself get swarmed. And these were having a hard time even getting together in and among the complex layout of the cemetery.

I saw where the body trail turned left and headed deeper into the cemetery.

Moving on the ground was a danger. My vision was limited and if something could come out from between the tombs in a flash, I’d be toast.

But the majority of the cemetery was one-story marble tombs mixed with occasional nearly flat or waist-height sarcophagi. The two-story tomb I was on was a rarity. In fact, most of the tombs in the direction the body trail headed were one-story with very few sarcophagi. Most had flat roofs. A few were angled or curved but even those had narrow ledges on the side. That gave me an idea.

The first time I encountered zombies I was still recovering from being in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut. It was at a tent revival (long story, look at the other memoir) and there were cars scattered outside. I used the cars, often hopping from car to car, to mess with the shamblers.

Pro-tip: Always try to fight shamblers on broken ground or where there are frequent obstacles. They can get up to a fair speed on a flat and in a direct line. Any change of direction or height messes with them. Avoid fighting them on flats, where they can get a good run-up or where you can get easily swarmed. Always check six and never assume one is permanently down.

Being up on the tombs might also give me a chance to see what had taken Greg before it could close.

I stowed the goggles, because it is hard enough to walk when you can’t see your feet, let alone do what I was about to. I jumped down to the next one-story, onto a sarcophagus, and back up on a one-story tomb. And I was off.

I was carrying a lot of weight in gear, ammo, and weapons. I’d been going hard pretty much all day and jumping from tomb to tomb was, to say the least, tiring. But it kept me up and away from any unseen shamblers. From time to time I had to get down to ground level since there were roads between the groups of tombs. A few saw me, and I would just pause, aim, and shoot them in the head. In the Marines you’re taught to conserve ammo. One shot one kill. In this case I was pretty sure I was going to need it.

I stopped about halfway down the length of the drive when I could see the body trail terminate about fifty meters from my position. I was at the intersection of two broadways, roads not walkways, called Jasmine Avenue and Metairie Road. I took out some of my partially expended magazines and refilled them from my assault ruck. I was beat, I was out of wind and I was hot as hell. I also was about to meet whoever had killed my teammate.

“Greg, this is Alvin, come in, over.”

“Alvin,” I said quietly. “Iron Hand. Greg’s down. Turned. Cleared. Necro on site. Has his radio, so listening.”

“Roger,” Alvin said.

“Ah, another Hunter come to join my children,” the necro radioed. “Come. My children shall feast on your flesh as the Dark loas feast upon your soul.”

I tried an idea and switched to Spanish.

“Hey, friend. Go to the road where I killed the vampire in the strip mall. Come in from that way. He is near Live Oak and that road. You understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” he radioed back in Spanish. “Okay. Give me five minutes.”

I took a big drink of wine from my canteen, took a whiz since there weren’t any shamblers around, ghosted back a couple of tombs, crossed Jasmine, then back up on tombs. I was back to being the Hunter.

I moved soft from tomb to tomb, searching for the necro SOB and whatever he was using for a heavy hitter. Finally, I spotted him. He was, in fact, at the corner of Live Oak and Metairie. Up on a tomb. And he was looking right at me.

“Come to me, my friend,” the man boomed. He was big, fat, and as far as I could tell, black, but he’d painted his face to look like a skull. He was wearing a top hat and tails. What was with that idiotic look this night? “My spells are more powerful. Tonight, the Dark loas bring me the greatest of gifts! I have sacrificed to them and they are come!”

That was when I noticed the body on the top of the tomb. It wasn’t rising because its heart had been ripped out.

“Oh, you did not,” I said, lifting the Uzi. Human sacrifice never ended well.

The bullets bounced in every direction. Warded. Shit.

The necromancer started to chant in a deep, guttural tongue, raised the wet blade of his knife to the moon and cried aloud. He was answered by a loud roar as something came over the tombs.

* * *

I think that it’s the case with most experienced Hunters that we have things we prefer and things we don’t prefer. And I think most of us like big shit that succumbs to sufficient firepower. I know that’s what I like. Big shit like that shelob that you just keep hitting with more and more firepower until it dies. The one reason to join MCB for me isn’t the importance of their jobs. It’s that they can call in a fucking arclite strike when they need one. They can bring in a battleship or B-52s. Cluster bombs!

I’d like that kind of power. Not the killing-and-intimidating-witnesses power. There’ve been times I really wanted to bring in a full-on broadside from the USS Iowa, you know?

What most of us don’t like is shit that is partially incorporeal, mostly magic, and doesn’t want to die.

The moon was a silver glimmering outline behind fleeting clouds as the giant shadowy monster came to eat my soul. It was a black nightmare of webs and teeth. I wasn’t sure what the hell it had once been, but it didn’t seem to mind .45. And it was fast. Shit, it was fast.

The blow came out of nowhere and knocked me off the tomb I was occupying and into one on the far side of the walkway. I managed to slap-fall the sideways impact and my helmet saved my head, but I was going to feel it in the morning.

The thing came over the tombs and blotted out the moon as my Uzi went click. I decided it was pointless to shift to 1911 and drew Mo No Ken as I rolled away from its descending bulk.

I came back up to my feet and slashed as the nightmare thing approached. The blade went through the inky darkness as if it wasn’t there. There was a slight sizzle from the consecrated oil it was coated in but nothing really useful. A massive claw appeared out of nowhere and ripped into my right arm. The straps for my Uzi parted and the weapon dropped. Mo No Ken went flying.

I thought the wound was minor, until there was a sudden spurt from my brachial vein.

Bullets did nothing. My sword did nothing. That left only fire as an option. It was right on me and I was bleeding like a stuck pig.

I backpedaled and it let me, making this strange whispering giggle noise that had to be a taunt. It crawled slowly forward, a black shadow amongst the shadows. I pulled out a thermite grenade, yanked the pin, and tossed. Then I clamped a hand on my bleeding arm and ran like the devil was chasing me.

When the light flared I turned around. The nightmare thing was gone. I held one hand up to shield my eyes from the fire, but there was nothing there.

Then it slammed into me from atop one of the tombs.

Those massive claws ripped into me again, shredding my assault ruck and armor. I reached around, pulled out a canteen and splashed it backwards.

There was a keening wail, a hissing sound and then the sound of fast wings. It was gone again.

I rolled over and propped myself on one of the tombs. I keyed my radio. First aid could wait.

“Some sort of black shadow demon,” I said in Spanish. “Fast, powerful, claws. Likes to come in from the side or above. Holy water seems to work. Guns, no effect. Fire possibly, but too fast to tell.”

The radio clicked twice. I started fixing my arm.

In a situation like that, I don’t fuck around. I mashed on a bandage. Then I pulled out a partial roll of rigger tape and taped that puppy down hard. The bleeding was at least reduced.

“It just flew back this way. I got a look. I think that’s an Agaran.”

I didn’t know what an Agaran was, but Alvin knew what we were fighting. He might know the answer to my very important question: “How do we kill it?”

I got up and made my way back to my scattered weapons. I got Mo No Ken sheathed and picked up my Uzi. No major issues but it wasn’t very much use in this situation. I reloaded anyway. Shamblers.

“Fire and light, I think. Or kill whoever called it up.”

“The summoner’s the fat guy in the face paint. He’s warded against bullets. Can you take him?” I sure hoped that asshole with Greg’s radio didn’t speak Spanish.

“Shelbye’s here. We’re on it.”

“You cannot defeat me, mortals,” the necromancer radioed. Still in English. He sounded annoyed, so he probably couldn’t understand us. “I have the blessing of the Dark loas! Never before have they granted me such power!”

I spotted the Agaran; it had collected along the ground, a rolling puddle of black. The holy water must have really hurt it.

Then I threw another thermite grenade right at it.

The thing let out another unearthly wail. This time I managed to follow what happened—the flash revealing something that looked like a terrestrial squid; then it hopped away out of the light. It seemed to have shrunk.

Only I was going to run out of grenades, holy water, and blood pressure, long before it ran out of shadows. It was slinking around the tombs, trying to flank me.

“I see the necromancer. Is that ward impenetrable?”

“I don’t know. From what I’ve read, that sort of magic will stop anything fast or living.”

“What about thrown?”

Fire in the hole.

The necromancer never saw the frag grenade coming.

Pro-tip: For everything there is a season. A time for swords, a time for holy water, and a time for small bundles of explosives wrapped in notched wire.

Knowing what season it is, is the essence of Hunting.

* * *

There were twenty-six zombies in the cemetery, including poor Greg, and one Agaran which had melted into an oily puddle. We had a hard time finding that in the PUFF lists but the bounty was nice, higher than a shoggoth. Plus a bonus for the necromancer who’d raised all of them. The way you get paid on them is based on how much havoc they’d caused.

I left Shelbye and Alvin to cover the coroners on cleanup and took myself to my favorite all night doc-in-the-box to get my brachial vein sewn up.


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