Minutes to Midnight Read online

  MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

  Phaedra Weldon

  Copyright © 2013 by Phaedra Weldon

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition

  Cover Design Copyright © 2013 Design by Trap Door

  Cover Image Copyright © heckmannoleg | Eky Studio | Bigstock

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely fictional. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  ZOMBiES!!!

  I think weird shit lives somewhere between the movies and Channel 10 on my TV. I never thought or even considered in the slightest that some of that shit on there was real. Take zombies for instance. I mean, seriously? The walking dead? Vampires had more of a chance of fitting into the waking, sane world of the mortal, especially if you explained them as demon-possessed humans.

  Totally makes sense, right?

  But an animated, walking corpse that feeds off of brains? How is it supposed to eat the brains if it's dead and the stomach's not working? And if it's dead, that means the heart isn't working, which also means there's no blood pumping into the brain, and it's not getting oxygen because the lungs aren't working. So it's just not feasible for such a thing to exist.

  Right?

  "Dags! Stop daydreaming and whammy this thing!"

  Whammy? Really?

  My name's Darren McConnell, though most people just call me Dags. I can't remember where that nickname came from. Before all of this happened to me, I was just your average run-of-the-mill ghost-sensing human during those awkward, adolescent years when trying to fit in was harder than passing the eighth grade. Either way, I was small, weird, and a bit of a geek, so I spent an inordinate amount of time inside my own locker or the trashcan just outside the gym door.

  I grew to about five-seven—missing the magical height of six feet. That's when I learned height didn't matter when it came to perception. Wouldn't have mattered if I'd grown to be six-seven because my face seemed to be a problem. I looked more like my mom than my dad, and my choice in hairstyle wasn't popular. I told a kid his dad had died and the kid didn't know it yet, so several of his classmates tied me to a tree and gave me a raw razor buzz cut. After that, I never told anyone else what I could see and vowed never to cut my hair again. So I sported a ponytail until recently. I don't know why or when I cut it all off.

  So by the time I got involved with a ceremonial cult at the age of twenty-four, I was well established as a long-haired hippy freak.

  Weird things happened with that cult. Weird things that lead me to having a witch shove a Grimoire into my soul to save my life.

  Yes. I have a book in my soul. And not just any book. A book of magic spells. Got that? Good. Because I need to duck now.

  The zombie swung the top half of a concrete tombstone at my head. I crouched down and ducked to avoid having my brains spattered all over a nearby set of ancient headstones. I was sure my blood would add a certain sense of ambience to the graveyard, but I liked having my brain matter in my skull.

  As I hoped, the force of spinning that hunk of rock around took the creature into a second rotation. I stood up as it moved the stone away from me. There wasn't going to be a lot of time between passes before the thing swung back around at me so trying to pull a spell from the Grimoire wasn't feasible. And using a sword against the zombie or the headstone wasn't gonna work either.

  So…the third option I had was to attempt to whammy it as my best friend wished, with fire.

  I moved as far back out of the thing's range as possible. Bonaventure Cemetery was a tight bone yard, speckled with plot-to-plot family gatherings of headstones and mausoleums. Luckily we weren't in one of the larger plots where massive stone and marble monuments were built to the memory of some patriarch or matriarch of the family. That would have been way too close an area for me. I like open space for that fourth option.

  Running.

  I turned and faced my opponent as I shouted a single word. "Isatum!" It was Sumerian for fire, and boy did it make fire.

  Initially I wasn't sure where the power came from. I assume the Grimoire worked as the catalyst and my own energy, chi, ka, whatever you want to call it, fueled the spell.

  Of course, I could be uber wrong.

  Fire engulfed the rotting corpse with a bit more force than I intended. Tiny pieces of flying concrete stung my face and bare forearms as the headstone exploded. Then silence.

  I had my eyes closed. Which of course was a habit I seriously needed to correct. But I didn't want them to get hit with flying zombie guts.

  When I opened them, nothing moved in front of me. Bits and pieces of zombie embers floated in the sky like sick little fireflies. I heard a brushing noise just before something clamped onto my ankle like a vise. I looked down to see a bony hand—what was left of the zombie I'd just blasted—gripping me for all it was worth. I screamed like a little girl and hopped around on my non-zombie-grasped foot while I tried knocking the hand and lower arm off the other.

  A hand grabbed my upper arm. "Hold still."

  That was Mike Ross. My best friend. One of his Desert Eagles gleamed in the moonlight as he pointed it at my ankle.

  My eyes bugged. "Not the ankle, not the ankle!"

  He fired, and bits of flesh, bone, and goo splattered on the concrete of a nearby headstone. A closer look showed that most of the exploded zombie covered the nearby azaleas and trees. I don't know why I yelled. Mike never missed what he aimed at, and barely missed what he didn't.

  He looked around the cemetery, the weapon pointed skyward with a bit of wispy smoke curling up from the barrel for effect. Dude was ultra cool. Tall, well-muscled, and rugged. Women always saw him first.

  Well, he was a good foot taller than me, so everyone saw him first.

  His body was tense. Mike either sensed other zombies in the cemetery or he was looking out for us. I propped myself against one of the adjacent headstones not covered in zombie guts and surrounded with a large cropping of weeds, to take a look at my ankle. Other than some seriously gross body fluids smeared over my boots, it felt okay.

  Instant, burning pain sliced through my calf on the other leg. I dropped the just-rescued leg and looked down to see a zombie sinking its teeth into my flesh through my jeans. One of its hands—no, its only hand—grabbed at the ankle below its tasting point of choice and pulled. I lost my seat on the headstone and slipped down onto my ass. The back of my head connected painfully with the concrete.

  "Sonofa —there's another one!" Mike shouted.

  Ya think? Mike's discovery did not give me comfort because he wasn't aiming at the one biting me. He had turned and started shooting at different one as the zombie chomping on my calf dragged me away from him.

  "Dags!"

  Mike's voice was somewhere over my head, meaning he finally noticed I wasn't with him anymore. He was coming up behind me as I traveled. I tried grabbing at anything I could as I passed it. A different headstone, a bush, a piece of statuary. Unfortunately, the same things I tried to grab hold of also worked as instruments of blindsiding. After the third stone knocked painfully into my right elbow, I gritted my teeth and kept my hands inside the ride. This gave me a more than disgusting look at the muncher on my leg. I realized immediately—from what I could see between crashing into obstacles—that this zombie was less decayed with more meat on his frame. What I initially believed was a one-armed zombie was actually a two-armed zombie. As it tried to grab my other leg, I started stomping at its head in mid-cruise.

  "Dags—you need to smite it!"

  Smite it? Who gave that man
a dictionary?

  One problem I'd come across when using the fire spell I'd received from the Grimoire was that it drained my energy. One or two big blasts and I was ready for a nap. Anything more than that and I was out cold. I had maybe one good blast left in the arsenal and I intended on keeping it handy.

  So smiting was out. But chopping was a good secondary. On command, a huge sword appeared in my outstretched right hand. I instantly put my other hand on the hilt—it wasn't a light-weight sword—and started hacking at the thing's head. I had to be careful for two reasons: one I didn't want to hack my own leg—it already had a bite in it that was stinging to high hell—and two, I didn't want the sword knocked out of my hands by passing obstacles.

  Luckily I wasn't clobbered by either as I successfully lopped off the thing's arms at their elbows. Somewhere in there we stopped moving and I continued rolling to my right. I didn't lose hold of the sword, but I did connect pretty hard with the side of a mausoleum. Those things are made of marble.

  Ouchmotherfucker.

  No stars this time, just the fringe of an inky blackness closing in from all sides. I could feel what was left of the bastard chewing on my muscle.

  That is not a sound I recommend anyone ever have burned onto the hard drive of their brain. One of being chewed…on…

  I managed to lift the sword and saw the head moving up and down just past my chest. I hacked at it again, but nothing was working. My position was too awkward. It was time for that second smiting and it didn't have to be a big one. The sword vanished and I held out my hand. "Isatum!"

  Fire flared from my palm and incinerated the zombie where it was. This was nothing like the floating embers from my fire before—this was vaporization Sci-Fi style. It was also an exhausting exercise and I lay on my back, panting, my eyelids heavy.

  The pain of the bite didn't disappear with the blast. I lay somewhere behind a huge marble structure with a bleeding zombie bite on my leg. My head hurt and I wanted to throw up. I wasn't even sure if Mike knew where I was or had seen where I'd been dragged.

  This was really bad.

  "Mi-Mike," I called out, but I wasn't sure if I used my outside voice or not. My ears felt stuffed with cotton. I recognized the signs of shock—and I was heading down that road. The bite was going to be bad enough—I mean, it was a ZOMBIE bite, for crying out loud. Mike was going to have to kill me now. If we pile on the fact I used magic spells twice and summoned the Guardian Sword…

  I was heading toward the great Land of La-La and not expecting to wake up.

  Something brushed against my neck, but I wasn't able to move. My eyes were closed, and a weight settled on top of me. "Mike…" I whispered. "It bit me…gonna have to kill me…"

  Soft laughter stayed my dive into oblivion for a few seconds as I felt knuckles brush against my cheek, and then a cool hand covered my eyes. "No…not tonight, my love. That's not something I can allow." The voice was female and the accent southern and sexy, but not one I recognized.

  The hand on my cheek moved my head to the left and I felt lips brush my neck. "Sshh…just relax, Guardian. It's not your time to die. I haven't even started with you yet."

  I felt a sharp pain where she kissed me, and then nothing.

  WHERE DiD THE BiTE GO?

  When I lose consciousness, there's nothing. Just a big black nothing. What brought me out of this one was a cold touch against my cheek, and then a hand on my forehead. I had a vague memory of my mother doing that when I was little and felt bad. Checking for fever? Did I have one? I didn't feel feverish. I felt…

  Oh God…sore as hell.

  I must've made a noise and moved, because the hand disappeared and whatever I was lying on bounced a bit as if someone sat down. "Oh fuck, you scared the shit out of me."

  It was Mike's voice. You know, for someone his size, he had a surprisingly soft tone. I think the word was melodic. It was enough to soothe my aching head.

  Sort of.

  The movement beside me set off a nasty woozy feeling in my stomach. Oh Gawd…stop. "Mike…moving…no…"

  "Oh, sorry." The bouncing beneath me eased so I assumed he stood up. "I'm pretty sure you've got a concussion, if not more, from several blows to your head. I swear it looked like they dragged you through every rock-strewn plot in the cemetery."

  A word caught my attention as I opened my eyes. "They?" Mike had to be kneeling beside me because he was really close as he did his helicopter mom act.

  When we met he was married, then he and Teresa separated and went through a pretty amicable divorce. He was also the father of a beautiful daughter, Brendi. Mike once ran a new age shop near the bar where I worked in Roswell, Georgia for a couple of years. Before I moved to Savannah.

  We were instant friends, sharing a fascination with the unexplained, the strange, and the unusual, as well as a healthy love of Dr. Who.

  The friendship took on a new level after I prevented him from making a deal with a nasty little spirit called a Cozen. Little fucker wanted Mike's soul and needed a kiss to seal the deal. I guess after that Mike felt he could trust me.

  "Yeah," Mike answered, and then rose and moved to stand near my legs. Oh right…the zombie bite! "There were at least four of them in the cemetery. When you took out the one swinging that stone, two more tag-teamed you."

  "Tag-teamed?"

  "It was actually quite intelligent, if a bit unorthodox. One used the other as a living—" he made air quotes for the word living "—extended arm. Held him out so he could grab your leg with his jaw, and while that one held on to you, the one with his legs in better shape took off running, holding the chomping one by its torso. Before I realized what'd happened to you, a fourth jumped in and tried to take a bite out of me."

  "Bite," I cleared my throat as I pushed myself up on my elbows. Whoa…I still wanted to throw up. "I got bit by a zombie."

  Mike frowned. "Yes. I saw it happen, but I haven't been able to find it."

  Huh? It took a bit of effort, but I pushed myself up into a sitting position. I wasn't wearing anything but a sheet. Dammit. I wish he'd stop undressing me. I pulled back the sheet and looked right at the place where I saw that creature bite me.

  There was a bruise—and that's it. Nothing else. I ran my fingers over it. Tender skin. A bit warmer but no bite mark. "Where…what…how…?"

  "That's pretty close to my reaction once I got you home." Mike pushed my legs out of the way and sat down on the edge of the bed, careful not to rock it this time. That's when I realized we were in my own bed in our townhouse in Old Savannah. I also noticed he'd been in here cleaning up again. Great. Now I wasn't going to find anything because Mike the Manager had gone and organized it. He gently lifted my leg and turned it to the left, then to the right. There was nothing there other than the tender bruise.

  "But I saw that thing bite me. Hell…I felt it bite me and it fucking hurt."

  He put my leg back on the bed and covered me with the sheet. I'm not sure I was that jazzed about his expression, since it was a mixture of relief and worry. But then, that was his normal scowl. "The good news—besides the fact it doesn't look as if I'll have to chop off your head to prevent your imminent zombie transformation—is that they're all dead. I was able to destroy all four and I bagged up their remains, or the remains I found, and burned them."

  I leaned back on my elbows. Damn, my head hurt. "And the bad news? Oh wait." My heart fell. "No book?"

  "Nothing. The mausoleum was empty—except for the bodies and a lot of dirty silk flowers."

  "So was it a setup? Or had there really been a book?"

  "I don't have your acute talent for magic sensing, so I don't know if a tome had been inside the mausoleum. I didn't find any physical evidence. As for whether we were set up or not, I've been wondering that myself. Whatever the reason, they were intent on dragging you off and not me."

  I pushed and pulled myself up on the bed into a sitting position again. Rubbing my hand on my face was just an excuse to pause and think. The reason w
e'd been in the cemetery was because someone we trusted assured us they knew where a piece of the Grimoire—the book in my soul—was hidden in Bonaventure Cemetery. I'd learned a month ago that the book still wasn't complete; that there were still several pieces of it missing. "Well, I'm not sure that's a setup or just that circle-of-life thing. I mean, a pack of animals usually goes after the smallest prey, right? And when I'm standing next to you, I disappear…"

  He didn't think I was funny. Didn't even crack a smile. Instead he narrowed his eyes at me. "Why don't you have a zombie bite?"

  "Look, Mike, if you'd rather cut off my head, instead of being happy that I'm not going to try and eat your face in your sleep—"

  When Mike punches, he does it with no holding back. Didn't matter how much smaller I was. So when he reached forward and popped the side of my jaw with a quick tap instead of his usual knuckle sandwich, I took note. The guy had been worried. About me.

  But then, given what we'd been through in the past months, I'd do anything for him. And if something happened to him, anything at all, I'm afraid whoever was responsible would die.

  By my hand.

  Mike pointed at me. "Pay attention. Besides not finding this tome Tango swore was in that mausoleum, we have to figure out why you looked tastier than me."

  "First we have to find out where the zombies come from and plug that hole. I don't know about you, but I've never seen zombies before. I thought they weren't real."

  "Oh, those were real all right. I haven't heard anything at the bar about zombies or any apocalypse. You?"

  "Nope." I moved back and swung my legs off the bed.

  "What're you doing?"

  "Getting up. I gotta pee, Mike. How long have I been out?"

  He checked his watch. I couldn't wear one of those. I always managed to stop them. Even pocket watches. "Well, it's Saturday morning, about eight thirty. A little over thirteen hours."