Maybe she was already crazy? Maybe she should become a museum curator just to make sure objects like those didn’t wind up in the wrong hands.
Once Jessie was gone, Jürg spoke up. “That’s the fourth one to turn you down, old girl.”
“Yes, so sorry, my dear, but at least you are protected and well cared for here,” Tessa added.
“Indeed, it is better than when I was lost in the peat bogs for countless years,” Vala said. “Still, this one holds promise . . . and she may, in time, change her mind.”
“Quite,” Jürg agreed.
“Perhaps you should leave out the part about gelding men,” Tessa said. “It seems to make them quite uncomfortable.”
“Mmm, indeed,” Jürg concurred.
“Oh do shut up, both of you,” Vala said, putting an end to the discussion.
Bite Me
by Steven Harper Piziks
The zombie woman with her hair in a bun lunged at Dagmar, inasmuch as a zombie could lunge. It was more like a lurch. Or maybe a careen. Whatever she was doing, her teeth snapped like a turtle’s beak. Dagmar batted her—it—aside with the flat of her blade and kept running.
“Eat eat eat,” said the zombie in a kindly voice.
“Why didn’t you cut it?” panted her brother Ramdane as the zombie lady dropped away behind them.
“And get zombie goo on both of us?” she panted back. “No thanks.” One bite or scratch, and it was an eternity of lurch for you, everyone knew that.
One zombie by itself wasn’t much trouble. You got some decent distance from it, and then shot flaming arrows at it. Fwoop and done. The trouble was, zombies always traveled with friends. Or companions. Or whatever it was zombies had. This one was no exception. Several dozen more tried to lunge—or lurch or careen—toward her and Ramdane from the houses and shops lining the village road. Their yellowed teeth snapped with a hundred cold clicks that chilled Dagmar to the marrow. So much for finding a kindly innkeeper or friendly baker for the night. Dagmar had even been hoping for a handsome baker’s son, though she would have taken strapping, too. Strapping was always good. You knew where you stood with strapping. Instead, they’d gotten a village full of zombies.
Ahead, at the top of a hill near the north end of the village, sat a stone keep. Ramdane ran for it as only a talismonger could run, his talismans bouncing and jingling on his belt. With his curly brown hair, whipcord build, and wide blue eyes, he looked like a terrified scarecrow. Dagmar had a blockier build and straight, ash-blond hair, with the marks and scars that bespoke her profession as a mercenary. A tired mercenary. Beside them trotted Ramdane’s familiar, Crystamel. She currently wore the shape of a small, white dog and she looked not at all worried—zombies didn’t lunge for animated clay statues, no matter how lifelike.
Zombies horded into the street like a swarm of elderly bees. Groaning and shuddering, they reached for Dagmar and Ramdane as they ran beneath the afternoon sun. The links of Dagmar’s armor clinked and jingled. The mail was hot and it chafed, but at the moment, she was enormously grateful she’d put it on this morning. The zombies couldn’t bite through it. A warrior’s armor protected her while she fought to the death. Or undeath, in this case.
Unfortunately, Ramdane didn’t have this particular security blanket. On the other hand, they had puffed more than halfway through town, and the zombies at the other end apparently hadn’t gotten the word about the recently arrived free-range lunch, because the street ahead was still clear, even as the street behind them filled with undead townspeople.
“The entire town was zombified?” Ramdane panted. He wasn’t in great physical shape—too skinny—and the big sister inside Dagmar filed this away to force him into exercising later—if they lived.
“Looks like.” Dagmar grabbed his arm and hauled him forward. “Can’t any of your talismans slow them down?”
“I can’t concentrate and run,” he puffed. “Head for the keep. They might be—”
“Look out!” Crystamel barked, literally.
They had drifted from the center of the road toward one of the houses. From the rooftop dropped a child zombie, a little boy. Dagmar shoved Ramdane aside, but the motion cost her time. The pint-sized zombie landed like a monkey on her back. The smell of bad meat engulfed her. Dagmar snatched at him to fling him away. She grabbed him, and his teeth snapped at her bare hand. She flicked him aside just in time, thank all gods. One bite, and