In a forested area just outside the city limits, a girl stared in horror at a man who had just come walking out of the woods.
The little girl looked terrified, but Defago had worked with this situation before. In many a day he’d lost his disguise and needed a quick replacement, and adults would never do. Even in his fully human form he looked like he was seconds away from death, and the ones that didn’t run away were too spooked to ever sell him anything. Buch children were differentóall you needed to do was tell them that you were fine and give them a smile, and they believed you.
Defago had found this young girl just outside the city, scrounging for food. He made sure to approach from a direction she could see him so as not to scare her too badly.
She was still pretty scared, though.”
“Ah! A friendly face!” the Quebecer said with a warm smile. “Sorry to bother you, but can I have a minute? My name’s Defago! What’s your name?”
The girl didn’t answer. “Y… Your face…”
Defago gave a sad, self-concious look. “Oh, this…” he laughed. “Sorry about that! I’m rehearsin’ for a play in a couple o’ days.”
“A play?” the girl asked.
“C'est vrai! I’m an actor!” he said with a grin. “A method actor, ter be exact! You know what that is?”
The girl shook her head. She was walking backwards a bit. Defago sat on the ground so he wouldn’t seem so tall.
“It’s when you go out and you try to play the role in real life. You know, fer practice! Kinda like the reverse of studyin’ in schoolóinstead a sittin’ indoors and learnin’ how to do somethin in the real world, you do somethin’ in the real world to learn how ta do somethin’ indoors. Neat, eh?”
He took out a canteen and drank it, turning away from the girl a little. That seemed to work. She seemed less scared of him when he was in an inconvenient position to attack her.
“So… is that make up your wearing, then?” Defago nodded as he wiped his lips.
“Yep! Pretty good, eh?" the quebecer said as he opened his arms proudly. "I’m playin’ a zombie for my big performance. Never thought you’d see a zombie at stage play, huh? Only boring cos-toomes with big frills and fancy wigs.”
He did a sitting impression of a dandy walking about with his rear stuck out and his lips curled in like a turtle. The girl laughed. “Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Defago agreed. The pain in his feet was excrutiatingówithout any ice water to cool their burning need to travel, he had to settle with wrapping them in scraps.“But I have a problem.”
“A problem?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah. Ya’see, I thought it would be a good idea to go out here n’ make up to better get into the role.” He lifted his hands. “Then I realizedóthis make up takes a long time to put on! A plumb long time! You wanna guess how long?”
The little girl put a thumb to her chin. “… Fifteen minutes?”
“Four hours.”
“No way!” the girl said in amazement. “Oh, it’s true,” Defago said gravely. “And I don’t want to have to wait another four hours to put it on again.” He looked to the town. “But at the same time, I know all the folks in the city’ll be ascared of me if they see me like this. If I cause a big panic, my career’ll be ruined!”
“Oh… I’m sorry,” the little girl said as she took a few steps closer. “You don’t look THAT scary. I’ve seen people on TV that looked scarier.”
“TV, you say?” Defago asked, sensing he only needed to press a little harder. “I used to act on TV… It was awful. An’ if I blow this next part, I’ll probably have to go back to doin’ commercials again.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” the little girl said. Defago laughed a little. Despite the clear state of poverty the little one was in, that hadn’t taken her lively childhood innocence.
“Oh, it was,” Defago insisted, turning around in his sit to face the girl. “You know… jus’ a few days ago I has this guy come runnin’ up to me, an he says to me “Haven't I seen you on TV?, and well I says to himóI’m flattered and allóand I says “Well, I do appear, on and off, you know. How do you like me?” An you know what the fella says?”
The girl shook her head.
“Off.” That got a churlish giggle out of her and Defago groaned. “It’s not funny!”
“It is a little,” the girl teased, to which Defago gave a conceding nod. “Well… maybe a little, but I’d rather not have to face all that again. I need to find a way to go into town without people seein’ my face or washin’ off my makeup.”
He tried not to look a the particularly well suited cloth rag she was holding, as he felt that would be too obvious. Thankfully, he didn’t need to. She jumped to the conclusion for him.
“Maybe you could wrap your face in this cloth? That’d work, right?”
“Oh, no no no,” Defago said. “I don’t accept hand outs from strangers. I’d have to pay you for it.”
“Pay?” the girl said, her eyes shining a little. She began to walk over to him, her hand outstretched with the rag she had been holding.
ëBITE HER,’ a deep, dark part of his mind commanded him. And for a moment he really did want to bite herósomething in him told him that if he did, all the horrible, never ending hunger would be satiated for a moment. But Defago was used to these moments.
ëOh, va te faire foutre, ya devil,’ he thought as he suppressed the urged, concentrating to keep his composure. He gladly took the cloth a smile. “Ah, well… since you’re bein’ so kind to me,” Defago said with a beaming smile.
“I should tell you somethin’. I’m not really a broke theater actoróI’mma rich theater actor. An’ you passed my test.”
The girl blinked. “What?”
Defago stood up, and produced a thick wad of cash from his pocket. The little girl’s jaw dropped. She had never seen so much money in her life.
“I don’t have much in my life to spend on,” Defago said, for once telling the truth. “For all the money I have, it don’t do much for me. That’s why I like to give it to people who I think deserve it. People need to be nicer to each other in the worldóI sure wish people were nicer to me when I was your age.” He took the rag from her and put the entirety of the money he got from smuggling the zombie-making formula into the little girl’s hand. The girl was speechless for a moment, and then her face came to life.
“Oh my god! Thanks mister Defago! I-… I don’t even know what to say!” Light dazzled from the girl’s eyes. It was a kind of face you couldn’t fakeóno movie actress had ever captured a look of joy so utterly complete as was on her face. That eased Defago’s guilt more than he felt he deserved.
“Ah, how about you surprise your momma with something nice when you get home, eh?” Defago said with a smile.
“Thank you so so much!” the girl said as she gave him a hug. He tried to control his body temperature so she wouldn’t notice how cold his skin felt. She didn’t seem to notice. “I-I can’t believe this is happening!”
“Hehe, neither can I,” he said cryptically. “Thank you so much for the cloth: I’ll be happy to wear it,” he said with a smile, and drapped the long cloth over his head, covering it. It wasn’t as much cover as the helmet, but it would do nicely. "Alright, alright," he said, as he tapped the girl to stop hugging him. "Now go on home. It's gonna be late soon and you're mamma and papa are gonna wanna be awake for what you have to tell them, yeah?"
"Yeah!" the girl cried, practically jumping up and down in happiness. She started to turn and run back to the city. "Thank you so much for this! You're like a dream come true!"
“Hey!” Defago called out as she was almost out of sight. “I never caught your name!”
“My name is Lucy! Lucy Jones!” the girl said as she turned around, still walking backwards from all the energy she got from knowing her family wouldn’t go hungry again for quite some time.
“If you’re ever in the city, my address is 4634 Sandlewood lane! I’ll never forget you for this, Defago!”
Defago smiled as he waved her away. He counted it as the easy high point in this whole dreadful affair . Sighing, he headed into the city, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
This was the last timeóthe last timeóhe would ever take a job from that le salaud ever again. “If I ever get my hands on him, I’m gonna kill him,” Defago said through gritted teeth as he walked into the city, and as he said so la b’te maudite took some control and made his eyes glow yellow. He quickly batted it back, and pulled his coat tighter around him. He was getting some weird looks in the street, but no screams or sudden movements. That was good.
In all honesty, he only used the money he got for trinket nicetiesóbeer, vodka, wine, whiskey. None of it filled him, but thankfully it could still get him drunk. And it bought him new clothes, and occasionally a more leisurely, comfortable form of travel than the sheering howl of chasing the icy winds. But travel he mustóalways. Staying in any one place for too long made him burnóboth of him. Himself, Defago, and la b’te maudite. Smuggling was a natural way of getting some money and satiating his need to travelóbeing what he was, he could go to the most dangerous and secluded places without fear of death.
ëI shouldn’ta given ëim so much control back there,’ Defago cursed himself in his thoughts. ëI shouldn’ta. Those two boys er probably dead now… and that formula they were after…’
He honestly had only some memory of the fight with the two AMS agents. When he let la b’te maudite have considerable control, it was like being half unconscious, like a car crash victim who saw the world as a disconnected blur with brief flashes of terrible lucidity.
And yet he felt that he had toóthe steel in their eyes was no joke. They had seen things more terrible than the likes of him, he had no doubt about that. That line about that little Maine town spooked him badly. He had, in fact, not only personally seen that ol’ Micmac cemetery, but he knew exactly who cursed it, too. One of the worst of the worst among his kind…
The idea that he was even moderately tied to that dreadful place pushed him to make a bad decision. He gave la b’te maudite too much freedom in exchange for power, and that got both of those men killed.
He still had one of their bullets in his pocket. He had no idea why they interfered with his regeneration like they did, but they still weren’t enough to kill him. That burned man had bullets that did something similar, but they felt different. He didn't know if that third man was an AMS agent as well, but somehow he doubted it. There was an aura to that fellow that had made Defago uneasy even as he was sitting peacefully in the stadium stands. One full of fire and wrath.
But wether he was or wasn't, he did definetly kill two of their agents, and he truly believed what Rogan had said to him: that zombie-hunting organization won't let him slip away after this, particularly if they knew about Ludlow. He lived to see both World Wars, the cold wars, and even the spread of electricity, but he remembered the headlines of terrible creatures turning ol' Venice Italy to ruin on two separate occasions. Not just zombies-- other things. Things that looked they walked straight out of someone's nightmares.
“Formula Type-0, ëThe Magician’…” Strange name for a zombie making formula, but then again, what did he know about making zombies? It was the one thing he knew he could do that he never attempted. He had a monster inside himóthat didn’t make him a monster. He wasn’t gonna go stir up souls from their sleep.
Then, as he walked, he thought back to the man he had handed the suitcase full of vials off to. Like him, he had been heavily clothed. He honestly didn't know his name-- he just wordlessly gave him the money, took the suitcase, and ran off. It wasn't uncommon in his line of work.
But although he didn't get a look at him, he sure got a smell of him.
“I’m gonna find that man,” he said calmly as he walked down the busy streets. “And I’m gonna make him tell me what the hell he plans to do with that stuff.”
It wouldn’t bring those two men back to life… but it would maybe give him a smidgen of personal redemption to make sure that their fears never came true. Probably lose a lot of credit to his name as a smuggler to harass a client like that, but that was okay. There were other ways of making beer money at the end of the day.
But before anything else, he needed to get some ice water. Some ice water and some new metal boots.
