White Trash Zombie Gone Wild (25 page)

Using my jacket, I made a bundle of the brain packets then damn near skipped the rest of the way back. My car was right where I left it, but parked twenty yards beyond it was Judd's borrowed car and my last chance to find the second flash drive. I dumped the brain bundle on my hood then fished his keys from my pocket and went on to search the car from top to bottom.

Nothing even remotely resembling a flash drive. However I did find spark plug wires in the back seat as well as a phone that looked suspiciously like mine.

Shit.
I spun toward my car then groaned at the sparkle of broken glass beneath my passenger window. “Asshole,” I growled. Judd had wanted to be absolutely sure I couldn't get away from him.

But my years with Randy meant I knew how to reattach the wires. Once I did so, I crossed my fingers and cranked the engine, then let out a whoop when it started without a hitch.

“Suck it, Judd!”

It was several miles before my phone got a signal, at which time a bajillion missed calls, voicemails, and messages poured in—mostly from Nick, with two from Ben Roth, and a couple others from numbers I didn't recognize. Nick's were all of the “Are you okay?” variety, which I couldn't deal with until I dealt with Bear, so I went on to listen to the voicemail from the unknown number.

Angel.
A woman's stressed whisper, but deep as if she was trying to sound like a man. Traffic noise and clanging filled the background.
Just letting you know I sent the kid off safe and sound for his camping trip. My partner didn't want him to go, but it all worked out, so don't worry. I'm staying home for now.

I listened again to make sure I'd heard it right.
That was Andrew's bodyguard, Thea Braddock, calling from a pay phone.
Trouble must have rolled down about Andrew being a zombie, probably because Rosario—or even Andrew's other security guy, Tom Snyder—notified Nicole Saber that Marla indicated on Andrew at the Fest. However it happened, the fallout was serious enough that Andrew felt the need to activate his exit strategy. I played the voicemail a third time to be sure I understood her hidden message. Snyder wanted to take him to Nicole but Thea put a stop to that. Andrew was okay and safe, and Braddock was “home”—with Saberton—which told me she'd pulled the whole thing off in a way that didn't raise suspicion. And if I was a gambling girl, I'd bet that Ms. Eagle Eye Braddock had known Andrew was a zombie long before this shit came down.

Thank all the little pink gods, because now Andrew's safety was one worry off my plate. He was still in a crappy situation, but at least—for the moment—it was stable.

My first call was to my dad to tell him I was okay and that he needed to stay put for a bit longer. To my surprise he didn't argue or whine, and after a quick exchange of “love you”s, I hung up before his mood shifted. After that, I called the lab and got Jacques, then filled him in on Rosario and Bear. But when I told him about the Judd situation, I heard his shocked gasp.

“Dr. Nikas will want you to come in to be checked,” he said, agitated.

“I will,” I promised. “But if I don't deal with Bear and Rosario, it may not matter. We need that flash drive, and we need to plug the leaks.” With that, I told him where I left Judd's head and brain and how many brain packets I took, then made a quick goodbye and hung up before he could get Dr. Nikas, who I
knew
would tell me to come to the lab. I wouldn't be able to put him off anywhere near as easily.

But, right now, it was time to go on a Bear hunt.

The weather was lovely and perfect, which meant the streets of New Orleans were guaranteed to be packed to bursting with Mardi Gras day revelers. Normally a small parade of pickups and four-wheelers rolled through Tucker Point on Mardi Gras morning, but this year the Zombie Fest was hosting parades and shows and all sorts of cool stuff for a Fat Tuesday special event:
Laissez le bons cerveaux roulent
. Or, in English: Let the good brains roll.

As a result, Tucker Point was a ghost town.

Worked for me. The empty streets simply meant there was no one to get in my way.

The Bear's Den was closed for the holiday, but a check of the alley revealed Bear's truck parked by the back door.
Bingo.

Four more brain packets had my senses crackling with life, but even the over-tanking didn't change the condition of my face. Still grey with the nasty rot spot on my cheek, and my gauze pads were all somewhere in the swamp. My breath shuddered as I stared at my reflection in the rearview mirror and willed the rot to heal. The Fest ended this evening, which would also be the end of my “zombie makeup” excuse. Then again, I had plenty of sick leave saved up since my parasite kept me healthy. I could do some inpatient time with Dr. Nikas at the lab and get fixed up.

But if I couldn't find the flash drive and eliminate the immediate threat of exposure to me and the Tribe, there might not be a lab to go to.

After parking half a block down the street, I grabbed the tire iron from my car trunk then strode down the alley. My pulse quickened as I neared the back door. I wasn't going up against some random asshole here. Bear's entire existence centered on disaster preparedness and hardcore survival. I didn't have the “preparedness” bit down the same way, but I was the queen bitch of fighting for survival.

A security camera over the door covered about thirty feet of the alley approach. The instant I hit the surveillance perimeter I poured on super zombie speed in case Bear was near the monitor. Leaping mid-stride, I whacked the camera with the tire iron and sent it skittering down the alley, then whirled and jammed the pry bar end between door and frame, and wrenched hard. The door looked damn solid, and for an instant I thought the tire iron would break. Instead, I nearly sprawled on my ass when the unlocked door popped wide open, sending the tire iron flying down the alley and into a dumpster.

Well, that sure made things easier, even though I'd lost my weapon. No way Bear hadn't heard the whacking and jamming and wrenching, but at this point I was committed. I charged into the dark store and slung around a hallway corner. Light spilled from an open doorway near the end of the hall. I sprinted toward it, leaped and pushed off the opposite wall to propel myself into an office the size of my living room.

Gun in hand, Bear was only a couple of yards from the door. The slow spin of the chair behind the desk told me he'd been sitting there working on his laptop when he heard the noise, and I spared an instant to be impressed at the speed of his reaction. Even the sight of a flying Angel coming at him didn't catch him off guard. He fired from the hip and would have hit me if I'd been an inch wider in the gut.

Not that it made a difference, except that I wasn't
quite
as pissed when I plowed into him. He staggered back but stayed on his feet. I slammed a fist into his forearm, wrenched the gun from his spasming hand, then slung it across the room with enough force to send it through the drywall.

Bear knew how to fight. The instant the gun left his hand, he went for a knife on his belt, snapped it open and shoved it toward my gut. But my zombie reflexes were still singing happily. My hand clamped onto his wrist before the blade went in more than an inch.

“You're not playing very nice, Bear,” I snarled as I pulled free and sent the blade flying. “I just want to have a little chat, and here you're being an asshole.”

Jaw tight, he snapped out a punch. I ducked it, then grabbed the front of his shirt with both hands and slammed him against the wall. “What the fuck were you planning to do with me after Judd brought me in?” I yelled.

I lifted him several inches off the floor. He let out a shocked yelp and grabbed my forearms. “What in god's name are you talking about?”

I dropped him but kept my grip tight in his shirt and my expression fierce. He didn't need to know that I couldn't have held him up another second. The dude was big and
solid,
but my superpower display had been enough to pause his efforts to kill me. For the moment, at least. The look in his eyes was wary respect, not defeat.

“Judd told me the deal,” I said, letting a growl bleed into my words. “If he turned me over to
you
, dead or alive, you'd help him get a new identity and escape the cops.”

As I spoke, his expression went from incredulous to furious. “He's a goddamn liar and an idiot. A new identity? How the fuck am I supposed to do that?”

“Judd obviously thought you had a way,” I said. “And why wouldn't you help a member of your survivalist group?”

“Judd's not a member!” Bear snarled. “He's a hothead who only looks out for himself. That reckless, self-indulgent crap doesn't fly in my community.”

“Yeah, you're a real saint.” A saint who was also up to some shit. I didn't see a flash drive in the laptop, but I hadn't missed that Bear never once questioned
why
Judd would think I was worth capturing. Sneering, I released him and stepped back. “And you're so level-headed you gave your own son a black eye because he didn't toe your line. Is that how
you
fly?”

Face reddening, he lifted a fist. “You stay the fuck away from my son. I know what you are.”

“What is she, Dad?”

I jerked in surprise and turned to see Nick standing in the doorway, eyes wide and hands clenching and unclenching. Bear yanked his fist down to his side, but Nick had already seen his dad threaten me. Given the circumstances, I had zero motivation to explain the situation and let Bear off the hook.

Nick stepped forward, breathing hard. “What is she? A redneck? The wrong breeding stock? Or just ‘not good enough' for me? She's my friend, and I have every right to—” He swallowed and flicked a self-conscious glance at me. “—to hang out with anyone I want.”

Bear's lips pressed into a razor-thin line. He squared his shoulders to loom over me and Nick, then forcefully smoothed down the wrinkles on his shirt with both hands. Holy shitballs, the man knew how to be intimidating.

“You want to know what she is?” Bear said, voice mild and murderous. “How about you see for yourself.” He stepped to the desk and spun the laptop to face the room. I knew what was coming, felt the impending disaster and was helpless to stop it. Not without making it worse.

No flash drive in the laptop because he already copied the files.

Bear hit a key, and the screen filled with a video. Me in Kristi Charish's horrible lab at the abandoned car factory, my hand gripped tight in the hair of the piece of shit who brought me there—Walter McKinney. Faces were purposely blurred out, but anyone who knew me would recognize my bleached hair and scrawny butt. High-definition, color. No sound, thank god. Frozen, I watched video-me repeatedly slam McKinney's head into the bulletproof glass, then rip his skull open and gulp down his brain. On the screen I straightened, hands and mouth covered in gore, and with bloody bullet holes in my T-shirt.

Nick's expression melted into grief and horror that sliced right through my soul. His gaze cut to me for the barest instant—long enough to take in the grey skin and rotten spot on my cheek—before darting away again.

“Your girlfriend is a
zombie
, Nick,” Bear said as the video shifted to a new scene: Blurred video-me, looking every bit the monster as I bit and ripped and tore at the flesh of a big blond man.
Philip.

Nick slammed the laptop shut and backed against the wall, face white.

“Judd gave me a flash drive Saturday night,” Bear said. “He told me it would blow my mind, but he says that about all kinds of shit, so I ignored it. Until today, that is, when I heard he was a goddamn murder suspect and started thinking maybe the drive had something to do with that crap.” He folded his arms over his powerful chest and leveled a nasty smug smile at me.

The ice holding me immobile shattered. I rounded on Bear. “I'm part of a survivalist group, too, you festering asshole,” I shouted, voice cracking. “And all we want to do is
survive.
We're not monsters, but that man whose skull I smashed against the window
was
a monster. He murdered innocent people and kidnapped my dad to get to me. My
dad!
”

Bear's smile slipped, but I was too wound up to stop.

“That fucking worthless prick put me in an animal cage and brought me to that lab”—I stabbed my finger at the laptop—“so that I could be experimented on! I was lucky because I got out, but others like me haven't been. They get chained up and chopped up, over and over without anesthesia, in the name of research. That's my
family
in those horror show videos!”

Bear held his hands before him as if trying to calm a raging beast. “Angel, please settle down. We can—”

“Settle down?!” I grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and yanked it out to show the smears of mud, blood, and swamp slime. “See this? Wanna know why I'm so dirty? It's because your buddy Dante Rosario was hunting me through the swamp so
he
could capture me and put me in a cage and drag me to a lab. I got away this time, but he won't give up.”

Bear dropped his arms as I advanced on him. He opened his mouth to speak but I didn't give him the chance.

“Yeah, I got turned a year and a half ago, but I had zero say in it. None!” I stabbed a finger at him. “So, Mr. High and Mighty Bear Who Shits in the Woods, you tell me what the hell
you
would do if one day you woke up as a monster, and people were out to hurt you and your family and friends. Would you just roll over and take it?” I took a heaving breath. “All I want is to work and go to school and have a
life
without hurting anyone and without anyone fucking with me.” My throat was raw, and I realized I'd been shouting as I spewed out my rage. I couldn't bear to look at Nick again, but Bear's face was like stone.

The rage drained away, leaving me empty and exhausted. “I've been fighting to survive ever since I got turned,” I said, voice hoarse and thin. “But it's never going to stop. There's always going to be someone who wants to hurt or kill us.” I moved drunkenly to a chair and sagged into it. “Maybe I need to get the fucking message. Look at me, trying to be a hero. How the hell am I supposed to catch Rosario before he gets me? Who the fuck do I think I am?”

No one spoke. I half-expected Bear to grab a gun and put me out of everyone's misery right then and there, but he didn't move.

“You're Angel Crawford.”

I dragged my eyes up to Nick. “Huh?”

“You're Angel Crawford,” he repeated, though he couldn't bring himself to look at me. “You're the girl who doesn't back away from a challenge when it matters. I still remember your first day. I detested you on sight, because you didn't seem to give a shit about anyone or anything.”

I winced. “You weren't wrong.”

Nick snorted. “I knew I was going to waste time training you only to have you quit or be fired in a few weeks, so I figured I'd make you puke and chicken out.” He shook his head. “But you didn't. You weren't going to let me win. Then you decided to get your GED, and so you did.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he rolled right over me. “Then you started college, because you want to do better.
Be
better. Now this asshole Rosario wants to take all that away from you
and
your
 . . .
people. And you're going to let him?”

My stupid eyes picked that moment to swim with tears. “No.”

Nick took a deep breath, nodded and turned to Bear—who could have been carved from granite for all the reaction he showed to my tirade.

“I'm not going to med school in the fall, Dad,” Nick said without ceremony, though I noted the slight tremble in his hands. “And I'm
not
going to be a surgeon. Ever. I've already talked to Allen and Dr. Leblanc about staying on as a death investigator for at least two more years. I'll reconsider my options then, but if I decide to go to med school it'll be in forensic pathology, which actually interests me.” He took a breath as if drawing in composure for a speech he'd obviously rehearsed a million times. “Also, I'm volunteering in the Central African Republic this summer with a medical relief team. And . . . I'm trying out for
Les Misérables
next week at Tucker Point Little Theater.”

Bear remained silent and stony for at least a dozen agonizing seconds before he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, shit.” He gave me a frown as if I'd suddenly become a referee to keep everything civil. Weird. Not that I minded the unexpected shift away from the Angel-is-a-zombie crisis. He sighed again and shifted his frown to Nick, though it was a thoughtful frown and not scary. So far. “Just as well. You'd probably wash out of a surgical residency.”

“Oh my god, really?” I said in exasperation as Nick flinched. “Could you try again with a little less Asshole?”

“What? Oh.” Bear grimaced. “Shit. I didn't mean it like that, Nick. I meant that you have to
want
that kind of thing if you're going to survive the grinder.” He exhaled. “Sure, a trauma surgeon would help our community, but it's no damn good if your heart's not in it.”

Nick blinked. “Um, right. Exactly.”

“It's a big dream, being a surgeon,” Bear said. “I wanted it
for
you. I thought you wanted it too and just needed the push.”