White Trash Zombie Gone Wild (6 page)

But it would only take one credible person blabbing to destroy our way of life.

Philip swayed and grabbed at the exam table for support. “Sorry. I have to go rest and let this treatment do its job.”

“No prob.” I gave him a quick hug. “Take care of yourself.” Moving carefully, he left the treatment room. I waited until he was far down the hall then yanked the fridge open and pulled out the three vials of precious V12. The last three in existence. A tremble went through me as I stared at them, and I quickly closed my hand, suddenly terrified of dropping the vials and losing this last bit of the mod. I carefully tucked the full vials into the right side pocket of my cargo pants then stowed a new empty vial, a bottle of saline, and a syringe in the left.

I clenched my hands to control their shaking. Too much was happening at once. Exodus project? Permanent relocation? I didn't want to leave St. Edwards Parish and my job and school. Hell, I'd finally settled into this whole responsible adult thing, and now I was supposed to start over?

And what about my dad? If family members were considered problematic, would the Tribe leave non-zombies behind? No way would I leave him. But if the situation was so bad the Tribe had to skedaddle, then my dad would be at risk simply for being my dad.

My pulse raced, and my chest tightened to where I could barely suck in a breath.

I can't handle this right now.
Running out of V12 forever. Giving up everything I have here. Leaving.

A dose. I needed one, more than ever. Needed to take the edge off, enough to let me function and get through all this crap.

I scurried to the bathroom down the hall and locked the door, put the toilet lid down and sat. I had my skimming routine down. Suck ten percent out of each full-strength vial and squirt it into an empty vial. Replace the missing mod with saline. Easy. V12 looked like water, so no one ever noticed the dilution.

Syringe in hand, I hesitated as sick guilt rose. Was Philip's current state of pre-rot the result of the diluted mod?

No. I'd been skimming for almost four months, and only a little from each vial. He would've shown symptoms before now. A wave of relief washed through me. That made sense. Besides, no matter what caused it, Dr. Nikas would fix Philip up with a new formula and he'd be fine again.

But what about me?
I wouldn't make it through school and all the other crap without V12. I lined the three vials up on the edge of the sink and stared at them glumly. Now that Philip wasn't using it anymore, this was the last of the formula—ever.

So, why do I still need to skim and dilute?

Why indeed. It didn't matter how much I diluted the vials this time. Ten percent? How 'bout a hundred? Replace
all
of it with saline. The vials were going to get tossed out anyway, and it'd be a crying shame to let all that pretty V12 go to waste. All I needed was two more empty vials from the drawer by the fridge.

But, first things first.

I sucked a dose into the syringe and injected it under my skin. Worry slipped away like a greased pig on ice, and I let out a pleased sigh. There was no need to get all worked up about a zombie exodus. Anyone who started blabbing about brain-eating zombies would get locked up in the psych ward. Only crazy people believed in real zombies. A laugh bubbled out.
Yup, we're all crazy here!

Okay,
now
I was ready to take care of the rest of my business. I shoved the vials back into my pocket and dashed back to the treatment room accompanied by a whirl of happy snowflake sparkles. It sucked that the formula would change, but in about two minutes I'd have more V12 in my possession than ever before. Philip used a full vial at a time, but I only needed one cc to do the trick. If I rationed it out carefully, I'd be set for two months at the very least. That would give me plenty of time to test other formulas until I found one that worked as well.

Delighted with the genius of my plan, I fished two empty vials from the drawer and did a happy dance as I dropped them into my pocket.

“Angel.”

My heart nearly exploded as I spun to face Dr. Nikas. The vials clinked in my pocket with the movement. “Uh, hey, Dr. Nikas. How's things?”

Soft brown eyes regarded me from his ancient, unwrinkled face. “I wasn't expecting you today.”

I put on my best innocent expression and casually sidestepped to stand in front of the fridge. “I figured I'd come in and change Kang's tank today instead of tomorrow. That way I can go to the Zombie Fest. You know, because Pierce needs me to keep a lookout for anything weird.” The premeditated lie stuck like sawdust in my throat. Dr. Nikas was the kindest person I'd ever met. I shifted to open the fridge, quickly pulled out the bottle of nutrient sludge I needed for Kang's tank and waggled it. Fireflies crawled over my skin like a mass of ants wearing high heels.

“I shouldn't have taken—” The confession fought to spill out, but I clamped down on it. Hard. My suppressed impulse control from the V12, trying to bite me in the ass. Sweat dribbled down my sides. “I, uh, shouldn't have taken advantage of your flexibility without calling first.”

His nostrils flared, and my paranoia imagined his ancient zombie senses picking up my fear, smelling the vials in my pocket, and knowing exactly what I was up to. But to my relief he simply nodded then gestured at the fridge. “We should decrease the temperature to two degrees to accommodate a batch of new samples. It is set on four now, yes?”

“I can take care that.” I fumbled with the number pad of the thermostat. Being sneaky around Allen and my co-workers about stealing brains didn't bother me since that was a life-or-death issue, and therefore I'd never worried about the lowered impulse control leading me to confess. But lying to Dr. Nikas's face about the V12 was a whole different matter.

“When was the last time you saw Philip?”

“About ten minutes ago. He said you're making a new formula for him.” I punched in the new temperature with a shaking hand. “Two degrees Celsius. Done.”

“He's had a difficult week.”

“He sure looked bad. Poor guy.” I pretended to make another adjustment on the refrigerator. “Do you need blood from me for the new treatment?”

“No. That won't be necessary. I know what the problem is now and will address it.”

“That's terrific. Lemme know if there's anything I can do to help.”

“I will. You have a good afternoon.”

“You too, Dr. Nikas.” I listened to him walk out of the room then slumped, relieved to have dodged another bullet. Had I missed the memo about it being Almost-Get-Caught-By-Your-Boss Day? This close shave stuff was going to wear me out.

Maybe I needed to abandon the whole drug heist plan? A millisecond later I squashed that idea. This was the last of the V12. Forever. It would be pure insanity to let this opportunity pass by.

Dr. Nikas's voice drifted in from the central lab as he spoke to one of his techs. I hurried to the bathroom and made the switch. Three new vials full of V12. Three original vials full of saline. I shuttled the saline-filled vials back to the refrigerator and arranged them on the shelf in perfect alignment. No one would be the wiser.

So why did I feel like shit? I'd skimmed lots of times before. Or maybe it had nothing to do with a guilty conscience. The side effects of V12 were unpredictable. Every now and then a yucky everything's-my-fault feeling came on the heels of I-can-handle-anything. I could deal with a measly side effect. Bottom line, I wasn't hurting anyone. What was there to feel crummy about?

I closed the fridge. In fact, I was a goddamn conservationist. I'd saved all of that perfectly good V12 from being wasted.

Humming under my breath, I damn near skipped down the corridor to the Head Room. In an hour, maybe less, I'd be done with work and safely out with the vials. An odd cinnamon scent wafted over me as I made my way with a spring in my step, but I didn't see a source and put it out of my mind as I reached my destination.

The Head Room was, hands down, the creepy-coolest place in the lab. Within, four stainless steel vats the size of big crockpots held zombie heads, grim remains of Ed Quinn's zombie hunting rampage. A lifelong friend of Marcus, Ed was another victim of Dr. Charish's manipulation. She'd molded him into a murdering zombie hunter by playing on his belief that a zombie had killed his parents, all so he'd collect the zombie heads she wanted for research. And, of course, she'd let him take the full rap once the cops identified him as a serial killer. Cold-blooded bitch.

The good news was that the Tribe managed to recover the heads, and five currently survived in stasis—a form of parasite hibernation. The bad news was that the nutrient stuff they floated in wasn't quite right yet, which was why only one of them had started regrowing. Dr. Nikas had said that if he could determine the missing factor, he'd also be a step closer to creating fake brains, and zombies wouldn't have to rely on human brains anymore.

Despite the not-quite-right nutrient, one head had made significant progress. Over the past six months, a fetus-like body had budded from his severed neck and developed rapidly. John Kang, the first zombie I met after I was turned. In the short time I'd known him, we had several rocky interactions, including one where I tried to warn him that the serial killer was targeting zombies. He hadn't listened and ended up decapitated. Still, I learned a lot about being a zombie from him, and I liked the idea that he might not be permanently dead.

He'd grown out of the crockpot and now lay suspended in slug snot within a glass coffin-like tank. It wasn't actually slug snot. Or any kind of snot. Dr. Nikas called it Nutrient Medium 42, but it looked and felt like a bucket of slug slime mixed into a barrel of cloudy mucus with a cup of blood thrown in to give it a gross pink tinge. Barf.

Changing Kang's gloop was one of my regular duties, but as I entered I noted snot already blop-blopping into the floor drain from a hose attached to the spigot of his tank. No complaints from me. That meant I'd be out of here that much faster.

I put on a plastic apron, then hosed water into the tank, thinning the snot to help it drain quicker. Soon Kang lay exposed, naked, grey-skinned, and as still as a corpse. I skimmed a gaze over him. He'd grown. Last week he'd been a good half a foot shorter and a lot more wrinkled. Now his body looked full-size, no longer too small for his head.

The lab had tablets to track data, and an app especially for Kang. I dutifully took and entered all forty-four measurements—everything from overall length to circumference of his chest to size of his boy parts. I smiled as I noted that he'd made significant growth on all counts.

The door clicked, and Jacques Leroux entered, pushing a cart loaded down with a giant crockpot, a bucket, and a case of gauze bandage rolls. He was one of Dr. Nikas's live-in lab assistants—slender and with skin so pale it was as if he hadn't set foot outside for a century. He had the most amazingly expressive hazel eyes, though they always held a faintly haunted look as if he'd just woken up from a nightmare.

The cinnamon scent came with him and seemed to originate from the crockpot.

“Length?” he asked.

I didn't take his brusque manner personally. He wasn't much of a talker. I checked the tablet entry. “Up sixteen point five one centimeters.”

Jacques set the tray on the counter then snatched the tablet from me. “Length, one seventy-three point four.”

Weird. He wasn't usually
this
abrupt. “Isn't that full growth?”

Jacques ignored me and muttered under his breath as he scanned the measurements. After about half a minute of waiting for a reply, I gave up and started to unseal a fresh barrel of slug slime for Kang's tank.

“No nutrient medium,” Jacques snapped. “We're wrapping him.” With that, he shoved the tablet back into my hands and departed.

MegaWeird. I peered into the crockpot and saw that it held melted paraffin with plenty of cinnamon. The bucket contained brains pureed with . . . something. I leaned close and sniffed. Honey? I groaned under my breath. I had no idea what all this was for, but anything that involved wrapping Kang was sure to take longer than refilling the tank. Guess I wasn't getting out of here anytime soon.

Jacques returned with a gurney and pushed it close to the side of the tank.

“Why are we wrapping him?” I asked as I helped lift Kang onto the gurney.

Jacques busied himself with opening the case of gauze, then shifted to stir the paraffin. “Pierce wants Kang awake sooner rather than later,” he said at last, stress winding through his normally calm and even voice. “And now that Kang has reached full growth, Pierce will be relentless.”

Ever since Kang's head had been brought to the lab for regrowth, Pierce had pressured Dr. Nikas about how much memory Kang would retain, if and when he woke up. I couldn't imagine what he wanted from a small-time local zombie like Kang, and Pierce flat out refused to share. “What changed?” I asked.

“Pierce is impatient.”

Only about this. In everything else, as far as I could tell, Pietro/Pierce had always displayed careful patience. “Do you know what he wants from Kang?”

He set the bucket of pureed brains on the edge of the gurney. “Rub this on him. Every bit of exposed skin.”

I stuck my hands into the puree then dropped a glob on Kang's chest. “What exactly are we doing?”

Jacques went still for a moment, then I jerked in surprise as he hefted the case of gauze and hurled it to crash against the wall, sending bandage rolls flying out like popcorn. I stared, flabbergasted, while Jacques stood among the scattered bandages, his chest heaving and color high in his cheeks.

I'd never even heard Jacques raise his voice before now. “Is something wrong? I can call Dr. Nikas. I mean, if you—”

“No!” he said then, more quietly, “No.” He squatted and began to gather bandage rolls and toss them back in the box. “Mobility.”

“What?”

“That's the other reason we're going to wrap Kang. The tank is unwieldy.”

“Where's he going?” Yet as the words left my mouth, the ugly picture came together. Scowling, I smeared the brain puree over Kang's chest. “Pierce's top priority is prepping for the exodus of the Tribe. Kang's some sort of asset to him, and he wants to kickstart Kang's recovery
and
make sure he survives the move.”

Jacques gave a sharp nod. He stood and dropped the case of gauze onto the cart, then began to unwrap bandage rolls, jaw tight.

“You don't
want
to be mobile, do you,” I said. “You've been through this exodus thing before.”

He released a long breath. “Twice.”

Jacques had never revealed even this much personal information to me before. “It's bad?” I asked.

He lapsed into silence. I took the hint and returned to goop-smearing while I did my own quiet pondering. Jacques's reaction to a possible exodus didn't put me at ease.

Once I had Kang slathered in brain puree, Jacques tossed me a bandage roll, then unwound one of his own and dipped it into the melted paraffin and cinnamon. I followed suit, and together we worked meticulously to mummy-wrap Kang.

I finished Kang's right arm and pressed the end of the gauze to seal it. “Fake brains would help. Stop the need to run, I mean.” Non-zombies would have a lot less reason to condemn us as monsters if we didn't rely on eating their relatives.

Jacques met my eyes. “Pseudobrains are our greatest hope of salvation.”

“Dr. Nikas is close to developing them.” It was a statement and a question.

Jacques smoothed out a lump of paraffin. “It's Pierce's belief that Kang knows what we're missing, or part of it, at least.”

“So that's what he wants so bad,” I murmured then frowned up at Jacques. “Hang on. Is that why Kang's the only one who's regrown his body? Because he has the missing whatever it is?”

“That's Dr. Nikas's theory.”

I started to run my goopy fingers through my hair and caught myself in the nick of time. “Holy crap. Did Kang
know
he had this super thingy that'll save us all?”

Jacques spread his own goopy hands. “That, I don't know.”

More questions crowded in, but I realized Jacques likely wouldn't know the answers. Plus, if I kept pestering him, we'd never finish wrapping Kang. Better for now to see if I could come up with answers on my own, like I had with my theory of why Kang regrew.

“I don't want to do this exodus bullshit either,” I said as I helped sit Kang up to wrap his torso. “We'll have to do everything we can to avoid being exposed until Kang's awake and Dr. Nikas creates the fake brains.”

“And pray that Dr. Nikas succeeds before Pierce decides the risk is too high for us to remain.” He exhaled, shoulders drooping. “The noose tightens.”

He sounded miserable, as if he was watching hope unravel. Anger stirred in my gut on his behalf. To hell with the tightening noose. None of us wanted exodus. Even though I wasn't working with the head honchos, there was plenty I could do to pull my weight and do whatever needed to be done. We'd get out of this mess. Somehow.

We finished Kang's torso and laid him flat again, then I began on his lower legs while Jacques wrapped his head. Brain hunger nipped at me as a tingle began in my fingers, but the simple rhythm of dip-and-wrap helped me ignore it. We worked in silence, and at long last Kang was a fully wrapped, bona fide, zombie mummy thing.

Jacques stepped back and peeled paraffin from his hands. “Thank you,” he said with sincerity as he headed for the door. “I'll get the final data and meet you in the hub.”

I gave him a smile as I cleaned up. “It's not over yet. We'll hold it together until Dr. Nikas concocts the fake brains to save us from the mobs.”

“To save us from ourselves.” His eyes were liquid sorrow as they met mine. “I slew and ate those I held most dear. We
are
monsters.”

•   •   •

By the time Jacques gave me the readings from Kang's assessment, I'd managed to shake most of the sick fear his statement had created. Ate those he held dear? No wonder he looked haunted. Monsters. He'd nailed it. There was no sugar-coating the truth.

On a less horrific but more annoying note, the tingle in my fingers had crawled up my arms. My typing speed wasn't epic to begin with, and it took me twice as long as usual to enter the information in the computer. It was way past time to get my butt out to the car and top off with brains. I glanced at my watch. Only two hours since my last dose of V12. It usually lasted closer to six, but I'd no doubt burned through it faster with all the stress. I'd give myself a little bump as soon as I made it to the car. After all, I wasn't going to run out of my special mod any time soon.

Humming to myself in happy anticipation, I grabbed my bag and headed for the sliding doors.

“Angel.”

I stopped and gave a bright smile across the hub to Dr. Nikas. “Did I forget something?”

He didn't return the smile. “Could I see you in my office, please?” He gestured toward his door.

My expression felt as brittle as a frozen spider web. I followed him into his office, heart thudding unevenly. We had a tight-knit work crew at the lab: Reg, Jacques, Dr. Nikas, and me. Not much was said behind closed doors. The urge rose to stick my hand in my pocket and close my fist over the vials, and it took every speck of my self-control to resist it.

I blinked into brilliant sunshine streaming from a screen that covered the entire far wall of the office. Gulls wheeled over white sand and a turquoise sea, their cries mingling with the rustle of surf. A breeze carried the scent of salt and subtle flowers. An ambiance immersion system. Dr. Nikas tapped in a code on the system console and plunged us into silent darkness. Another tap, and the wall displayed a rainforest, the light subdued and filtered by the leafy canopy. Birdsong. The babble of a stream. Calm. Peaceful.

He stood with his back to me, as still as a column of granite, his gaze on the sanctuary of the forest. He didn't go out much, and I suspected the ambiance systems in his office and living quarters helped keep him connected. And sane. Centuries ago, a brutal zombie-hating mob—tipped off by his wife after she discovered what he was—broke him in ways I didn't even want to consider. He coped by withdrawing. But he'd never really recovered.

The seconds dragged by. I fidgeted and tried not to worry. Not easy with the borrowed V12 vials in my pocket. But this meeting wasn't about that. He needed a little break, that was all. Dr. Nikas's statue impersonation had nothing to do with me. Not one thing.

He finally heaved a deep sigh and dropped into the chair behind his desk. “Close the door, Angel.”

My pulse lurched.
Déjà vu Allen
. I pushed it closed. The latch clicked like the slamming of a cell door.

Dr. Nikas's mouth was drawn down, and his ancient eyes held a deep sadness. “Have a seat.”

The vials felt like lumps of lead in my pocket as I sank into the chair. “Am I getting fired?” I tried for a joking laugh, but it came out as a strained croak.

He laced his fingers together on the desk before him. “I know about Philip's doses.”

Blood drained from my head, and my vision swam for a second.
Yes, let me faint
.
Let me pass out and escape this nightmare
. My breath shuddered in my chest, but I remained stubbornly conscious. “Wh-what do you mean?”
Still a chance to talk my way out. There's always a way out. Just have to find it.