Eat the Ones You Love (The Thirteen Book 2)

by J. L. Murray

  Jenny stepped up and pressed her back against the wall outside the door. Twenty men. Living. So soft and squishy even with all that armor. Their heads would burst like melons on a sidewalk. She gripped the gun half as big as she was. And she swung around quiet as a mouse…

  Sarah was already there, standing in the doorway. She had a gun in each hand, one braced against each shoulder. The men froze, looking around. Jenny could see that they had set down their weapons as they'd started hauling the rotter bodies toward the door.

  “A penguin walks into a bar,” Sarah said, her voice gleeful.

  “What?” Jenny said.

  “Have you heard this one?” said Sarah. She was looking at one of the young mercenaries in a black jumpsuit. He looked like he couldn’t be more than 15 years old. He raised his hands slowly. The smoke was slowly clearing, revealing a very large conference room. The children had been shot in their heads. Jenny saw a little girl twitch.

  “They don’t know what the kids are,” Jenny whispered to Sarah.

  “Penguin walks into a bar,” Sarah said. “Says to the bartender, ‘Have you seen my brother?’ Bartender says, ‘I don’t know, what does he look like?’”

  Jenny saw a door at the back of the room. She stepped past Sarah and walked into the room. She stepped around the young men with their hands in the air. They watched her with narrowed eyes. When she came to the man with gray hair at his temples and lines around his eyes and mouth, she stopped. She felt a smile spread.

  “Hey, boss,” Jenny said, placing the gun gently against his temple.

  The man tried to keep his breath steady but Jenny could feel his heart, like the flutter of wings.

  “Do you know what we are?” said Jenny.

  “Yes,” he rasped. He glanced at the others in black. He was worried what they would think of his fear.

  “What do you think we are?” said Jenny.

  He turned his eyes toward her, hesitating before he spoke. “A mistake,” he said.

  “What did he say?” said Sarah.

  “He said we were a mistake,” said Jenny. “What exactly do you mean by that, boss?”

  “Hey, we’re just the hired hands, working for food, a roof over our heads,” he said. “The old man shouldn’t have done what he did to you. To any of you. But we weren't responsible. The old man is the one you want.”

  “You’re talking about my father,” said Jenny.

  “Your father?” he said, confused. “Grant Hawkins?” He chuckled and Jenny pressed the gun firmer into his temple. “Not your father, though he’s the biggest asshole of them all.”

  “Who the fuck are you talking about?” said Jenny. “I thought Warnken was in charge.”

  “You don’t know?” said the man and looked genuinely flummoxed. “Warnken works for the big boss. No one really knows his name. I’ve seen him around, but no one’s allowed to talk to him. He’s real strange.”

  “I heard he was a Righteous,” said a young black guy.

  “No way, he’s into Voodoo,” said another man.

  “Where do I find him?” said Jenny.

  The men exchanged a glance.

  “Tell her,” said Sarah.

  “Upstairs,” said the old man. There was a sort of secret reverence in his voice that seemed odd.

  “Upstairs?” said Jenny. “Where the fuck are we?”

  “You’re in the goddamn Pentagon,” said the man. He nodded towards the ceiling.

  Jenny looked at Sarah, but she didn’t seem very impressed. She was licking her lips and staring at the very young man’s pulse jumping in his neck.

  “Where’s Trix?” said Jenny.

  “Who?”

  “The rotter girl you’re keeping. Where the fuck is she? Is she behind that door?”

  “Yeah, she’s in there. Why do you want her?”

  “Fucking open the door.”

  The old man shook a set of keys out of his pocket. Jenny watched the floor as the children began to twitch. The soldiers hadn’t noticed them yet. A little boy blinked his eyes at the ceiling. The old man unlocked the door and stepped inside. Trix was cuffed to a chair at her wrists and ankles with a ball gag shoved in her mouth. She looked rough. She hadn’t eaten. Her skin was starting to sag and her eyes had gone full white. Jenny was surprised at how happy she was to find her. Trix looked as though she was not the least bit surprised to see Jenny.

  “Let her go,” said Jenny.

  “Are you sure? She might be dangerous…”

  “Let her the fuck out of that chair.”

  He took the gag out of her mouth and Trix worked her jaw, moving it in circles. She met Jenny’s eyes as the old soldier uncuffed her ankles. Trix rubbed her wrists.

  “It’s about fucking time,” Trix said. “What in all the fucks took you so long, cheerleader?”

  “There were a few complications,” said Jenny.

  Trix looked down to see the old man had fallen over and was staring at her with wide eyes.

  “What the fuck? Uncuff my ankle. Jesus Christ.”

  “It’s like he’s never seen a talking rotter before,” Jenny said, smiling.

  “Amateur hour,” said Trix.

  Jenny heard screams coming from the other room. The old man looked towards the door as Trix stood up, testing her legs.

  “You know about a guy called Zeke?” said Jenny.

  “Zeke?” said the old man. “No I’ve never heard of him.”

  “Ezekiel?” said Jenny. “Real weird guy, always saying crazy shit.”

  He shook his head and stared out the door. All the men were screaming now and she heard a few shots. One must have been able to briefly get to his gun. Sarah was laughing and Jenny felt sure she wasn’t hungry any longer. At least for now.

  “What the fuck is happening?” said the old man.

  “Oh, the kids are waking up,” said Jenny.

  “Kids?” said Trix.

  “Yeah, they’re still experimenting on kids,” said Jenny. “They’ve made us an army of fucking immortal kids just like me. Oh and we’re all rotters now. Even Sarah.”

  “I miss all the fun,” said Trix.

  “Bet you’re hungry,” said Jenny.

  Trix smiled then.

  The old man screamed louder than any of the others.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  “Creepiest. Army. Ever,” said Trix as she got her first look at the kids, once again covered in fresh blood. A girl licked her lips, and a boy wiped gore off his eye with the back of his hand. “It’s not so much a small army as Addams Family daycare.”

  “He said whoever this main guy is, he’s going to be upstairs,” said Jenny. “But he said it like it was some kind of big deal.” Jenny looked at Trix. “We’re in the Pentagon.”

  “No shit?” said Trix. “Huh. I always wanted to blow up the Pentagon.”

  “Now’s your chance. But first we need to find Sarah's son. If anyone knows where he is, it’s Dad. And if Dad doesn’t know, Mr. Big Shot Man will.”

  Sarah nodded. “Okay. We'll follow the Living.”

  “Why did they want her kid?” said Trix.

  “My parents found her when she was pregnant,” said Jenny. “They took him away for the latest version of the technology. ”

  “My Rafael,” said Sarah.

  “Yeah,” said Trix. “But why? Why did this giant…corporation or whatever the fuck, why did they go out and find her and bring her back to them? Why Sarah? They left you alone. ”

  “It was a twin study. She was the control, and I was the field study. They always knew where I was,” said Jenny. “That’s what Faron said. They wanted me out in the world. For research. For what’s inside me. Jenny shrugged. “And Faron said they were afraid of what I’d do if they brought me in.”

  Trix laughed. “Fucking hell, that’s hilarious.” She motioned to the blood and gore covering the floor and Jenny laughed too. Even Sarah laughed. “Wait,” said Trix. “Where is Faron? He didn’t stay with you? What the fuck happened?”
/>   “He started this,” said Jenny. “Warnken, she’s one of the bosses, said he took something from them. It must have been really important. They had him all locked up. He got out when they were dosing me.”

  “Dosing you?”

  “They gave us some souped-up zombie juice,” said Jenny. “They dosed the kids too.”

  “And the kids dosed me,” said Sarah.

  “I don’t even know what the fuck is happening anymore,” said Trix.

  “Welcome to the party,” said Jenny.

  Sarah laughed.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Jenny. “I didn’t tell you about the rotters. They’re sort of following me. Like, they do what I say.”

  Trix looked from Jenny to Sarah to Jenny again.

  “What, you’re the fucking zombie whisperer?” Trix said. “Even by our standards, Jen, that’s pretty fucking weird. Are you sure you didn’t, you know, imagine it?”

  “She didn’t imagine it,” said a little girl with bloody ropes for hair.

  “She’s the first,” said another girl.

  “They both are,” said a boy.

  “These kids are really fucking creepy,” said Trix, staring at the kids.

  “You have no idea,” said Jenny.

  “We have to go,” said Sarah. “Let’s find Rafi.” She grabbed two more semiautomatics hanging neatly on a rack on the wall. She slung them over her shoulders. “You ready or what?” she said.

  “Follow the Living,” repeated Jenny.

  They padded back down the hall, their bloody feet sticking to the tile, and as they passed back through the double doors, Jenny listened for heartbeats.

  Silence.

  They went down one hall and up another. The smell of blood was thick and there were bodies everywhere, some eaten, but most blown full of holes with very large guns. Jenny felt the weight of the weapons heavy on her shoulders.

  “What the fuck is this, some kind of labyrinth?” said Trix.

  Jenny slid the card over the card reader next to yet another set of double doors, and stepped into another hospital wing. The floors here were white, the air smelled of iodine, and there was an aura of silence and calm.

  “I know this place,” Jenny said. “I’ve been here before.”

  “You’ve been to the Pentagon?” said Trix.

  “When were you here?” said Sarah.

  “When I was little,” said Jenny. She took in the granite counter where an awful nurse used to watch her and make sure she didn’t pull the tubes out of her arm. Jenny remembered using her teeth to remove the IV as the medical staff freaked out.

  “What do you mean when you were little?” said Trix. “Before the outbreak? Before everyone got sick?”

  Jenny walked across the hall to a room with a small window and an ugly painting of a boat hanging over the bed. It was exactly the same as she remembered.

  “Before everything,” said Jenny. “After they took Sarah away I…I went crazy. They brought me here to convince me.”

  “Convince you of what?” said Trix.

  “That I never existed,” said Sarah.

  “What the fuck, man?” said Trix. “The government brainwashed you? Why?”

  “I never knew before,” said Jenny. “My dad said there was too much at stake. The study had to continue. But I think it was the plan. I think they knew.”

  “The government was fucking in on this?” said Trix.

  “I think they thought they could control it,” said Jenny.

  “This is fucked,” said Trix.

  Jenny turned away from the window and looked at them. The kids followed like ghosts.

  “Listen,” said Sarah.

  Jenny grew silent, and then the red seeped in.

  “Living,” said Trix.

  “Follow the Living,” said Jenny.

  They crept through the halls of the new wing, closing in on the Living. Jenny stopped outside a glass door leading to an operating room. Inside, ten doctors and nurses in white coats surrounded an operating table. Then Jenny saw him.

  “Dad,” she said. And the red grew a little brighter. She didn’t bother with the lock. She raised the gun and squeezed the trigger. The glass exploded and the doctors turned as one to look at her, hearts beating so fast that they sounded fit to explode. Grant Hawkins stood at the foot of the operating table, supervising. The startled surgeons were wearing gloves and masks and were covered in black blood.

  Jenny stepped through, her feet crunching over broken glass, the shards ripping into the bottoms of her feet and grinding against the bones. She kept walking. The pain fed her now, made her feel whole, filled up the ache of hunger.

  “Let me kill him,” said Sarah in her ear.

  “No,” said Jenny. “It’s my turn.” She approached her father, letting the guns slide off her shoulders and clatter onto the floor.

  “Hello, Daddy,” said Jenny, smiling at him. “You ran off so quickly last time that we didn’t have a chance to chat.” He was backing away from her, but he had nowhere to go. She pinned him against the wall, a hand on his chest. He tried to wriggle out but she was stronger. “Because you had a bunch of teenagers fucking kill me!”

  “Grant, what the hell is this?” said one of the doctors, her voice muffled by her operating mask.

  “Shut up,” said Sarah, shoving a rifle up against her chin. The doctor’s eyes grew wide and she raised her blackened hands.

  “All you bitches shut the fuck up,” said Trix.

  “Jenny,” said her father. “Please.”

  “I think the time for politeness is over.” She put her other hand around his delicate throat and he gasped.

  “I want to make it up to you, Dove,” he rasped. “Please, let me apologize.”

  “I think you’ve done enough of that, Dad.”

  “Please, look around. Please, Dove. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you. I want you to be happy.”

  “How the fuck am I going to be happy?” said Jenny. She was clenching her teeth from the pressure in her gut. A blazing ball of rage that fanned out, driving out everything else. And the red got thicker. She blinked hard and shook her head. She was so hungry. She squeezed a little, dragging it out. Not wanting it to end.

  “Look,” he said urgently, trying to pry her fingers off his neck. “Look at the table. All for you, Dove. We’re going to fix him, just like you asked me to.”

  “Oh Jesus,” said Trix. “Oh my God.”

  Jenny turned slowly, and then let go of her father. She looked at the face blinking up from the table, eyes looking around, mouth moving without making a sound. The red faded as she looked at him and she felt her body go weak as the rage left her. A tear spilled over and fell down her cheek.

  “Declan?” she said slowly, her voice barely a whisper. “What?”

  Her eyes moved up his face. Something was wrong, there wasn’t enough of him. Hands were inside him, inside his head. Hands covered in black blood. Hands connected to a body, connected to a face in a mask. A tiny, severe-looking man blinked back at her, the smell of fear radiating off of him.

  “What are you doing to him?” said Jenny. The top of Declan’s head had been cut off and the man had his hands inside Declan’s head, connecting shiny metal parts to him, inside him.

  “I’m fixing him,” said the small man.

  “He was dead,” Jenny breathed. “He was fucking dead. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing is permanent, Dove,” said her father hoarsely. “Anything can be changed if we make the effort.”

  “He was dead,” Jenny said again. Declan still hadn’t spoken. His eyes kept moving back and forth. As though dreaming with his eyes open.

  “Technically, he still is dead,” said her father. “Just like the others―I think you call them The Thirteen, am I correct? We can bring him back just the way he was. For you, Jenny.”

  Jenny stared at him and her stomach churned. She looked at Declan’s face, missing its top, missing its personality. She looked at Declan and knew he wa
s gone. She shook her head.

  “Declan didn’t want to come back,” she said. “He wanted to die the first time.”

  “And yet, you brought him back,” said her father gently. He took a wary step toward her. She couldn’t stop staring at Declan’s face. She forced her eyes down to his abdomen, where the others were working on him. They all had their black hands up inside him and Jenny saw they had sewn some kind of mesh where his meat and skin were missing.

  “Why did you bring him back, Jenny?” said her father. “I know why. Because you could. Sometimes we do things just because we can.”

  Jenny moved her eyes slowly up to meet his. He was smiling like he had won her over, like he had just given her a big birthday cake.

  “I brought him back because I was selfish,” said Jenny. “Because I loved him and I couldn’t stand the thought of living in a world that didn’t have him in it.”

  She looked down at Declan’s face again. She could just say yes. She could say yes and let them fix him. Maybe she could feed him parts of herself to get him going again. They could be together.

  “Now’s your chance, Dove. You don’t have to live in a world without this…person. You can have him. You deserve to be happy, Dove.”

  Jenny felt herself go cold.

  “What the fuck did you say to me?” she said.

  Her father became unsure and his eyes flicked to the other doctors.

  “You…deserve to be happy?” he said, his voice quavering.

  Jenny took a step toward him.

  “You left us there, me and Casey. You let them use me like I was nothing. Like I was practice. But I wasn’t, was I? Because they’d already practiced on Sarah.” Jenny stepped forward and he stepped back, stopping against the wall.

  “Dove…”

  “Don’t fucking call me that!”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, raising his hands. He nodded. “Jenny, then. Jenny, I’m your father and I love you.”

  “When you sent Sarah away, you brought me here,” she said. She grabbed the front of his shirt. “You made me forget my sister. My fucking twin sister, who was the best friend I ever had. Who took care of me. Why did you bring me here? Were we just some government experiment?”