“You’re enjoying this way too much,” I said sourly. “But that’s cool. I’ll let you have this one. Still, if Ed didn’t tranq him, who did?”
Pierce’s smile spread into a grin. “My guess is Kristi Charish. That woman is devilishly clever.”
I snatched up the book of poetry. “I swear to god, I will bean you right in the head if you don’t stop gloating.”
Whistling “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” he turned and strolled down the hall.
I stuck my head out the door. “Y’know, you could just tell me what the hell you need from Kang.”
Still whistling, he lifted his right hand to give me the finger, keeping it raised until he turned the corner.
I chuckled despite myself then glanced at Kang. “And he has the balls to call you an asshole? Then again, you made me believe you were only seventy. Guess it takes one to know one.” I returned to the bed and leaned close. “Y’know, Kang . . . whatever it is he wants to know, just think how much it would piss him off if you told me first.”
No reaction. Not the slightest blip on the monitor. Damn it.
“All right. Be stubborn. But I’ll be back.” I watched him for a few more seconds then left, locking the door behind me.
Chapter 6
I returned to Jacques only to learn that Dr. Nikas had finished with the samples Rachel delivered but was now absorbed in analyzing the stuff I’d brought.
“Fine,” I said, not bothering to hide my frustration. “I’ll be in the media room.”
“I’ll let him know,” Jacques replied, unruffled as always.
Grumpy and frustrated, I retrieved my school backpack from my car then made my way to the media room. Personally, I thought it should be called the living room since it looked and felt like one, with comfy sofas, recliners, an arm chair, and a gigantic flat screen TV.
Reg, Dr. Nikas’s other lab tech, snoozed in a recliner that looked a size too small for his long and lean frame. A half-full glass of brain smoothie sat on the table beside him, and a sheaf of lab printouts rested on his chest. His head was cocked toward one shoulder at a painful angle. I had a feeling he hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
“Hey, Reg?” I said softly.
He startled awake, sending papers sailing. “Angel. Damn.”
I dropped my backpack on the sofa and hurried to gather the printouts. “Sorry. I thought maybe you’d want a nudge awake.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Reg shoved the recliner footrest closed and sat up. “I have puh-lenty of work to do. My boss is a real hardass, y’know?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the gathered papers into his hands. “Uh huh. Riiiight. Dr. Nikas is a certified meanie pants.”
Reg chuckled and ran his fingers through unruly red curls in a futile attempt to tame them. A few months back, he’d decided a buzz cut wasn’t his thing anymore and opted for more of a “shaggy poodle” style. I’d never tell him in a million years, but I preferred the curls simply because he was so tall and skinny the buzz cut had made him look a bit too much like a matchstick.
He downed the smoothie, stood, and stretched. “You know what we need around here? Cats.”
“Um.”
“Sure! We have a dog in the lab now. Would be cool to have a couple of cats to make things homey.”
“I’ve never had a cat.” I shrugged. “Or any pet, for that matter.”
“Oh man, Angel. You’re missing out! Nothing like kicking back with a good book and a cat on your lap.” A whisper of nostalgia touched his voice, but then he winked. “And one chewing on your hair. And one knocking breakables onto the floor just to watch them fall.”
I gave him a dubious look. “Hair chewing and property destruction. Sounds great. I’ve really been missing out.”
“Animals are the best.” He then whinnied, quacked, and croaked, all very convincingly.
When I stopped laughing, I said, “Why stop with a cat? Might as well bring in a bunny rabbit and a pony while we’re at it. Maybe an iguana.”
“Why the hell not?” he said with a mischievous sparkle in his eye then sauntered out, whistling “Old MacDonald.”
What a goofball. Sharp and dedicated and nice as hell, but still a goofball.
“Never change, Reg,” I murmured then settled on one of the sofas and pulled a composition notebook from my backpack. The required reading for my English Comp class was a pain in the butt, even with the mod Dr. Nikas gave me to help with my dyslexia. But the true bane of my existence—and a quarter of my grade—was the personal journal. We were supposed to write daily entries about the events of the day and how we felt about them, our personal struggles, hopes, dreams, accomplishments, fears, worries, blah blah blah. Everyone in the class agreed it was a dumb waste of time, but I was fairly certain no one else was forced to make up most of their journal entries. The professor was nice and all, but I knew damn well if I turned in a journal entry of, “Dear Diary, today I finally finished regrowing my body after my legs and arms fell off,” I would earn a swift F.
After a moment’s consideration, I started an entry about changing an old lady’s tire. Seriously heart-warming shit, and way more plausible than tending heads in crock pots, or fighting the mindless dead.
“Angel.” Dr. Nikas stood in the doorway, a German Shepherd by his side—Marla, a cadaver dog who’d been used to track zombies.
My heart dropped to my toes at Dr. Nikas’s troubled expression. “I caused it, didn’t I. The shambling zombie.”
He sat in the chair near me. Marla settled at his feet and rested her head atop his shoes. “You frame it as if you made a deliberate choice.” He lifted a hand to stop my protest. “I beg you not to give me some pap about how you chose to take the drugs that damaged your parasite. It happened. It’s past. That line of thinking is of benefit to no one.” A smile brushed across his face as I closed my mouth. “Analysis of the tissue samples you collected show Douglas Horton and Judd Siler had remarkably similar, ah, we’ll say ‘infections’ for lack of a better word, with the pathogen being an aberration of the normal zombie parasite. And, considering Mr. Horton was found in the same swamp where Mr. Siler met his end, it is safe to hypothesize that the disease transferred from Judd Siler’s remains to Mr. Horton by some means. And that you are, indeed, the source of the mutation.”
“I bit Judd once. How could that—” I straightened. “Wait. When I was a prisoner in Kristi Charish’s lab, after I turned Philip, and after she screwed him up with bad fake brains, he bit those two guards. And then they turned into screwed up zombies—fast—from just one bite. They weren’t shamblers, but they were unstable. Bitey.”
Dr. Nikas nodded. “His bite caused a rapid turning. Your bite on Judd Siler took over a day to make him turn. But you and Philip both had very damaged parasites at the times of those incidents. I have been seeking the mechanism for the aberration and accelerated effect of the mutation.” Frustration and weariness shadowed his eyes. “I continue to search for answers.”
He didn’t have to add without the benefit of another researcher. I found my voice. “Are Philip and me still dangerous that way?”
“No,” he said, firm and reassuring. “Your parasite has recovered to a significant degree, as has Philip’s. Every test I’ve conducted on you two indicates nothing out of the ordinary for one of our kind.”
“Whew.” I managed a smile. “Okay, so Judd didn’t bite Douglas Horton. But an alligator did. I took most of Judd’s brain, but left his body out in the swamp. Could a gator turn zombie from eating Judd?”
He spread his hands. “Occam’s razor.”
“Wait, I know that! The easiest explanation is most likely the right one?”
“Indeed. The more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is. The easiest explanation in this scenario is that an alligator consumed Judd’s remains and then transmitted the infection to the hapless
Mr. Horton. The alligator itself could have turned zombie, or a variation thereof.”
“That’s possible?”
“With a normal parasite, no. But there’s nothing normal about this shambler infection. I shudder to think of this dreadful mutation passing to animals. Until contrary evidence surfaces, I will hold onto the hope the alligator was simply an unafflicted means of transmission.”
“A vector. Like mosquitoes and malaria.”
“Precisely.”
“Search parties are still looking for the other hunter,” I said. “And those alligators are out there.” I shifted, worry rising. “What if a whole bunch of gators chowed down on Judd? What if there’s an army of zombie-making gators out there. We need to find them!”
“That is being discussed,” he said, exuding calm. “But there are quite a few alligators in those swamps. Pierce believes it would be a futile search unless we have a way to identify them.”
“What does Marcus think?” Marcus was the publicly recognized head of the Tribe, though Pierce-Pietro still secretly held the real power. However, Pierce couldn’t openly contest Marcus without blowing his cover. If Saberton ever found out that certain zombies had unique and heightened abilities, such as changing physical form, they wouldn’t stop until every mature zombie had been hunted down and locked in a lab for heinous experimentation.
“Marcus agrees with Pierce,” Dr. Nikas said, “though he is more open to the idea of at least making an onsite assessment in the swamp.”
“I can work with that,” I said sweetly, triggering a quiet snort from Dr. Nikas. “Alligators don’t usually go looking for trouble, and tend to avoid people tromping through their territory. We’d be searching for aggressive gators. And the other hunter, too. I don’t know what condition he’s in, but if he’s a shambler, we don’t want him attacking whoever finds him.”
“Agreed, but the—”
I sucked in a breath. “I think I know how to find the hunter. And maybe the gators as well.” I scratched Marla’s ears. “She knows what zombies smell like!”
Dr. Nikas winced. “Yes, she does. But she’s been living with us for nearly a month and has most likely gone noseblind.”
“Oh.” I slumped and considered for a moment. “But Judd and Douglas were mutant zombies. And Douglas’s brain smelled funny when I sniffed it at the morgue. What if it’s distinctive enough for Marla to zero in on it?”
Dr. Nikas pursed his lips in thought. “Interesting. We have the samples and could test the theory with Dante Rosario’s help.” He met my eyes and gave me a conspiratorial wink. “And if your theory pans out, we’ll take your idea to Marcus.”
• • •
I’d met Dante Rosario a week or so before Mardi Gras, when he was involved in a number of anti-zombie plots dreamed up by Dr. Kristi Charish. After a variety of hijinks and disasters, I managed to stop him from revealing zombies as monsters to the world, but during the resulting four-wheeler chase through the woods, he’d crashed and been critically injured. He’d also crashed emotionally when he finally finally realized Kristi had ruthlessly duped him, thrown him under the bus, and laid the blame for everything on his shoulders.
After quite a bit of discussion—and with my very insistent input—the Tribe inner circle had agreed that Rosario could be a valuable ally and asset, and gave him protection. Even better, Rosario was Marla’s handler, which meant we got a sweet package deal.
Dr. Nikas and I soon found him doing careful stretching and calisthenics in the weight room. Rosario had been in peak physical condition before his injury, and with the help of surgery to stabilize the mess of his ribs, followed by kickass physical therapy, he was almost fully recovered.
Unfortunately, determining whether Marla could indicate on the shambler samples was a shitload tougher than I expected. First we had to get past Rosario’s “Are you crazy? You expect me to train her on a new scent in just a few minutes?” Once we convinced him to at least try, it ended up taking nearly three hours for Marla to recognize the shambler tissue’s distinct scent and another three for her to consistently indicate on it. Even then we had to put up with Rosario’s dire warnings as to how it couldn’t possibly be reliable with so little training and that this sort of thing usually took weeks. It wasn’t until Dr. Nikas told Rosario his position with the Tribe was safe even if Marla failed to find the shambler scent that I realized the source of his anxiety: If the Tribe cut ties with Rosario, Saberton would take him out in a permanent fashion at the first opportunity.
Convincing Marcus to organize a gator hunt was a far easier hurdle. He agreed with Dr. Nikas that, for the safety of the Tribe and the public, a search should be mounted for the other hunter and any infected alligators. He then surprised me with praise for the insight into gator behavior and the idea to use Marla.
“I hated the thought of doing nothing,” Marcus said. “But Pierce—” He stopped and smiled tightly. “Using Marla gives us an edge, however slight. Chances are low we’ll find anything. But chances are zero if we don’t make an attempt.” He glanced at the clock and frowned in thought. “Early in the morning will be best. That’ll give us time to make arrangements. Plus we need to return no later than noon to allow Angel to get to work at the morgue.”
I blinked. “You know my work schedule?”
“And your school schedule.” As I fumbled for a reply, he chuckled. “I’m not psychic, Angel. You gave all of that info to Dr. Nikas to schedule your shifts here, and I just happened see it this afternoon when I was going over payroll and scheduling.”
“Stalker,” I teased, but I was impressed. “You said ‘we.’ Are you coming, too?”
“That’s right,” Marcus said with a determined set to his jaw. “I’m ready to get out into the field and do something real.”
The frustration in his voice tugged at my heart. He wasn’t really the head of the Tribe, and he knew it. Pierce still called the major shots. Even worse, Marcus had given up law school to be the Tribe figurehead. It was doubly galling that he was more than competent enough to run the Tribe, if Pierce would ever give him the chance.
“What if Pierce doesn’t agree to this?” I asked reluctantly.
Dr. Nikas spoke up. “I will make certain he does.”
A whisper of relief passed over Marcus’s face. “I appreciate the help.”
I cleared my throat. “How early will we be leaving?”
“Sunrise is around seven,” he said. “But it starts getting light before six, and since alligators are nocturnal, I’d like to be on the water and searching well before dawn. With travel and prep time, I’d say plan on a 4:30 departure.”
“Uh huh. Just to be sure we’re on the same page here, you want us to leave at 4:30 in the morning which, by the way, is technically still night?”
“Correct.”
Ugh. It was a thirty-minute drive from my house to the Tribe lab, which meant I’d have to leave home by 4 a.m., which meant I’d have to wake up around 3:30 . . .
“Yeah, I think I’ll just crash here tonight, if that’s okay.” Besides, I already had extra clothes stashed at the lab. I’d learned the hard way to keep a few changes here, including a spare Coroner’s Office uniform, since shit could go sideways at any moment and a change of underwear—or more—might be needed.
Dr. Nikas’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “A wise decision.” He shifted his attention to Marcus. “Shall we go beard the lion in his den?”
Marcus blew out his breath. “Sure. This will be fun.” But he shot a grin my way before the two headed off to double-team Pierce.
Once they were gone, I texted my dad to tell him not to wait up for me. Even though staying the night at the lab made the most sense, I felt bad about being away from home again so soon.
Yet to my relief, he replied that he’d scored another job doing cleanup at one of the local bars and didn’t figure he’d be home ’til darn near fou
r in the morning himself. For once, the universe seemed to be cutting me some slack.
Maybe in return I should be responsible and study biology? After all, I had a test on the digestive system next week. On the other hand, if I went to bed in the next ten minutes, I could score six and a half hours of sleep.
The buzz of a text message saved me from grappling with the decision. I smiled as I saw it was from Justine Chu, who’d starred in High School Zombie Apocalypse!! I’d met her during the Zombie Fest when I rescued her from a fan who was being way too handsy, and we’d quickly struck up a friendship.
Chapter 7
“My room” was the same one I’d occupied for the past two weeks, after coming out of the regrowth tank. Though similar in size and layout to Kang’s, it was far homier, especially since it lacked both steel door and surveillance.
The bed had been made up with fresh sheets since I’d left this morning, and my clothes were still in the dresser. Best of all, the laptop I’d been using for the past few weeks was on the table where I’d left it.
I shucked off my shoes, made myself comfy on the bed with the laptop, and fired up the video chat program. I’d told Justine the same fiction as everyone else who didn’t need to know the truth—that I’d come down with mononucleosis right after Mardi Gras. Since then, we’d texted or video-chatted darn near every day.
After a moment, the video chat icon blinked. Justine’s face popped up on the screen—Asian-American with pretty, delicate features and dark eyes that practically snapped with determination.
“Hey! You survived your first day back at work! Go you!”
“Go me!”
She peered at my face. “You don’t look tired, which is good. You don’t want to overdo it.”
White Trash Zombie Unchained Page 6