Serena Rogue (Book 1): Zombie Infestation

by Bushman, LJ

A knock sounded at the door. All of us had our weapons pointed at the door, including Joseph, who’d gotten his gun back from hospital security.

  “Who is it,” Joseph called.

  “Deputy Director, Mason Riverson.”

  Have I mentioned I didn’t believe in coincidence?

  Chapter 24

  Joseph and I looked at each other. From the one I received, he’d had a similar idea. It would explain a lot. I had to wonder, if I’d met Riverson the day I gave the agents at the office character names, if I would’ve sensed it. My psychic senses were dulled with the lack of food and sleep each time we’d met since, but I’d been on the top of my game that day.

  Too late now to debate what-ifs. Andrea had had opportunity. Robins probably covered his involvement by implanting the suggestion of going undercover with the Director after he’d seen him at the warehouse. The director had to suspect someone because of the surveillance video Joseph had seen, but wasn’t supposed to. The film with his coworker’s becoming the newest thing in zombie MREs. Wonder where the confiscated evidence ended up. That’s why Riverson went in himself instead of sending someone else. He couldn’t jeopardize the mission with people he didn’t trust.

  It made sense. A hell of a lot of sense. And it was probably how Andrea escaped from the warehouse in Mexico. Joseph and I stood there staring at each other. I was positive Joseph thought something along the same lines. Now what?

  “Al,” I whispered. “In the kitchen. Now. Go with Janessa. Protect her from anyone who intends her harm. Is that clear?”

  Al put the foot of the chair down. “Clear. Mission: protect Janessa from harm.”

  It’d have to do. I watched uneasily as he followed Janessa into the kitchen. She shut a swinging door I’d never noticed before. Good. That would help. Joseph waited until the door stopped swinging before opening the front door to the Deputy Director. And a teenager?

  My vanishing lurker. At least I hadn’t lost my mind.

  “I caught him hiding in the hedges. You know him?” Riverson pushed the kid roughly into the house, followed him in, and slammed the door shut. Joseph shrugged an answer, as if it was a trick question and I shook my head no.

  “What were you doing watching the house?”

  The poor teen stood there like a frightened rabbit. He was scruffy, dirty, pimply, and thin as a rail. He wasn’t an international spy, or undercover operative, or he wouldn’t have frozen the way he did. But if he wasn’t an undercover agent, what the hell was he doing watching Joseph’s house?

  “Please, sir,” he began. His voice broke and shot up an octave. “I was told some kids were being held hostage.”

  “Why didn’t you call the FBI?” Joseph snarled at the boy.

  “They’re the ones who told me, sir.” No way. I felt the left side of my face rise–my eyebrow, lip, and even my nostril. Is the kid really that naive?

  “Why would they do that,” I asked into the stunned silence.

  “They thought the kids would be less afraid to talk to me if I could get close to them. I’ve been trying to wake them up. I’ve done cat calls, and dog barks,” he continued, his voice going up and down, caught in the ravages of puberty. “I even threw rocks. Only small ones,” he added hastily at the thunderous expression on Joseph’s face. “I didn’t want to break the windows.”

  I burst out laughing. The youngster really thought he was helping. We still had to finish questioning him, but it was too funny. He was all set to spy on an FBI agent’s house, under orders from someone claiming to be in the FBI with orders to rescue kidnapped kids. And he never questioned it. Now he had three people with guns staring at him.

  The kid gave me a dirty look reminiscent of Kyle. The two FBI agents weren’t even remotely amused, and that made it all the more hilarious. He was the one doing cat calls? Oh God, I didn’t know what I would do. The longer they gave me drop-dead-and-get-serious looks, the more I laughed.

  “Serena, we have some more questions, if you can get ahold of yourself,” Riverson said sternly. That prompted a smile out of Joseph. Riverson sounded like such a pompous ass, you had to laugh when he used that tone. Oh, someone was getting revenge when they’d used the Deputy Director for an unwitting stool.

  Joseph cleared his throat and looked suspiciously like he wanted to laugh. “Can you describe the person who asked you to do this?”

  The boy stood stubbornly mute. I knew that face. He thought he was protecting someone from a bully.

  “Hey kid, what’s your name?”

  “I’m not a kid. My name’s Peter.”

  My lips quirked, but otherwise, I managed to keep it to myself this time. Why didn’t parents think further ahead when naming their children? I almost didn’t name my youngest Seth because I thought of a few jokes, but since there were no real bad ones I knew of, I agreed. No way would I have saddled a kid with the name Peter in this day and age. Might as well name them Dick.

  “Peter, these guys are the FBI and it’s my children who are here. Please describe who told you they’d been kidnapped, when they met you, and what they wanted you to do once you made contact.” I used my firm, mother in charge voice. He responded to it, like I expected.

  He looked from one man to another. “Let me see your badges,” he said. He’d made up his mind and was just going through the motions.

  The men dutifully showed their badges, and he balanced back and forth on his feet, shamefaced. “I should have made her show me her badge,” he said.

  “Her,” I asked eagerly. “Her who?”

  “Some blonde lady. I don’t know who she is. She told me to watch this place. She said they had information that someone might bring kids here against their will. They gave me a c-note to watch the place and said there was more where that came from if I told them when the children arrived.” He continued his in-place nervous dance, and I took pity on him.

  “Sit down, Peter.”

  He sat, and we began the tedious process of getting information out of him. By the men’s reaction, they knew the mysterious-to-me blonde woman and were both saddened by it. Peter had no idea what mess of vipers he’d gotten involved with. He hoped to get a bonus for helping rescue some kids. And he’d be on television. They’d promised him he’d be on all the big news stations and that someone might even pay for his heroic story.

  Joseph and Riverson set him straight and had him agreeing to a session with their sketch artist in the morning. They each gave him a card with the admonition to call if he needed anything. I exchanged a look with Joseph, who then followed the boy out. Turned out the boy lived next door and had run home when he saw me getting out of the car earlier.

  I sat in silence with Riverson, waiting for Joseph to get back. I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to begin. I couldn’t exactly ask Riverson if he’d had hypnosis he didn’t remember. If he’d passed on information, it hadn’t been deliberate sabotage, but something made to appear as if he was doing his job.

  The other thing I wanted to know concerned the blonde the men seemed to recognize, but that, too, had to wait for Joseph. He needed to observe the deputy director’s answers and body language to ascertain the situation and what Riverson might know or had been trained to hide from himself.

  Joseph came in, his hands in his pocket, gun in its holster. I’d noticed the holster earlier, but I only now realized he wore it over nurse’s scrubs. He must have convinced a nurse to give them to him when he left. It emphasized how fast he’d healed. I doubt a nurse would have helped him leave otherwise. He was going to need fuel soon. His food bill had quadrupled, he just didn’t know it yet.

  A part of me wanted to cry. But another part retained hope. Look at Al. He ate normal food, and he’d already turned. I hoped my theory about people’s natural personalities and morals was correct. The alternative was unthinkable.

  I’d pointed my gun down, but I still had my finger over the trigger guard. Joseph hadn’t turned. That was obvious. But, Riverson may be programmed to see us as a threat i
f we talked about certain people or things. It was what I would do if I were the one hypnotizing him. Hypnotizing wasn’t a strong enough word. A thrall? His behavior was close to the legendary vampire thralls. The victim had no memory of being put under or what they did while under the thrall.

  “Sir, when did you decide to go undercover in Mexico?”

  Riverson stared hard at Joseph. “About the time those videos were confiscated in the name of national security.”

  “To clarify, you mean the videos we weren’t allowed to watch showing one of our men killed and others endangered?”

  “Yes.”

  “What made you focus on that particular group?”

  “I did some research, and the group kept coming up. There’s nothing illegal in their files. In fact, the Resurrection Vaccine has public funding. It was originally set up as a research group to find a cure for AIDS.”

  Wow.

  So the offshoot of government people came up with a virus causing AIDS, then turned around and received grant money to fund their plan to overtake the world? Nice. My tax dollars hard at work. The incredible lack of decency by the governments involved and the pure evil it took to want to kill fellow humans on such a scale boiled my blood. It wasn’t even war. No self-defense, no national security, nothing. Just out and out hatred for their fellow man.

  Joseph’s sharp intake of breath told me he remembered what I said about how AIDS got started in the first place. He paced in the space allowed in the confines of the living room.

  “What’s this about, Agent Connelly? I’m not used to being interrogated by my own agents.” Riverson’s tone could have frozen lava.

  “You know we have a mole, sir, and I think after our talk with Peter we know who it is. Would you agree?”

  Riverson looked from me to Joseph before answering. “Yes, obviously.”

  “I think we also have someone who’s been infected and hypnotized without their knowledge or consent.”

  “I don’t see what—” he stopped and his face paled. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

  Worry slid through me. I’d been prepared to fight, to make Riverson believe, not pick up the pieces when he fell apart.

  “If you’re right about this…” Joseph began, but hesitated.

  “If I’m right, they’ve infected you with the virus and have been controlling you through keywords and actions. Making you turn away from certain people and what they were up to.”

  “Sir,” I interrupted. I was good at that. “My assistant, Lori, is here with the kids. She knows how to test for the dormant virus. If you can get us access to a lab and your blood, she can do a test to see if it’s you. It makes sense for you to be the mole, but we should check anyway. If you could get a sample of the drug Andrea injected people with, and the stuff you were supposed to put into my food and didn’t, we can find a way to run a test for that as well. However, if she injected you, she likely hypnotized you as well.”

  His color wasn’t improving, but he hadn’t fainted either. I took it as a good sign. “I’ll make arrangements for Lori to be given temporary clearance to the lab. Bring her in tomorrow at eleven.”

  “Sir, I think you should write it down before leaving. What if you forget tomorrow? I think the reason you believe us is the attack at the hospital and the phone call you received. The one you told me about earlier.”

  If I’d had dog ears, they’d be lifted and forward to catch the next few words. “What phone call?” Riverson said with a frown.

  “Sir, you came into the ICU and told me you received a phone call asking you to bring evidence to a warehouse downtown. Did you do it?”

  “No, why would I?”

  “Why would you forget a phone call like that?”

  The question took the bluster out of Riverson’s sails, so to speak. “You’re right. Get me a pen and paper, and I’ll write everything down and sign it. I sure hope you don’t have to use it.”

  Joseph got a pen and paper out of the desk where he’d gotten it before we left to Mexico. The Deputy Director wrote for a few minutes. After he finished, he put the cap back on his pen and turned to leave.

  Crash.

  I froze. If there was someone I didn’t want the Deputy Director to see at this moment, it was Al.

  Neither Joseph nor I gave any explanation for the noise. The director looked at Joseph for an explanation.

  “It’s my mom. She’s, ah,” he started.

  “Your mom can speak for herself,” Janessa said, coming out of the kitchen. “Sorry. I’m fixing something for Joseph to eat and dropped the pan.”

  Riverson turned to Joseph. “You live with your mom?”

  Janessa’s laughed tinkled out. It was so full of charm, we could have been at an old Southern ball. “Of course he doesn’t. I came to assure myself he was all right after I heard he was in the hospital. I’m fixing him something to eat as much for myself as for him.”

  Riverson smiled at her. “I understand. I’ll see you later. Agent, Serena,” he said before walking out the door.

  I didn’t know how Joseph reacted, but my relief was so great, a wash of pain went through my head. “What happened, Janessa?”

  “Al startled me, and I dropped the pan I was getting out to cook us all some more food. He’s sitting at the table now, but he’d come up behind me to see what I was cooking in the other pan. I’m sorry.”

  “No problem. Your coming out here solved any problems it might have caused. How is Al behaving?” I sounded like a mother hen.

  “Beautifully. Right now, I’m feeding him, and that makes me a good person in his book. But if we keep it up, we’re going to need a huge abundance of food, and soon.”

  I nodded. Joseph’s face screwed up in confusion. “You’re feeding him?”

  “Weird, I know. Let your mom get back to the very important task of keeping Al well fed.

  “On a hunch, I fed him a hamburger on the way over. It worked like a charm. He’s docile until he’s hungry. The survival instinct is still the strongest we have. It’ll override whatever hypnosis Andrea’s concocted, drugs or no drugs. Everything is stronger in the Infected, including the basic needs. We eat more. We don’t get sick. We want to procreate as often as possible.” I blushed again as he gave me a knowing stare.

  “I’m in trouble, then,” he whispered. “Every time I was around you before, that’s all I wanted to do.”

  Me too. He was hot. I knew he was an Infected. However, since I was Immune, he couldn’t hurt me. And he was hot. I took a step forward, but hesitated. He came the rest of the way and caught me up in a searing kiss. Looked like even if I made it to bed, I wouldn’t be getting any sleep.

  I pulled away from him reluctantly. “We have a lot of ground to cover. I’ll go first. Maybe you’ll be able to fit the other pieces in and give me a clear picture.”

  I moved through the few days of torture as dispassionately as possible. Despite, his jaw tightened and the muscles across his cheekbones pulled his skin taut to emphasize the manly cut of his face. I was flattered. When I got to the post-Tweedledee and Tweedledum, episode, he looked ready to explode.

  “I’ll kill them,” he said quietly. “No one should ever be subjected to that kind of abuse and humiliation.”

  The threat was more powerful for its quiet purpose. I shivered. Joseph was powerful before. With his new powers, there were few people who could go up against him and win.

  “I already killed the twins in the hospital.”

  A half smile crossed his lips and his eyes lit up. “The fire alarm was you?”

  I smiled back. “The nurses pulled it after I shot Al. He wasn’t a zombie when he came after me the first time. Andrea left him to kill me, but unfortunately, she worded it poorly. She said he was my gift. Literally, a gift is something good and given. So now I have an intelligent zombie who won’t hurt me and is actually protecting me.” The irony still amused me.

  I finished running through what I knew and Joseph nodded. “The hypnosis explains a lot.
I went back over things, and more and more, Mason Riverson’s name popped up. Remember how I told you he knew I was taking a few days off? I think he passed the information on, but not right away. It wasn’t adding up. However, if he’s under hypnosis, he probably wasn’t activated until I didn’t come in for work.”

  “At which time they found out you weren’t coming in for work and no one had a shitting clue what I was up to because the Suits didn’t have the guts to tell anyone I’d delayed my trip. But there’s still people working behind the scenes. Who’s the blondie the kid was talking about?”

  “She’s Gene’s sometimes bed partner. Used to be his partner until she requested a transfer to a different division. She’s still in the Bureau, just not with the terrorist division.”

  “Giving her the perfect cover,” I said as I sat on the couch and leaned back. “You guys are way too complicated. My life was so simple before. Kill a few zombies, write a best seller, love my kids. Simple. Now I’m involved with intrigue and have to find an antivirus for my kids’ sake.”

  “I’m sorry, Serena. We’ll solve this. Maybe they have the antivirus hidden in the warehouse somewhere.”

  “The Deputy didn’t seem to think so, but now I don’t know if he’d remember it even if he’s seen it. He might be programmed to forget anything he heard or saw about it.”

  “It’s a distinct possibility. Shall we go in to the kitchen now and refuel before your new zombie friend eats it all?” He waved an arm in a flourish for me to precede him to the kitchen.

  The next morning, I woke up to Seth jumping on me on the couch and asking who the strange man on the floor was. I sleepily sat up and hugged my kids to me tight. Kyle halfheartedly tried to wiggle free like he normally would before all this, but I held tight and he gave in. Tears streamed down my face.

  “Good morning, Serena,” Lori said quietly.

  “Lori! It’s so good to see you,” I said, holding a kid on each side next to me, not willing to let them go.

  “Good to see you, as well,” she replied. She appeared well, despite her recent ordeal. Personally, I believed killing the motherfucker who raped you and anyone who participated was the best therapy ever. “Who’s the man?”