My stomach knotted. A thick coppery smell hit me like a fist.
‘What is that smell?’ Jace was visibly gagging. He drew the silver-edged knife from beneath his jacket.
No, it can’t be . . . I stepped closer and peered around the edge of the door, trying to see through the narrow opening. The body of a large woman in green nurse’s scrubs lay on the shiny floor, blocking the door from moving any further.
‘Crap,’ I whispered. I thought I’d said it under my breath but Jace was right beside me. I imagined I could feel the warmth from his arm as it rested against my rigid shoulder.
‘What?’ Jace caught sight of the nurse’s body. ‘Oh.’
The woman’s dark blonde hair was spread behind her on the floor, trailing blood and something that looked like wet, glistening pieces of meat. I swallowed and tried not to choke. I could smell the blood. There was so much blood; it was intoxicating and nauseating at the same time. Something dark rose up inside me, and I don’t mean vomit. I mean, something in my ‘soul’ – the part of me that I didn’t want to admit was there.
The monster.
I growled, low in my throat.
Jace grabbed me by the arms and pulled me away from the door. He shook me. Hard. ‘Hey, get a grip. This isn’t feeding time.’
I tried to block out the sickly sweet scent of fresh blood. It was almost impossible, but I had to do it. This was self-preservation: if I went vamp right now Jace wouldn’t hesitate to turn that knife on me. In fact, I was pretty surprised he hadn’t tried to kill me again already.
The room smelled like slaughter and I wanted to puke. It was so twisted, being hungry and nauseous at the same time.
Jace looked at me, a frown pinching his eyes into something more dangerous. ‘No, seriously, what is that smell?’
I tried to steady myself as I experimented with a deeper breath. ‘It’s blood, Jace. What did you think it was?’
‘Not the blood. I know what that is.’ He shook his head, as though trying to brush off cobwebs. ‘I mean the other smell. The one that’s like . . . rotting meat.’
I cringed and remembered the stench that had hit me to start with; before the blood had taken over and gotten the better of my senses. I sniffed the air, picking out that raw-meat stink again. And something else; something that reeked of death and decay. If evil had a smell, surely this was it.
I didn’t want to know what it was, but as I stuck my head back around the gap in the door I had all the confirmation I needed.
Rick was sitting on a steel trolley swinging his legs and gnawing on something that looked suspiciously like an arm.
Swallowing hard, I looked back down at the nurse’s bloody body. Yep, it was an arm. That was pretty much the grossest thing I had ever seen. I caught sight of a nametag: Fox. Poor Nurse Fox.
‘Well?’ Jace was trying to push me out of the way.
He so did not want to see this. I shoved him back, edging away from the door and hoping to God that the thing chewing on a human limb hadn’t caught our scent. Apparently, vampires didn’t have much of a scent to humans, but I was pretty certain Rick wasn’t anywhere near human. Not anymore.
‘What is it, Moth?’ Jace was trying to muscle his way past me again.
‘We need to get out of here,’ I said, fixing him with what I hoped was a look that said: Do What I Tell You If You Want To Live.
He scowled. ‘Did Rick go vamp? Is that it?’
‘It’s much worse than that,’ I replied. ‘I think he’s a zombie.’
Chapter Five
I COULDN’T HELP taking childish pleasure in watching the color drain from Jace’s normally golden cheeks. He licked his lips. ‘No way, there’s no such thing.’
I shook my head. What was wrong with this guy? His father hunted things-that-go-bump-in-the-night for a living.
‘Zombies aren’t real.’
‘OK then, fine.’ I gripped his arm and swung him toward the door. ‘Let’s hope you still feel the same way when one of them takes a bite out of your ass.’
‘Cute. You’re funny for a dead girl.’
Jace stumbled as I pushed him close to the gap, my hand squeezing his arm so tightly I knew he’d have a bruise there tomorrow.
‘Hey,’ he complained, trying to pull his arm free. ‘Get off me!’
‘Shut your mouth,’ I hissed, right up close to his ear. I had to stand on tiptoes to reach. ‘It’ll hear you.’
The zombie – if that was what Rick had become – was still chewing, and I took great delight in hearing Jace gag.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one who heard him. Whatever was left of Rick turned its head and stared at the door. Its dead eyes were completely white, the iris and pupil swallowed up by a horrifying milky glaze that made it look blind. Maybe it was blind.
I tried to remember if Theo or Holly had told me anything about zombies. I was drawing a big fat blank, but it looked like zombies weren’t one of the false myths – not if I was going to believe the evidence of my own eyes. Or, at the very least, we were facing something that seemed very much like what I’d imagine a zombie to be.
A deep growl came from the room as Rick tossed what was left of the nurse’s arm into a far corner. I shuddered. Maybe I should concentrate on getting out of this place in one piece. ‘Zombie 101’ could wait.
Jace backed away, slowly shaking his head. ‘No. Way. No. Way.’ He repeated the same thing over and over, his voice strained and close to breaking. If the zombie apocalypse ever came, perhaps Jace Murdoch would lead the resistance, whispering his new mantra under his breath.
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Now was certainly not the time to lose the plot.
‘Hey, come on, man up! Whether you like it or not – whether you believe it or not – we’re in this together. And frankly I don’t care if you refuse to believe the evidence of your own stupid eyes, so long as you point the damn knife over in that direction and cover me.’
The ‘zombie’ slid off the table and landed silently on bare feet. It was still wearing Rick’s clothes, which somehow made it seem even more like a bad remake of Dawn of the Dead. I couldn’t help wondering where his shoes and socks had gone. It was weird seeing those narrow, pale feet sticking out from beneath black skinny jeans. He’d been wearing a KISS T-shirt when he died. Poor Rick, I thought. And not because he’d been into an ageing rock band.
He had been a living, breathing boy. A kid who’d been passionate about art and music. He could have done something with his life, but now we’d never know. His family would never be able to watch him grow into an adult and see what he would do in the world. My throat was tight, pity warring with horror and making me feel even more nauseous. This whole situation was even worse than I’d suspected. I knew there was something weird going on when I saw my name and address inside that evidence bag. It wasn’t just that, though. There had been a growing sense of wrongness deep in my gut from the moment I’d seen those cops at my door.
Jace had regained his color – and some of his composure – and was holding the silver-edged knife in a more battle-ready stance. Thank God for small mercies.
I licked my lips and wondered how best to deal with the situation. I’d never seen a zombie before, and had no idea what would happen if we tried to ‘kill’ it. How did you even kill them, anyway? Cut off its head? Too difficult with a knife, even a hunting knife like the one Jace had his white-knuckled hands wrapped around.
I remembered something about fire being a good weapon against zombies but I wasn’t certain, and maybe I was just thinking about movie zombies. Not that my speculation was any help without a handy incinerator that we could push it into. And what were we going to do about the fact that a newly risen flesh-eating monster was about to run rampant around a huge city hospital?
Zombie Rick took a few shuffling steps forward, staggering on uncertain legs.
Jace nudged me. ‘So, is the silver on this knife going to be any good against that thing?’
‘What are yo
u asking me for? We’re not related, you know.’
‘Hey, no need to get defensive. I’m just asking, OK?’
‘Fine. Silver hurts vampires, so maybe it’s the same for all undead, but I honestly don’t know for sure . . .’ I trailed off. ‘Why didn’t you bring your crossbow?’
He gave me a look that showed me exactly what he thought of such an idiotic suggestion. ‘Riiight. I’ll haul a crossbow around Mass General. No worries, folks, just regular security for hospitals these days.’
I bristled under his patronizing tone. ‘Hey, it didn’t stop you bringing it inside in the first place.’
‘Yeah, into a room that hardly even gets used, through a secret entrance.’ He spun the knife between his fingers. At least he seemed to be getting his act back together.
Unfortunately, Rick seemed to be getting the hang of walking on reanimated legs. Zombie Boy staggered toward the nurse’s body and crouched down by her feet. For one horrible moment I thought it was going to continue with its macabre meal, but instead it grabbed both ankles and pulled the body out of the way of the door. Clearing a path.
So it could get to us – and the door.
So zombies weren’t as mindless as I’d imagined. It gazed at the exit, an expression of . . . longing on its face.
I had to do something. I had to stop it from getting into the main part of the hospital. I gritted my teeth and stepped into the room, Jace so close behind he almost bumped into me, but all I could think about was the . . . thing in front of me.
The zombie – or whatever Rick had become – gazed at me from those dead eyes. Whether it could see me or just had a really good sense of smell, I wasn’t sure. But I was certain of something: it was one of the scariest things I’d ever seen. Even though it seemed like nothing more threatening than a teenage kid in a baggy T-shirt, with bright red hair and a body that was all bones and angles, my knees trembled as we faced each other over Nurse Fox’s remains. I tried not to look too hard at the mangled place where the poor woman’s left arm used to be.
I had known this kid. I mean, I didn’t know him, but we’d shared a classroom. Maybe I’d borrowed a pencil from him. Maybe he’d even held open the door for me on the way to class. Or, more likely, I’d held it open for him.
Either way, this was someone who had been in my life – my life before all this craziness. But there was absolutely nothing human left in the zombie’s face and it broke my heart.
Jace closed the door behind us with a loud click that made me jump.
‘What did you do that for?’
‘We’ve got no chance of taking it down if it gets out of here. Too many casualties.’ Jace’s eyes had gone cold. It reminded me of that look he’d gotten when we’d run into each other in that storeroom. At least he was aiming that expression at someone else. I also liked the fact that he was thinking beyond the immediate situation; kind of reassuring to know Jason Murdoch had hidden save-the-world Boy Scout potential.
And now here we were, working together within half an hour of fighting. Yes, the world was indeed a crazy place.
I bit back a hysterical grin. Of course the world was crazy; I was a freaking vampire and that seemed almost normal compared to this.
The zombie stopped staring at the door and resumed its shuddering walk. I grabbed the metal door handle and twisted until the mangled shape I achieved didn’t look like it would be opening anything any time soon.
Zombie Boy lunged and I dived to my left, leaving Jace out in the open. I twisted so that I fell on one shoulder and rolled all the way over until I was standing again. OK, so maybe my back was to the action now but the move got me out of the way – and it made me feel like Lara Croft. A clumsy Lara Croft.
I spun in time to see Jace wrestling with the creature, the glinting blade straining toward its throat as two implacable white hands gripped his forearms and easily held him away. Jace struggled to keep his footing as he was forced back, the knife trembling in his hand and his face creased with pain.
Wow, that thing looked strong.
I tackled the zombie from behind, getting both my arms around its throat and hauling backward as hard as I could. Trying to choke it didn’t make much sense – it seemed less alive than I was – but it was the best I could come up with. While I was hanging on, I got a good look at Rick’s throat. Or what was left of it. Yep, there were the bite marks all right – still clearly visible against the blue tinge of his flesh. More of them punctured his pale, skinny arms, looking like an overzealous drug addict’s track marks.
It was weird, but the kid didn’t smell of anything other than death. Dead meat, with a ripe undertone of rotting flesh; almost like he’d gone off.
I swallowed bile as we struggled, and the thing made a weird trumpeting noise from somewhere deep in its chest. It tried to shake me off, blundering around and trampling Jace into the ground.
Colorful cursing came from somewhere below as Jace tried to get up, only to be kicked in the face by one of Zombie Boy’s flailing feet. I hung on grimly and clamped my legs around the monster’s waist, clinging on with all the strength I possessed. Was it wrong that there was a tiny part of me having fun? Only a very small part, I swear, but maybe that’s the monster in me.
Jace was back on his feet, blood pouring from his nose as he spun the knife in his hand. ‘What are you grinning about?’
I ignored him and tightened my death-grip on Rick, who had already figured out a neat way to get me off. The creature turned around and walked backward into the nearest wall, crushing me between it and the solid brick. It couldn’t walk too fast, thankfully, but it still hurt. This dude was smart. It slammed me into the wall again.
I groaned as my lower back went numb.
Jace was aiming the knife and looked suspiciously like he was preparing to throw it. ‘Hold on, Monkey Girl, keep it there another minute!’
‘What?’ I screeched. ‘Don’t you dare throw that thing. You’ll hit me, you idiot!’
‘Trust me,’ Jace said.
‘A minute ago you were trying to kill me – how am I supposed to trust you?’
He wiped blood off his face and took aim. ‘When I say duck, duck.’
I was too busy hanging onto the bucking zombie to pay too much attention to Jace’s showboating. Who the hell did he think he was? Indiana freaking Jones?
Jace yelled, ‘Duck!’ and tossed the knife in a spinning arc.
I dropped to the ground, sliding against the wall and bumping my forehead on Zombie Rick’s bony shoulder as I went down. I crouched by jeans-clad legs for a moment, waiting for the colored sparkles to disappear from my vision.
The creature made an odd little huffing sound, as though somebody had punched it in the stomach, and took a jerking step backward. Had Jace hit it?
I wriggled out from behind it and jumped to my feet, backing away while keeping the thing in clear view. Jace was looking pleased with himself, and when I caught sight of the hilt of his knife sticking out of the zombie’s chest I could see why. It was a perfect shot – bull’s-eye! – right through the heart.
If the thing had been a vampire, depending on its age it’d be dust by now.
But of course it wasn’t a vampire. Zombie Rick staggered about the enclosed space, making a horrible high-pitched mewling sound as it clawed at the blade embedded in his thin chest.
Jace was out of weapons, and I didn’t have any to start with. I scanned the room for something that might prove useful against the recently undead as the zombie succeeded in pulling out the knife. It made a disgusting sucking sound as it came free of fat and muscle tissue. ‘God, that is so gross,’ I said.
Jace looked at me and raised one of his golden eyebrows. ‘What’s the problem? You must see stuff like this all the time.’
I scowled. ‘Oh, shut up.’ There would’ve been a lot more venom in my voice if it weren’t for the fact that the zombie had fixed its milky-dead eyes on me and was slowly advancing in my direction. Being in the hospital’s restricted area had
its benefits – we wouldn’t attract much attention despite all the noise we were making down here. But it was also incredibly claustrophobic: stuck in a small room with no windows and only one door, and the dead body of a woman with one arm missing.
I leaped onto the steel table Zombie Boy had only recently vacated. The blue sheet that had covered his body was on the floor, and there was something creepy about seeing some kid’s shroud lying on the ground while his body walked around like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I watched carefully as the zombie sniffed the air and then switched its attention back to Jace. So maybe it was blind, I thought. Interesting. It must be using smell to locate us. From my elevated position, I could also see a shelf holding surgical instruments, some nasty-looking latex gloves, and a couple of aerosol cans.
Aerosol cans. Would that actually work? Only one way to find out. I forced myself to take a deep breath and sprang up with arms outstretched toward the shelf, gripping the thin ledge with my fingertips. Edging along to the far side, my legs kicking against the wall to increase my momentum, I reached the nearest can and grabbed it. I dropped almost silently to the ground, gripping what I hoped was going to be our secret weapon.
I shook the can, thankful to feel a comforting weight and the soft shhh sound that told me it was at least half full.
Meanwhile, Jace had kicked Zombie Boy right where it hurt, which was admirably dirty for a guy fighting another guy – even if the opponent was a flesh-eating undead . . . thing. It seemed mostly unfazed by the impressive dropkick, but at least Van Helsing Junior was keeping its attention off me.
I pulled Detective Trent’s lighter from my pocket and set the flame to maximum height. I gritted my teeth and prepared to get my hands burned. It would definitely be worth it, if only I could take down what remained of Rick before it chewed on any other innocent nurses. Or patients. The thought of leaving it to wander the corridors of a hospital made me feel sick. Weirdly, I felt steadier now. Honestly, I just think my fear had receded in the face of the bizarreness of the situation.
Falling to Ash Page 5