And then, brains. The scent filled the container, and I dove onto the chunks that dropped through one of the air holes, cramming them into my mouth one-handed as fast as I could. There was something wrong with my other hand, but I couldn’t figure out what just yet. Whining, I scrabbled at the hole and was rewarded with several more gobbets, dimly aware of conversation outside the box as I gulped them down.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“You were at the briefing. We went through what would happen.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing. Give it another couple of minutes, then it’ll be safe to take her out.”
Shuddering, I pulled myself into a crouch as the warmth spread through me, so painful in its intensity that a gravelly wail escaped me. I wasn’t handcuffed anymore, or rather, the handcuffs now dangled from only my right wrist. My left wrist and hand were a mangled mess of bone and shredded skin, though they slowly pulled back together as I watched. I didn’t remember yanking my hand out of the cuff, but it was pretty obvious I’d done exactly that.
I took a deep breath—still a little raspy, but much improved. “I need more,” I croaked. “Please,” I added. “I’m…damaged, and still really hungry. I…I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
I heard a snort, wasn’t sure if it was contempt or disbelief, but a few more chunks dropped through the hole. I snarled silently as I scraped up everything I could from the floor of the container, but the snarl had nothing do with my more animal instincts and everything to do with the fact that I officially hated these motherfuckers with every fiber of my being for essentially making me eat off the goddamn floor and for doing all of this to me, and by fucking god I was going to make them pay somehow.
I took a deep breath and fought for calm. The one silver lining of going into total “monster mode” with the hunger was that I’d forgotten about the ace in the hole Ed had come up with. Good thing, because I wanted to save that for when I knew I could take maximum advantage of it.
And I could already tell that now was not that time.
I tried to see what I could through the air holes and realized with a start that I wasn’t in the van anymore. Couldn’t see much—just enough to let me know that I’d been moved while I was still out of my head. Some white walls. Several black-fatigued men who I assumed were my guards now. Four, maybe five. I couldn’t be sure.
Someone slapped their hand down on top of the container, and I let out a startled yelp.
“All right, sweetheart,” McKinney said, crouching down so that I could sort of see his face. “Here’s how it’s going to work. I open the container, you come out all nice and easy, I remove the shackles, then you get some time alone to clean up.” I saw his mouth spread into a hard smile. “If you do absolutely anything that looks like an attack or resistance, your guards will shoot you—with bullets and tranquilizers, and this time I’ll make you wait until you’re a rotted pile of bones before I give you what you need. Do you understand?”
I swallowed to work moisture into my mouth. “Yes,” I said, voice shaking slightly to make it sound like I was scared.
Oh, who the hell was I kidding? I was scared. Terrified out of my goddamn wits and second-guessing every decision that had led to this point.
Metal squealed as the front of the container swung open. I blinked as light flooded in, then shivered at the sight of the bloody streaks along the walls where I’d obviously tried to claw my way out. I crawled out as quickly as I could with my legs still shackled, but I stood too quickly and had to grab at the container as a brief surge of dizziness sent me swaying. I could feel the tension in the room go up a notch, and I was suddenly hideously aware that each man had a weapon trained on me.
I wanted to laugh. I weighed less than a hundred pounds, and they were acting like I really was a six-hundred-pound tiger.
The dangling handcuff slapped against my leg and my humor vanished. No, they were reacting with exactly the right amount of caution. I straightened as the dizziness passed, took stock of where I was. A public bathroom? At least it probably had been at one time. White room with tiled floor, an overhead fluorescent light that buzzed annoyingly, and an odd mixture of smells—fresh paint and old mildew. Along the walls and floor were ghostly outlines of plumbing that had apparently been ripped out and spackled or tiled over. One toilet and sink were left, as well as one stall partition and a lone shower stall with a curtain so new it still had that fresh plastic smell. Against one wall was a narrow bed, looking utterly out of place in the bathroom setting. As a holding cell, it made a certain amount of sense. No windows, a heavy door, and even a drain in the floor in case…
I shuddered and yanked my thoughts into a different direction. At any rate, this wasn’t quite the “secret lab” I’d been expecting.
McKinney approached with latex-gloved hands. I stood absolutely motionless as he removed the handcuff and shackles. After he straightened he placed them on the top of the container, but kept his gloves on.
“Now take your clothes off,” he ordered.
“The fuck I will,” I shot back.
He narrowed his eyes in a sneer. “No necrophiliacs here. No one here is going to rape you. But you will be searched.”
Necrophiliacs? The fuck? I made a quick scan of the other guards. All wore equal expressions of mild disgust and disdain. It threw me briefly for a loop—not because I wasn’t used to being regarded that way, but because I was. Yet this time it was for something that I had no control over, not for the way I acted or dressed or because of anything I’d done. It was weird and awful and humiliating, yet at the same time a sick relief coiled through me at the realization that, out of all the horrible shit that could possibly happen to me here, at least rape wasn’t something I had to fear. At least not right now.
But my hands still shook as I lifted them to my shirt. Whether they looked at me with disgust or not, this was still a bunch of strange men who were going to see me naked.
“Don’t you have any women guards?” I asked, hating that my voice had a quaver in it. “Please.”
“No,” McKinney said flatly. “Take your fucking clothes off or I’ll shoot you and leave you starving.”
I stared at him for a couple of seconds, but it was clear he meant every word. I yanked my shirt off, trying to be angry and fierce about the whole thing, but it didn’t work. Not one bit. I couldn’t even turn away from the guards. They were all around me so I kept my head down and didn’t look at any of their faces ’cause I knew that if I saw anything other than disgust or disdain I’d fucking lose it. I pulled my bra off then kicked my shoes off and shoved my pants and undies down, kicked it all away and stood there naked with my arms clamped down by my sides ’cause I didn’t want to do that pathetic thing of trying to cover my chest and privates and all. And I tried my fucking damnedest to stay angry, and even thought about how much I hated Clive, and hated the fucker who’d drugged me and was gonna date rape me, and how much I fucking hated McKinney and these others.
But none of it worked. I could feel myself crying and saw the fucking tears plopping on the floor while I kept my head down and let that motherfucker do what he felt he had to do to search me.
“Towels and clothes are on the bed,” he told me when he finished. “Get cleaned up and changed.”
I didn’t respond and he didn’t wait for one. He left with the guards, leaving me standing naked and shaking in the middle of the white room.
Chapter 25
I finally forced myself to shower and change into the t-shirt and sweat pants that had been left for me, knowing that if I didn’t, McKinney would come back and do it for me, in as horrible and humiliating a way as possible. After that I slept for awhile—no idea how long—and woke up at the sound of the door opening. I didn’t move except to open my eyes and see a guard step in and set a tray down on the floor. I stayed where I was on the bed until he left and closed the door, and only then kicked the blanket off to see what had been left for me.
Th
e tray was a plastic cafeteria tray that looked like it had been purchased at a public school garage sale. For that matter the food looked like it as well—rubbery pizza, lukewarm chocolate milk, and green beans swimming in an oily liquid dotted with something that was probably supposed to be bacon or ham. And—to my utter shock—brains as well. Two neat slices, like a couple of pieces of pound cake. I gave them a dubious sniff, but as far as I could tell they were the real thing.
I attended to some necessary bodily functions, then picked up the tray and brought it over to the narrow bed since I didn’t feel like sitting on the floor to eat.
I ate everything, including the nasty green beans, since I figured my parasite needed to save its efforts for other stuff instead of having to give me a boost because I was malnourished.
The door opened as soon as I took my last bite, confirming my suspicion that I was under constant surveillance. McKinney stood in the doorway with two other guards behind him. I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones who’d watched me get strip-searched earlier. They all looked the same to me. I need to pay attention to this stuff though, I told myself. If I ever got the chance to make a break for it, knowing the number of people I was up against would prove pretty darn useful.
“Let’s go,” he snapped.
I stood up, silently followed him out. I got a good hard look at the guards and did my best to memorize details about them. One had acne scars and a sharp cleft in his chin. The other had oddly perfect eyebrows, and I suspected that he had them shaped.
I wasn’t at NuQuesCor. That much I could figure out. Even with the smell of new paint, it was tough to disguise the fact that this was an old building. It also didn’t feel like it was very big. The hallway ended at a heavy door about thirty feet to my right, dead-ended at about the same distance to my left, and I thought I counted eight doors along its length. Not that I had much time to count, since we were only going across the hall.
McKinney gestured me in to the open door across from mine. I entered to see…a completely empty room. White walls and tile floors, with the same faint new paint smell over old grime. And only one coat of paint to judge by the thinner patches where nebulous patterns of graffiti peeked through. Another bathroom, this time with outlines of urinals on the wall—which reinforced my suspicion that this had once been a public place. There was no toilet, shower, or bed in here. Instead, one wall was almost completely filled with a big-ass window. They weren’t even bothering with two-way mirrors or any shit like that. Nope, apparently these people couldn’t care less that I knew they were watching. I glanced around, unsurprised to see surveillance cameras in every corner of the room. Whatever was about to happen, they intended to record it thoroughly.
Behind the window was a small room—a former office, perhaps?—with two long tables covered in computer equipment. Two men in guard outfits sat at one table, eyes shifting between their monitors and me. Behind the other stood two people. I didn’t recognize the first one, a stocky middle-aged man wearing a dark blue suit and a dubious expression.
But I recognized the other, even though we’d never officially met.
“Hi, Doctor Charish,” I said, giving her a tight smile as I fought to hold onto my ragged composure. “Did you kill Sofia?” Sure, McKinney might have been able to go straight from the failed ambush to Sofia’s house, but it made more sense that he had someone else working with him that night.
Dr. Charish leaned forward and touched a button in front of her. “Why, yes. Yes, I did.” Her voice came from a speaker above the window, yet I could also hear it, muffled, through the glass. That glass was thick, but it wasn’t bulletproof-thick. Was it thick enough to keep out a pissed-off zombie? I sure as hell wanted to find out.
“Why? Because she was playing both sides and working with Kang?” I shook my head, baffled. That didn’t make any sense.
The woman smiled. “No. Although, yes, she was indeed briefly involved in a rather pathetic series of talks with Kang regarding her pseudo-brain formulation. She always was too altruistic for her own good. But that, of course, ended when Kang died.”
Sudden understanding swept through me. Now Sofia’s reactions over at Marcus’s house made sense. Sofia had no intention of giving Pietro a monopoly on the fake brains, so she approached Kang to let him know he wouldn’t be cut out. But then Kang was killed, and not long after that it looked as if Zeke—a zombie—had tried to sneak into the lab. No wonder she was freaking out, thinking she was at the heart of some sort of conflict between zombie factions. I was beginning to wonder whether there really were any zombie “factions” at all, at least not in the way that Pietro made it out to be. Perhaps Kang had been the de facto “leader” of the zombies who bought brains from him, but there was no way he had as much influence and power as Pietro.
“So why kill her?” I asked.
“Sofia suspected that I had a pet project of my own.” She made a sweeping gesture around her. “And I knew that once she heard you’d been attacked, she’d go tattling to Pietro.” She nodded toward McKinney. “That being said, we need to get started.”
Still baffled and off-balance, I turned as another man walked in. The two guards left, leaving just me, McKinney, and this new guy in the room. The exiting guards pulled the door closed, and a shiver ran over me as I heard it lock from the outside.
The newcomer looked like he was in his late twenties, blond and blue-eyed, with a short haircut and muscular build to match the other guards here. He had on a simple white t-shirt and grey sweat pants like mine—though obviously much bigger—and he held himself so stiffly that I had a feeling he was holding down fear by the sheer force of his will. Fear of me? What the hell was going on?
I jerked as a beep sounded in the room. “Now recording contagion series one point one,” Dr. Charish said.
“Angel, this is Philip,” McKinney said. “He volunteered for this study.
Baffled and wary, I gave Philip an awkward wave. “Um, hey, Philip.”
He gave me a tight smile and short nod in response.
“And now, Angel, if you would be so kind,” McKinney said, “please turn Philip here into a zombie.”
I could only blink at him stupidly for several seconds. “Wait, what?” I said once I found my voice. “I can’t do that! I’ve never done that before!”
“I suggest you figure out how,” McKinney said, tone mild.
I looked in horror to Philip. “You volunteered for this? To become a zombie?”
He lifted his chin. “I’m a volunteer for the enhanced soldier protocol.”
“Enhanced soldier…” Suddenly I understood—at least part of it. They want to make zombie soldiers. This has nothing to do with zombies vs. zombies. It probably never did, or at least certainly not to the degree that we all thought. Dr. Kristi Charish had taken this whole thing to another level entirely. Well, that explained the whole secret lab thing and the team of mercenary guard types. Zombie soldiers…? Would the government be interested in something like that? Probably. Or maybe a private contractor like those Halliburton people in Iraq. I peered at the man in the suit behind the glass. He looked soulless enough to be either government or corporate.
But they haven’t fully committed, I thought as I looked at the slight frown on the man’s face and the tension on Dr. Charish’s. Not yet. They want some proof that this is real and that it’ll work. That explained why this whole scenario seemed rather low-budget. Why sink a bunch of money into a project that sounded like a shitty late night movie? No, Dr. Charish had to prove she wasn’t giving her sponsors a line of bullshit. She needed to show them what a zombie could do, show them that more could be made.
And that was why they now needed a real, live, fully functioning zombie. Me.
I looked at McKinney. A hint of a smirk curved his mouth, and I abruptly realized that he had recognized me when I went to the lab to pretend to apply for a job. Anger at myself swept over me. I thought I’d been so damn clever. They needed a zombie, and I’d been the logical ch
oice since I’d been doing my best to become a pain in their ass.
Didn’t matter. I had no intention of doing what these assholes wanted. I turned to the window. “Y’all are completely fucking batshit insane,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest defiantly. “No. I won’t do it.”
McKinney shrugged. “I rather expected you would say that.”
And with that he pulled his pistol and fired two rounds into Philip’s chest.
The sound of the bullets slammed through the room while I cried out in horror. Philip staggered back, then slid down the wall, gasping for breath as he clutched at his chest.
“It’s simple, Angel,” McKinney said. “Turn him into a zombie, or he dies.”
“You fucker,” I breathed, moving to Philip on shaking legs. Dropping to my knees beside him, I struggled to remember what Kang and Marcus had said about how zombies were made. A simple bite isn’t enough. There’s some mauling involved. So…what the hell does that mean? Do I simply bite him and keep biting him until he’s a zombie?
Philip’s eyes met mine. “Do it,” he gasped. “Please.”
I felt strangely ridiculous and self-conscious doing this with all these people watching, especially knowing that the whole thing was being recorded, monitored, videotaped, and anything else that could be done. Talk about the ultimate performance anxiety.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, then pulled his shirt aside at the collar, leaned over, and bit down hard on the junction of his shoulder and neck. He stiffened as I increased the pressure. I tasted blood, and nausea rose at what I was doing…
Angel Crawford #2: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues Page 21