Turning, I pushed through the crowd of temp zombies around Jane, elbowed one sharply out of the way as it reached for her. “Jane! You need to get out of here.”
Her brow furrowed as she looked around for some obvious source of danger. “What? Why?”
Crap. She probably thought the extras were still simply being in character, giving her a little demo. Yeah, well she’s gonna get one hell of a demo if she doesn’t get out of here! But what the hell was I supposed to tell her?
“Um, there’s a labor dispute, and I think there’s about to be a riot!” I blurted, then fought back a cringe. Holy crap, but that was without a doubt the dumbest thing I’d ever said. “Look, you need to get off the set,” I insisted.
A small frown of doubt touched her mouth as she took in the increasingly erratic behavior of the extras. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
I shot a look to her aide. “Get her out of here or…or I’ll tell Pietro you didn’t get her out of here!” Too late I realized the threat was pointless if he didn’t know how much power Pietro held.
Fortunately he at least seemed to understand that the crowd was growing unruly for no discernible reason. He nodded and slipped an arm around Jane’s waist on the opposite side from her cane. “I’ve got her,” he told me, then looked to Jane. “Let’s get you to the car, Dr. Pennington.” He shepherded her toward the barricades, and I stayed long enough to make absolutely sure she was really getting out of the crowd before I turned back to the mess.
Crew members and staff sought to regain order but were losing the battle as the bizarre rowdiness increased. Distantly I heard someone yell to get the cameras running. What the hell? I thought in outrage, though a sensible part of me totally understood that any director worth a shit would want to film a crowd of zombies going nuts. Besides, the director probably had no idea what the real deal was.
I fought my way free from the thick of the crowd, continuing to scan and scent. My gaze passed over a black-haired woman, then went right back to her. She stood tall, scanning the crowd, and didn’t seem at all disturbed by the craziness around her.
I shoved a stumbling extra out of my way as I got closer to her. “Heather?” I asked in disbelief as I peered at her, noting on closer inspection that she was wearing a dark wig over her blonde hair.
Her attention rested on me, and a smile touched her mouth. “Hey, Angel,” she murmured, then went back to scanning the crowd. “I’m in with Mr. Ivanov. Can’t thank you enough.” She looked calm and oh-so-very ready for action.
“That’s awesome,” I said. I figured her minimal disguise was to help keep her off the Saberton radar. “You’re looking for Philip too?” I mentally prayed for her to tell me they’d already found and extracted him, but she merely gave a sharp nod.
“Yep. Me and Kyle—my trainer—were nearby when the call came in,” she told me. “Others are on their way.”
Crap. Philip hadn’t been extracted yet, adding confirmation to my gut feeling that he was the source of the problem with the berserk extras.
I felt his influence—a growing unnatural hunger accompanied by waves of unease, like insects crawling in my skull and sending twitches through my muscles. Unlike the poor extras who didn’t have a clue what they were experiencing, I didn’t have much trouble controlling the compulsion to feed, especially since I was fairly tanked. Yet along with the undesirable urge came something else—a strong sense of Philip, as though I knew where he was without knowing.
I lifted my head and scented the air again. There, to my left. I slipped through the increasingly wild crowd, surrounded by shouts and cries that were far too realistic to be part of a movie.
A fake zombie reached for me, confusion and anger warring it out on his makeup-covered features. I dodged the grab only to be forced to spin away from another who lunged toward me, lips pulled back from rotted teeth. For an instant I wondered if that was makeup or if the extra actually had poor oral hygiene. The latter, I decided as the few teeth in his head snapped together on nothing.
Baring my own—far better—teeth, I shoved the fake zombie back and continued moving toward where my newfound intuitive radar told me Philip was. Another zombie let out a gurgling moan, and a heavier waft of rot hit me like a fist. Shit. This wasn’t one of the extras. This was Tim Bell of the broken nose, and he looked bad, eyes wild and desperate, and flesh shredding for real from his clawed hands. A young woman with only light zombie makeup stood beside him, eyes wide in confusion, but not acting erratically. Maybe not a test subject?
Tim let out a rasping snarl, then grabbed the woman’s arm in a hard grip. She let out a shocked wail of pain, confusion shifting to a perfectly understandable fear. I could easily smell her brains, which meant it had to be driving Tim absolutely bonkers.
“Heather!” I yelled, hoping the woman was within earshot, even as I kicked Tim’s knee as hard as I could. He staggered and let out a bellow, but to my relief he released the young woman. Snarling, he turned on me, a scary, dangerous expression coming over his face. In my peripheral vision I saw other extras grow more agitated as he focused his fury on me. Great. Goddamn pheromones all over the damn place.
The young woman fled through the crowd, but in her place Heather appeared. Her sharp gaze took in the situation and no doubt noted that this particular zombie was waaaay different from the other misbehaving extras.
“Whatcha got?” she asked calmly. Her eyes never left Tim as she pulled out a collapsible police baton and snapped it open.
“He’s a real one,” I told her quickly. “Philip made him, and he’s all messed up.” Tim was obviously hungry, and though I had pockets full of thawing brains, I wasn’t about to waste them on this motherfucker unless absolutely necessary. “The other one Philip made might be somewhere in here too.” Crap. And Philip. Like a nest of pissed off snakes in my belly, I sensed him escalating out of control.
“Oh, right,” she said, brandishing the baton. “We’re supposed to get those two as well as well as Philip.”
I took a step back as she squared off against the very pissed-off Tim. “I need to find Philip,” I said, feeling the urgency of it rise with every passing second. “You got this one?”
“Yep,” she replied with an adrenaline-charged smile. “I got this.”
I gave her one last dubious look, then continued to weave through the seething crowd. More extras grabbed at me, but thankfully, they only seemed to have a touch of the full zombie strength and speed, so a few well-placed kicks and elbows got me past them. I shoved an extra dressed as a rotting cheerleader out of the way, then breathed a curse as I caught sight of Roland, the other Philip-made real zombie. He didn’t have any makeup on, and he didn’t need it. His head swiveled from side to side, lips curled back and teeth snapping together repeatedly. Saliva strung from the corner of his mouth and his eyes shone with madness.
With a roar, he charged one of the camera crew who was trying vainly to restore some order in his little corner of the fiasco. I sucked in a breath. I knew there was no way I’d be able to intervene in time to save the crew member. Yet before Roland could close the distance, a stocky man wearing a shirt lettered “Security” lifted a gun and fired with a familiar whuuush sound.
A tranq gun.
A yellow tuft bloomed on Roland’s chest. He took two more steps and then crumpled onto his face. The man with the tranq gun lowered it, and I got another start of surprise. This was the asshole who’d stepped on my hand out at the boat launch. Turning, I quickly lost myself in the crowd. I didn’t want to get tranqed myself, and I was more than happy to leave him to deal with the neutralized Roland.
My zombie-mama heart lurched, and I froze as an inhuman, snarling bellow cut through the crowd noise. I ducked past another cluster of people and around the corner of the building that housed the concession stand, just in time to see Philip take a Saberton security man by the head and smash it into the cinderblock wall.
Well, shit, I thought. This is bad.
Chapter 23<
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As the body fell, Philip dropped into a crouch, tore the man’s skull apart, and began to stuff chunks of brain into his mouth. His entire body jerked every few seconds as though jolted by electricity, and his dead-grey face was plenty horrifying without any movie makeup. He screamed in anguish through a gory mouthful, spattering the pavement with blood and brain bits.
Really, really bad. “Philip!” I yelled. “Philip, it’s me, Angel!”
His hands curled like claws as his eyes snapped to mine, and to my dismay I saw nothing of Philip in them. Hell, he barely looked human. I felt my own lips pull back in an answering snarl. How the hell was I supposed to help him…or stop him?
“Angel, I have your back,” said a calm male voice from behind me. “I’m Kyle Griffin, and Mr. Ivanov sent me.”
Kyle—Heather’s trainer. “Gotcha,” I said without pulling my attention from Philip to glance back. I moved forward, then paused as Philip stood, breathing heavily, gore dripping from his hands and mouth. He tilted his head back and let out an eerie wail that slid through me like a blade of ice. The hair on my arms stood on end as the zombie extras echoed the cry in poor, though equally disturbing, imitation.
If I’d had any doubt that the temp zombies were reacting to Philip, it was gone in that moment. Hopefully that meant if I could calm Philip, the rest of the commotion would settle down before anyone else got seriously hurt or worse. Yeah, no problem. I drew a deep breath and let it out, fixing my gaze on Philip as I shifted closer to him. “Easy there, big guy,” I murmured.
Philip let out a animal cry of torment, arching his back and clenching his fists, and sending the extras into an unnerving wailing frenzy. A tremor wracked him, and he swung his head toward the source of the cries, a new fever lighting his eyes. Ah, hell, this is Not Good.
Movement caught my eye. I flicked my gaze away from Philip barely long enough to see the asshole Saberton dude who’d tranqed Roland come around the corner of the building a few yards beyond Philip. His face set in determination, he gripped the tranq gun in his right hand.
Crap. I snapped my focus back to Philip and closed half the distance between us, while somewhere on the sidelines the sensible part of me wondered what the hell I was doing. “Hey! Philip!” I called out, trusting that Kyle would take care of Saberton Dude while I distracted Philip from the masses.
As though on cue, a tall and lanky black man strode from behind me toward Saberton Dude, everything in his attitude and posture announcing that he was going to take this company man out of action and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop him. Kyle Dangerous As Fuck.
“Stay back, asshole,” Saberton Dude ordered Kyle, raising the tranq gun. Kyle kept moving, apparently not giving a shit about the tranq gun. The man fired, and scored a hit in the shoulder, but Kyle didn’t even slow.
Well, not for two steps anyway. Then he stopped and stared down at the dart in his shoulder with an expression of shock and disbelief. It sure looked like he’d expected to have some resistance to the tranq. Realization hit me. The new tranq. The same stuff that knocked me out the other night rather than simply paralyzing me. I couldn’t help wondering how the hell Kyle could have a resistance to normal tranqs, but now wasn’t the time to explore that little mystery.
Kyle crumpled to the ground, still looking surprised and more than a little annoyed. A smirk of satisfaction crossed Saberton Dude’s face, but it quickly shifted to a wide-eyed, holy-crap face as Philip screamed and turned toward him, blood from the dead Saberton man still wet on his face. He swung the gun around to point at Philip, fired, and struck him low on his left side.
Oh, hell no! My zombie-mama-bitch protective instinct flared hot and bright. With a snarl I ran and dove at the asshole. Saberton Dude’s eyes widened as he caught sight of me, and he tried to back pedal into a position to fend off Philip and level the tranq gun in my direction, but I slammed into him while he was still off balance, all ninety-eight or so pounds of me driving him back and over an equipment rack to land heavily on top of him.
Philip gave another tortured scream that slashed through my senses like a tumble of razor blades. Again, the extras picked it up and echoed it.
With a harsh growl I ripped the gun out of Saberton Dude’s hand. “You don’t touch him!” I yelled.
He seemed surprised by my strength. Maybe he hadn’t dealt with female zombies before? But he recovered quickly. “Get off me, you crazy bitch!”
“I’m not crazy!” I snarled. Baring my teeth, I drew my hand back and punched him hard—backing it with plenty of zombie-strength.
His jaw broke with an extremely satisfying crunch followed by his gurgle of pain. Grinning with far too much satisfaction, I pushed up off him, then stomped hard on his hand.
“Okay, maybe a little crazy,” I muttered. “And payback is definitely a bitch.”
I turned away as Heather ran up, baton in her right hand dripping with what sure as hell looked like blood. For a second I almost felt sorry for Tim.
Nah, not even a second.
Her eyes flicked around, taking it all in: the dead guy with his head smashed open, Saberton Dude down and moaning, Kyle down and very still, and Philip with a dart protruding from his side—most certainly not down—looking even more pissed off and crazy, and now moving toward the extras.
“Here,” I said, and tossed her the tranq gun. “But don’t shoot Philip with it. It’ll make him worse.” I didn’t wait for a reply. I yanked a bag from my pocket and gulped down some more brains, then ran after Philip and literally shoved the half-full bag into his face. He gave a weird hissing howl, grabbed the bag in hands still crooked like claws. He sucked the contents down and let the empty bag fall, but to my dismay the animal-crazed look still filled his eyes. He lurched toward the extras again and let out another scream-cry.
New fervor erupted in the crowd, and screams of non-zombies made my blood run cold. This was turning into total mayhem, and I knew I needed to do something to stop it, but what? My instinct shrieked at me to move, to act. Now.
Great! Sure! I snarled at it. Tell me what to do and I will!
Philip made a lunge toward the cheerleader zombie, but I grabbed at his arm and used as much zombie-strength as I could to swing him toward me. Eyes wild, he raised a hand to strike me, tension in every fiber of his body. Yet to my surprise—and deep relief—he held the strike, face contorted and body quivering as though fighting with himself.
With an animal snarl of my own, I seized his shoulders, leaped up to wrap my arms and legs around him, and then sank my teeth into the big muscle at the juncture of his neck and shoulder.
That, my instinct crooned. Do that.
My breath hissed around my teeth as I latched onto him like a tick on a hound dog. I had no urge to tear or maul like when I’d turned him into a zombie. Just bite and hold. That was all.
Philip staggered back and made a strangled noise, but made no attempt to throw me off, though it would’ve been easy enough for him to do, strong as he was. He shook like a dog shedding water, and I bit harder. I heard a low growl and was surprised to realize I was the one making it.
Philip sank slowly to his knees, breath coming in low shuddering gasps. I kept my arms and legs wrapped tightly around him and teeth clamped down hard while I watched the movement around us.
Brian approached with a tranq gun in one hand and a regular gun in the other. He hesitated, indecision in his eyes as he took in what I was doing to Philip. Apparently this wasn’t any sort of normal operating procedure when trying to subdue a crazed zombie. It was working though, no denying that. And Brian obviously came to the same conclusion, for in the next breath he turned away and began issuing quiet orders to the two people behind him—Rachel and Dan, the two zombies who’d cleaned up the mess after the highway fight with Heather.
The wails and cries of the fake zombies ceased, leaving a backdrop of shouts, crying, and general standard uproar from the normals. In my peripheral vision I saw the poor extras milling slowly ab
out in confusion or sinking to sit or sprawl on the ground. Some frantically pulled at their prosthetic makeup while others spewed their lunch. Philip continued to calm in my bite-hold, though he still breathed in short, shuddering breaths.
“Heather, situation,” Brian snapped, eyes returning to Philip and me, tranq gun pointed in our general direction. My eyes went to the gun. A low throbbing growl came from my throat as I snarled at Brian around the bite.
He blinked and lowered the gun, questions still crowding thick and close behind his eyes.
“Kyle got tranqed,” Heather said from somewhere behind me. “One target zombie down, tranqed. The other down and injured.” A touch of satisfaction tinged her voice. Roland was the first one, tranqed by Saberton Dude. But the “other” was Tim. I had no doubt she’d found a way to break him enough that he couldn’t get up and cause trouble. “Got a dead Saberton man there and another down with broken face and hand, and the extras are still a bit crazy but more coherent now,” she added.
Brian gave a sharp nod. “Good. Keep the Saberton man down until we’re ready to withdraw,” he said, then paused as though considering. “And make sure he gets a good look at you.”
Now, that was interesting. Brian obviously wanted Heather’s brother to know for sure she was working with us. I’d have to ponder the reasons for that later.
“Dan,” Brian continued, “get Kyle to the van, and then you and Rachel see if you can secure the other two downed zombies. Minimal risk. Our priority is here.” He gave a chin nod toward Philip and me, then frowned at the distant sound of sirens. “Quickly.”
A shudder went through Philip, but I sensed that it was from agony rather than the out-of-control frenzy state of earlier.
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