White Trash Zombie Unchained

  “I’ll go check the heads and Kang,” I said.

  “I’ll call you when I need you.”

  Not if he needed me. When. That felt nice. I’d never be as kickass brilliant as Dr. Nikas, or even Jacques, but I could be the best damn assistant ever.

  Chapter 5

  “Kang” was John Kang, the first zombie who’d admitted to me he was a zombie. He’d worked at Scott Funeral Home, and not long after I started working at the morgue, he confronted me about brains missing from body bags—brains I’d harvested from autopsied bodies for my own consumption. Turned out he’d been running a side business providing brains for zombies who didn’t have any reliable sources. Lucky for me, once Kang was satisfied I wasn’t going to cut into his business, he helped me adjust to becoming a zombie. After all, he’d been one for seventy-something years. And though we never really became friends, we’d been fairly friendly associates who had a common goal: survival.

  I’d warned Kang a serial killer was hell-bent on collecting zombie heads, but he didn’t bother to take precautions and ended up getting his own head chopped off. Several months later, I discovered Kristi Charish had orchestrated the zombie murders because she wanted the heads for her own depraved research. After a shitstorm of shenanigans and downright unpleasantness, the Tribe recovered seven heads, including Kang’s, from her private lab. Dr. Nikas then began the uncertain and monumental task of regrowing zombies from their heads alone.

  And the regrowth lab—a.k.a. the Head Room—was my current destination.

  I passed through the lab’s central rotunda and down a corridor with walls decorated in colorful tile mosaics. Near the end, I punched my code into the number pad on an unmarked door. The lock clicked, and I stepped into the room. Cold air sent goosebumps racing over my skin as I paused to let my eyes adjust to the dim lighting that was ideal for regrowth.

  An empty, coffin-sized glass tank dominated one side of the room, and a counter along the far wall held four stainless steel crock-pot-looking vats. Each contained a zombie head and fifteen gallons of nutrient medium—an amount I knew all too well since one of my weekly duties was to change the snot-like goop.

  Taped to the front of each vat was an index card bearing the name of the occupant. I peered through the glass cover of the vat marked “Adam Campbell.” Sightless white-filmed eyes stared up from the grey, shriveled flesh of his face—exactly the same as when I checked on him yesterday. Absolutely zero sign of regrowth.

  The parasite activity indicators on the side of the vat were also the same as yesterday. The parasite was dormant but still viable—in stasis, according to Dr. Nikas. A quick check of the other three vats revealed the same: dormant but viable. Two of the recovered heads hadn’t fared as well. Peter Plescia’s parasite bit the dust a couple of days after arriving at the lab, and Timothy Kaye’s died while Dr. Nikas was in New York.

  I dutifully entered the parasite activity data into the tablet on the counter then left and locked the room. Kang had been the only one to show any sign of progress. He’d spent the last few months regrowing his body in the coffin-tank, and four days ago he’d finally been transferred to a hospital bed in the lab’s medical wing.

  Which was where I headed next—though it wasn’t so much a wing as a hallway with a half-dozen hospital-type rooms. Two of the rooms were for prisoners or hostiles—equipped with constant surveillance and steel doors that required a code for both entry and exit. To my annoyance, Kang was in one of the secured rooms. The reasoning was that, since he was coming back from a frozen head, no one knew what he’d be like when he woke up. He might be brain dead or Normal Kang or possibly even Violent Psycho Kang. Better to have him locked down, just to be safe.

  But I’d seen him in the tank during the first attempt to resurrect him a couple of weeks ago. I’d met his eyes. I knew he was totally Kang and not some brain-warped crazy thing. Unfortunately, no one was willing to take my gut feeling as proof of his Kang-ness.

  His door was half-open, and a woman’s voice drifted into the hall.

  “. . . Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.

  And now upon his western wing he leaned,

  Now his huge bulk o’er Afric’s sands careened,

  Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows,

  Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars”

  Within, a dark-haired woman with a slim, athletic build sat beside the bed, reading aloud from a book with a tattered green cover. Naomi Comtesse—one of the few non-zombies who worked for the Tribe. She was actually Julia Saber, twin sister to Andrew Saber and daughter of Saberton’s unscrupulous CEO, Nicole Saber. Julia had worked in corporate espionage until she discovered the atrocities committed against zombies by her own company. Since she knew her mother wouldn’t hesitate to have her killed in order to protect Saberton, Julia had fled. After a rocky start, the Tribe took her in and helped her change her identity to Naomi—though unfortunately a surveillance device had blown her cover a few months back.

  Kang lay motionless in the bed, wrapped in gauze from neck to ankles like a zombie-mummy. On the wall, an origami dragon perched atop a monitor, where squiggly lines crawled across the screen, tracking vital signs, brain activity, and heart rhythm. Kang was definitely alive, and all of his various parts seemed to be in order. Except, apparently, his eyelids, ’cause he sure as hell hadn’t opened them since he came out of the tank.

  Naomi had read or talked to him every day he’d been in this room. A half dozen other origami animals lurked, crouched, or perched on the nightstand—swan, bear, horse, elephant, bird, and frog. Naomi did origami when she was stressed or bored. And she stayed far too busy to be bored.

  She flicked a glance my way, lifted a “hang on a sec” finger, and kept on reading.

  “With memory of the old revolt from Awe,

  He reached a middle height, and at the stars,

  Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank.

  Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank,

  The army of unalterable law.”

  She let out a sigh of satisfaction then gave me a smile. “Look at you, standing upright and all.”

  The last time she’d seen me, I was clinging to a walker for dear life as I staggered down the hallway. “Haven’t fallen on my ass yet today. Knock wood.” I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe, producing a dull metal thud. “What on earth are you reading to him?”

  “‘Lucifer in Starlight.’ It’s one of his favorites.” She turned her gaze to the silent figure in the bed. “I think I saw an eyelid twitch, but that might have been wishful thinking.”

  “Wishful and maybe a teensy bit impatient.” I moved to the bed and peered at Kang’s face.

  Her brows drew together in a frown. “I’m not impatient. I’m worried. You woke up the day after you came out of the tank.”

  “I wasn’t regrown from just a head. Plus, Dr. Nikas had the new and improved regrowth formula, thanks to Allen’s information. I got dunked in the good stuff from the very beginning. Not to mention, I was nice and fresh when I went into the tank. Kang and the others had been sitting in a freezer for a couple of months. And, by the time I fell apart, Dr. Nikas had over a year of experience from working with the heads.”

  Naomi made a face. “All right, that makes sense. Damn it.”

  I couldn’t blame her for worrying. She and Kang had been friends long before I ever met him. In fact, their friendship had been the seed for her “divorce” from Saberton. Because of Kang, Naomi had understood that zombies were people, not monsters.

  “He’s going to be fine,” I said with all the reassurance I could muster. “At least Dr. Nikas laid down the law to stop Pierce from trying to make Kang wake up.”

  Her nose wrinkled. “Pierce was in here earlier. Checking if there’d been any change.”

  The original Pierce Gentry had been a Saberton security bada
ss—until Tribe leader Pietro Ivanov killed him to escape Saberton’s prison-lab in New York. But he hadn’t just killed him. Pietro had eaten Pierce’s brain and used a mature zombie ability to mimic his DNA, and thus physically became Pierce. For the sake of security, as well as to keep Saberton from learning about mature zombies and their abilities, it was decided Pietro Ivanov would “die” in a plane crash, and everyone would be told that Pierce Gentry had simply been a Tribe operative the whole time and would rejoin the Tribe now. Only a handful of people knew the truth: the Pierce Gentry who’d returned with us from New York was in fact Pietro Ivanov.

  “Did Pierce do anything?”

  “Nothing other than sniff Kang and scowl a lot.”

  I snickered. “Yeah, because Dr. Nikas would have his head otherwise.” Ever since Kang started regrowing, Pierce had pressured Dr. Nikas to hurry the process and pestered him with questions. How quickly will Kang recover? and Will he have all of his memories? and others along the same line. It was obvious Pierce desperately wanted to know something only Kang could tell him, but Dr. Nikas had put his foot down. He didn’t care what Pierce wanted from Kang. His first priority was to his patient. Period. Finally, during a particularly heated exchange, Dr. Nikas pointed out that if Pierce insisted on rushing the regrowth and recovery, Kang might not be in a condition to answer any questions. Ever. That stark truth backed Pierce off.

  Naomi blew out her breath. “Yeah. Dr. N is the best. I should have more faith in him.” She summoned a smile. “Have you heard from Andrew?”

  For a fraction of an instant I considered telling her about the game console, but immediately discarded that idea. I didn’t know if it was from Andrew, and Naomi could get pretty emotional when it came to her brother. It would be way worse for her if I told her about the package and then it turned out it really was from some long-lost cousin named Arnold Stein.

  I shook my head. “He was on CNN last night, talking about some trade agreement and its impact on something or other. My eyes glazed over after about thirty seconds, but he sure looked alive to me.”

  “I saw that one, too. Alive and in India.” A slight crease formed between her eyebrows.

  “You don’t believe he’s really there.”

  Her eyes snapped to mine. “Do you?”

  “Not for a second,” I said. “I think he’s been doing interviews and stuff like this to make it look like he’s there.”

  “Exactly!” Naomi cried, relief washing over her face. “And he’s probably video-conferencing for board meetings and other matters. Heck, over half the board attends remotely. And if Andrew has a tech person on tap, he could appear to be connecting from anywhere he wants.”

  “He has Thea Braddock,” I said, referring to his bodyguard and the former head of security for Saberton New York. “She’s super competent, and I bet she found someone to do that for him.”

  “But he’s so new to being a zombie. What if he’s not getting enough brains?”

  “He didn’t look at all brain-hungry on CNN,” I reassured her. “Plus, I trust Thea to get whatever he needs.”

  The tension in her shoulders eased. “Right. Of course. So he’s okay.”

  “That’s right.” I mentally crossed fingers it was true then decided to shift the conversation to a less worry-filled topic. “So, are you going to stay Naomi or go back to Julia? I mean, your cover is totally blown and everyone including your mother knows you’re really Julia Saber.”

  Her expression turned fierce. “I don’t want to be a Saber. I’m a completely different person now, both inside and out.”

  “You never seemed like a Julia to me.”

  “Exactly! I’ve never felt like a Julia.”

  “I feel like an Angel, but I sure as hell don’t act like one!”

  “You do in all the ways that matter,” Naomi said with unexpected warmth then glanced at her phone when it buzzed.

  “Duty calls. Let me know if Kang does anything interesting.” She closed her book and set it on the nightstand then stood and leaned close to his face. “Hey! Wake the fuck up, you lazy shirker.”

  Kang remained utterly still except for the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Naomi straightened with a sigh. “Worth a try.” She flashed me a cheery smile that didn’t fool me one bit. “Catch ya later, babe.”

  She was out the door before I realized she hadn’t asked about the shambler incident at the morgue—which meant she didn’t know about it. Was it being kept from her because she was human? Or was the info restricted to the Tribe’s inner circle?

  Or, in a less paranoid world, maybe she’d simply been busy and hadn’t heard the latest gossip yet.

  I plopped into the chair and picked up the book. Victorian Poetry from Clough to Kipling. On a whim, I opened to a random page and started reading.

  Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring

  Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling;

  The Bird of Time has but a little way

  To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

  “What the shit?” I made a face and set the book aside. “She’s trying to torture you awake, Kang. Why else would she read you this.”

  “Kang likes to style himself an autodidactic polymath,” Pierce drawled from the doorway.

  The fit, broad-shouldered, thirty-something Pierce Gentry was a far cry from his old Pietro Ivanov form, but I was used to it now. Helped that his personality hadn’t really changed.

  I had no idea what an automatic polymorphy thing was, but I also didn’t care about looking stupid in front of Pierce. “A whatsit whosit?”

  “An autodidact is a self-taught person, and a polymath is one whose expertise covers a wide variety of subjects.” He closed the door behind him. “I style Kang a pompous ass.”

  I tensed as Pierce approached the bed. He smirked. “Don’t worry. I’ll abide by Ari’s wishes.”

  More like Dr. Nikas’s commands, I thought, but kept my expression bland.

  He folded his arms over his chest. “Tell me everything of what happened at the morgue.”

  My eyes flicked toward Kang. “Er, here?” Couldn’t some coma patients still hear what was going on around them? I definitely remembered bits and pieces from my time regrowing in the tank.

  “He’s not awake, Angel,” Pierce said, misinterpreting my hesitation. “I would know if he was faking unconsciousness. Even Kang can’t control himself to that extent. Now, tell me what happened.”

  “I didn’t think he was awake awake,” I muttered then went ahead and launched into the stirring tale of Angel and the not-really-zombie. When I finished, I slouched in the chair and eyed him. “What did you mean by ‘even Kang’?”

  Pierce didn’t answer for several seconds, still mulling over my story. “His great age affords him certain . . . advantages.”

  “Great age? But he’s only seventy-something, isn’t he? I mean, he told me his parents died in the Korean War.” That was old, but not oooold. Hell, Jacques was pushing two hundred.

  Pierce gave me a slow blink, then he tipped his head back and roared in laughter. “My god, Kang is such an asshole. Yes, his parents died in a Korean war. But not the one in the twentieth century.”

  My face felt ready to break from the confused expression. “There was more than one?”

  “That area has known many wars,” Pierce said with way too much delight. He leaned down and placed his hands on the arms of my chair. “As does any country with a long history. Gojoseon was Korea’s first kingdom, founded in 2333 B.C. by Dangun Wanggeom. Gojoseon lasted for many many centuries, until Emperor Wudi of the Han Dynasty invaded. It fell after a year of war and disintegrated into fiefdoms and confederacies which later came together to form new kingdoms and wage new wars.”

  “I assume you’re telling me this for a reason,” I snapped then fought the urge to shrink away as he brought his face close to
mine.

  “Kang’s parents died when Emperor Wudi’s forces invaded,” he intoned, “. . . in the year 109 beeee ceeee.”

  I gulped. Kang is over two thousand years old? Holy fucking shit.

  Pierce straightened and cast a mocking glance at Kang’s still form. “He’s a bit older than seventy, I’d say.”

  “How old are you?” I blurted.

  He slid a look to me. “I was born in the Emirate of Cordoba. I don’t know my exact birth year, but my best estimate is somewhere around the Year of Our Lord 760.” His mouth crooked. “I was an old man of perhaps four decades when Kang turned me.”

  He pivoted and strode to the door, leaving on a perfect dramatic note.

  Until I ruined it. “Hang on, Pierce. Something doesn’t make sense.”

  Pierce stopped, then slowly turned back to me, a thin smile on his face and annoyance in his eyes. “Yes, Angel?”

  I stood and folded my arms over my chest in a mock-Pierce pose. “If Kang is so old, then he has the mature zombie super senses, right?”

  His head dipped a couple of millimeters. “Kang is indeed a mature zombie.”

  “Then how did Ed Quinn get the jump on him to chop his head off? Kang would’ve smelled him coming and known he was up to no good.” A rush of exultation flooded me. “That’s what you want to know, isn’t it! You want to ask him how Ed managed it so you can defend against it!”

  The amusement returned to Pierce’s eyes. “Kang was tranqed first, just enough to dull his senses.”

  My exultation popped like a soap bubble. “Oh.”

  His smile widened. “I’d wondered the same thing, so I asked Quinn.”

  “Right.” I fought back a scowl. Of course he would ask Ed. Want to know how someone was murdered? Ask the murderer.

  “He informed me Kang was staggering down the corridor and didn’t hear him come in.” Pierce looked positively elated as he stomped my theory into dust. “Quinn thought he was drunk. I knew that wasn’t possible and believed a tranq was to blame. Dr. Nikas confirmed my hunch by finding traces of zombie tranquilizer compound in Kang’s neck tissues.”