How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

  Philip exhaled. “Angel, that’s the problem. I’m tanked. It doesn’t touch it.”

  Permanent rot? An ugly twist of fear curled through me, and I had to fight the urge to rub at my arm. “We should call the lab and try and get hold of Dr. Nikas again,” I said.

  He nodded agreement. “I left the voicemail earlier when I noticed the rot, but shit’s going downhill.”

  “Yeah, weird freakout episodes justify another call,” I said with a glower. “Come on in. I’ll make the call, and we can go from there.” I led the way up the driveway and inside.

  “Okay if I use your bathroom?” Philip asked.

  “Yeah, no prob,” I replied and tried not to think about what condition the bathroom might be in. Horrific, most likely, even though I’d cleaned the toilet only last week, with possible nastiness that ranged from hair in the shower drain to Dad’s skid-mark underwear hanging from the toilet flush handle, with a dying roach in the sink for added ambience. Best not to even think of it. “Since you’ve already left a voicemail for Dr. Nikas, I’ll try Jacques or Reg,” I added.

  “Sure thing,” Philip said. “I’ll be right out.”

  Detouring to the bedroom, I snagged a bottle of brains out of the fridge. A few gulps later, I peered at my arm in dismay as Absolutely Nothing happened. Shit. Double triple quadruple shit.

  Returning to the living room, I hit the lab’s number. Jacques picked up on the first ring.

  “Leroux,” he snapped out.

  “Hey, Jacques, it’s Angel.”

  “Oh. Angel,” he said with unmistakable disappointment. Who was he expecting at this time of night? A hot exotic dancer? “What do you need?”

  “Philip had a freaky episode, and we both have matching pre-rot patches on our arms,” I explained. “He left a message for Dr. Nikas, but that was before he pulled a caveman stunt and tried to drag me out of Marcus’s truck.” Philip came out of the bathroom with a hopeful look. I shook my head and mouthed Jacques, and he grimaced in disappointment. “It’s not his normal Plague stuff,” I continued to Jacques. “I think it’s a reaction to the procedure this morning. Is Dr. Nikas around?”

  Jacques remained silent for a moment. “He’s not available,” he finally said then cleared his throat as though choking down the urge to say more.

  I frowned. Not even a Maybe I can help you, or Come on in? “Jacques, we need help, sooner rather than later.” Whether Dr. Nikas was available or not, I’d feel better at the lab in case anything else happened with Philip. “We’ll head over now.”

  “Now? Wait. Hold on.” A second later an onslaught of tinny elevator music screeched through the phone.

  I glanced at Philip. “I’m on hold, and Jacques’s acting weird.”

  The music stopped and a female voice said, “Angel?”

  “Naomi?” I replied. “What the hell is going on? Why is Jacques all stressed out, and why are you at the lab this late?”

  “Kyle and I are assigned here tonight,” she said, an intense edge in her voice. “Jacques said you and Philip need to come in for an assessment?”

  “Yeah. What’s the deal?”

  “Not on the phone,” she said. “You can come on in, but we changed the codes for the doors. Ready to hear them?”

  “Did something happen to Dr. Nikas?”

  “We’ll talk when you get here,” she insisted, her tone no-nonsense. “These are based on the weapons locker code. The first one, add a twenty-three to the end. The second one, add a seventy-six to the beginning. Got it?”

  “Weapons locker. Twenty-three at the end for the first, seventy-six at the beginning for the second,” I repeated, and a nod from Philip told me he knew the sequence. “We’ll be there in about a half an hour, and no more dodging the questions.”

  “You got it,” she said. “See you in a bit.”

  I jammed the phone into my purse and headed for the door. “Something serious is up. Let’s go.”

  Kyle and Naomi’s silver SUV was in front of the building when Philip pulled into the lot. He parked beside it, and as soon as the car stopped I threw open the door and clambered out. “What’s the weapons locker code?”

  “Three-seven-seven-six-zero-eight-four-one,” he rattled off as he noted mileage in his log book.

  I hurried to the door, punched in up to the sixty-eight and called back, “What were the last two?”

  “Four-one,” he said though the open door.

  I entered that then added the twenty-three, and enjoyed an irrational sense of satisfaction as the lock buzzed. It wasn’t as if I’d cracked the damn code myself or anything. I pulled the door open and glanced back. “Philip, come on.”

  He still sat behind the wheel, his head lowered, writing. I frowned. No, not writing. His head lolled to the side. Alarm shot through me. “Philip!?”

  He jerked and sat upright as though waking from sleep, a bewildered look on his face. I released the door handle and rushed back to the car. “Dude, what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” he said as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “I greyed out, but I feel fine now.”

  “The fucking Plague strikes again,” I said with a worried scowl. “Let’s get your ass inside.”

  Philip climbed out of the car, swayed a bit, then steadied. “I’m okay. That sucked.”

  The door clicked open, and Naomi stuck her head out. “You two okay? The code dinged, then you didn’t come in.”

  “Sorry,” I said, heading her way. “Philip had another episode.”

  She opened the door wide. “Get inside. I’m not wishing bad stuff on you, but it’ll be good for Jacques to have something to do.”

  We passed through the drab reception area that I was certain was meant to convince anyone who managed to get through the outer door that they were most certainly not at a super secret high tech zombie lab.

  “Enough of the riddle shit,” I said as Naomi punched the code into the next security door. “Why does Jacques need distraction? What is going on?”

  The door clicked open, and we passed through. “Trouble,” Naomi said as she waved at the mirrored glass in the next small room, the last security checkpoint before entering the lab complex. “Hang on, I’ll explain everything as soon as we’re through.”

  The heavy door on the far wall buzzed, and we passed through into a wide corridor. Ahead of us were the thick sliding glass doors to the central lab, with the medical wing and security office off to the right. Naomi continued forward as the glass doors slid open, and we followed her into the lab. Kyle lounged at a station, calmly reading a fat paperback, though he paused long enough to give us a nod.

  Naomi finally turned to us. “You know when Kyle got that call at Top Cow? It was the alert that Mr. Ivanov, Dr. Nikas, and others were gone. Abducted.”

  I stopped dead, feeling as though my whole world tilted. “What? How?”

  Philip cursed softly behind me.

  She took a steadying breath. “Mr. Ivanov and his driver, Simon Sirtis. Kristi Charish, along with Chris Peterson, and their driver, Ken Godwin. Plus Lawrence Hawkins, the security guard at the Retreat Lodge. All missing.”

  I processed that as she spoke. I knew every one of those people except Lawrence. “Does Brian know who did this?”

  Naomi’s face hardened. “Brian took Dr. Nikas in broad daylight, out front.”

  Chapter 8

  Cold crept through me at Naomi’s words. “Wait. You mean Brian took Dr. Nikas to a safe place?” Nothing else made sense.

  “I wish.” She pulled out her phone and thumbed through a couple of screens. “It sucks. Tranqed him and threw him in the back of his car. Check it out.” She held the phone so we could see a segment of surveillance video.

  I watched in numb shock as Brian spoke on the phone in the driver’s seat of his SUV outside the front door of the lab, then dropped the phone onto
the seat and waited. A moment later, Dr. Nikas came out the door, leaned into the passenger window to talk to Brian. About ten seconds later, Dr. Nikas turned back toward the building, and if Naomi hadn’t replayed the section, I’d have missed it.

  Brian shifted in the front seat, a small motion. Dr. Nikas jerked, then swayed as if about to faint. Brian leapt out of the passenger door, caught Dr. Nikas as he sagged, and hustled him into the back seat. The door closed, Brian got behind the wheel again, then peeled out of the lot.

  Naomi tucked the phone away. “You can see the tranq gun better from the other camera view.”

  Brian? Brian? He’d have been at the very bottom of my list of People Who Would Betray Pietro.

  “No one watching the security cameras noticed this?” I asked, shaken.

  “You saw how quickly Brian moved,” Naomi said. “They all thought he was leaving with Brian voluntarily.” She raked her fingers through her hair, aggravated and pissed. “It was Brian. Beyond suspicion. No one knew anything was wrong until Dr. Nikas’s driver showed up to take him to dinner with Mr. Ivanov. Then suddenly they couldn’t get hold of anyone to check in, and security started digging.”

  “Do you have any idea where they are?”

  She shook her head, grim. “Not at this time. If any ransom demands were made, we weren’t informed. Kyle and I are here to back up Raul and Dan. For extra security.”

  I flicked a glance at Kyle as he turned a page in his book. How the hell could he possibly be so calm?

  “Angel,” Philip said. “Brian was on the phone in the vid. The time stamp puts it before we left here earlier today.”

  I turned to him, eyes wide. “That was the call Dr. Nikas got during our treatment.” I grimaced as another realization hit. “He didn’t leave us by choice, which meant the procedure wasn’t finished properly. No wonder you’re a mess, and we’re doing synchronized rotting.” I touched the spot on my arm, certain it was uglier and squishier than before. “We need to see Jacques.”

  “He’s in the treatment room with Reg,” Naomi told me. “Last I saw him he was going through Dr. Nikas’s notes from this morning.”

  Philip headed off that way, jaw set. I leaned closer to Naomi. “It must be Saberton Corporation behind this.”

  Distress shimmered in her eyes even as Kyle’s gaze locked onto me over his book. Anything about Saberton hit close to home with Naomi. Everything had turned upside down for her a few months back when she stumbled onto Saberton’s cruel zombie experimentation, and she ended up killing one of the researchers to protect a vivisected zombie test subject. When she informed her brother, Andrew, that she was done with the bullshit, he threatened to tell their mother about the murder if Naomi didn’t get her act together for Saberton. Instead, Naomi broke his nose, hogtied him with a sheet and fled.

  As I watched, Naomi pushed the distress aside and lifted her chin, face fierce like some sort of warrior princess. “I’m certain they’re behind it,” she said with conviction. “My mother is desperate enough these days to plan a stunt like this. I only wish she’d been careless enough to screw it up.” She smacked the counter with her hand. “I can’t believe I used to think of this as a big game.”

  “The Tribe screwed up Saberton’s movie zombie experiment pretty badly,” I said. “You think your mom might have grabbed Pietro for revenge?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her,” she said, eyes narrowing. “With the company in trouble since granddad died, she’s lost moral perspective.” Her mouth twisted in a scowl. “With family and business. Don’t get me wrong, she was never very motherly. But she wasn’t so cutthroat or vindictive, and she wouldn’t . . .” She trailed off as she ran her fingers over her cheekbone, a deep sadness in her eyes and voice. “What other daughter has to go through this to keep their mother from hunting them down and killing them . . . or worse?”

  A changed appearance and a faked death. Sure, it kept Julia/Naomi safe from Nicole Saber, but it also meant isolation from her family, however crappy that family was.

  “It sucks big time,” I agreed. “All we can do now is focus on getting our people back. Who’s on it? Rachel? I bet she’ll tap you to get the inside scoop on what you think Saberton’s next move is.”

  “She hasn’t yet. I should probably call her.” Naomi gave me a determined, closed-lip smile. “Rachel doesn’t much like me, but I know a lot of shit about Saberton.”

  “Yeah, you do,” I said. “And welcome to the Rachel Hates Me club.” I gave her a quick hug. “I’m going to see if Jacques has a fix for Philip and me. I’m not too happy with the permanent rot thing.”

  Naomi made a face. “I’m with you on that one.”

  I left her and made my way to the treatment room where I found Jacques drawing a blood sample from Philip, while the other tech, Reg, worked at a computer on a counter nearby.

  “Dr. Nikas didn’t document what he was doing,” Jacques said, face pale and voice unsteady. “He was adjusting as he went. He often works that way.” He pulled the needle from Philip’s arm. “Some notes. Nothing clear.”

  This was an absolute fountain of words from the man. “It’s cool. We trust you,” I said, but I heard the high, thin worry in my tone. “It’s cool,” I repeated. Reg glanced over from the computer station and gave me a somewhat steadier smile, though his eyes held plenty of concern as well.

  Jacques took the blood samples over to another table and began doing stuff with vials and machines. “He never leaves before a procedure is finished,” he muttered, distressed. “I never would have let you leave. I assumed it was complete. I should have known, should have realized something was wrong.”

  “Hindsight is some awesomely useless shit,” I stated firmly.

  “None of us could have known,” Philip said at the same time.

  Jacques gave a slight nod, though the level of anxiety in his eyes remained the same. “I’ll run these and we’ll go from there. It’ll take about twenty minutes.” He gathered up the vials and moved to the adjoining room.

  Philip took the small cup of pureed brains Reg offered him and downed it. The tiny mark from the injection faded, but the rotted areas stubbornly remained. He murmured a thanks to Reg and handed the cup back, then gave my shoulder a bump with his. Though, with the height difference, it was more like my shoulder met his bicep. “C’mon, ZeeEm, we can wait in the main room,” he said. “The lab boys don’t need us hovering over them.”

  I turned with him toward the door. “ZeeEm? Seriously? Zombie Mama?”

  A smile twitched. “You don’t like it?”

  Tilting my head, I pretended to consider. “Y’know, it’s not bad. And I kinda like the idea of calling you ZeeBee.”

  “Zombie Baby,” he groaned, then chuckled. “Okay, I deserved that.”

  Grateful for the humor, I bumped my shoulder against him. But even with the brief distraction, the severity of the situation didn’t stay away for long. “Surely there’s someplace we can start looking,” I said as we made our way down the corridor. “There’s a crime scene somewhere, right? Wherever Pietro and the others were kidnapped?”

  “We can check with Kyle and Naomi, but I’m sure security’s been on that all day.”

  “And how much training do they have on crime scene investigation?” I asked with a frown.

  A faint grimace touched his mouth. “Basic, but they won’t be calling in any experts.”

  “Why not? If they report it to the police, do they have to mention that Pietro and the others are zombies?” My frown deepened. “The cops have a lot more equipment and training and connections. They’d stand a better chance of finding out what really happened.” But even as I said it I knew it couldn’t possibly work out that way. “Shit, no. If the cops investigated they’d find out about the rest. It’s why I didn’t report it when Saberton’s goons took my dad.”

  Philip nodded. “The risks are too great. As
bad as the abductions are, exposure is worse.”

  We entered the central lab. Kyle was still reading his book, and Naomi studied maps on one of the work station computers.

  “So in the meantime we wait.” I sucked at waiting, being patient, and most other things that were supposed to come with that whole maturity thing.

  “I doubt the Tribe is sitting on their hands,” Philip said. “What we do is another matter.” Worry tightened his expression, and I saw his gaze flick to the darkened patch on his arm.

  “We need to see what Jacques comes up with first,” I said. How much help could either of us be if we couldn’t control the rot? And I didn’t want to think about Philip’s weird fit and his greyout in the parking lot.

  I flopped into one of the chairs and amused myself by slowly spinning around. Kyle glanced at me once, snorted very softly, and then returned his attention to his book. Fine, I’d be picking him last for my hallway office chair bobsled team.

  The glass doors slid open as Raul leaned in from the outer hallway. He swept his gaze around before it came to rest on Kyle. “Hey, Griffin, could I see you for a minute in the security office?”

  Kyle carefully marked his page with a scrap of paper, set his book on the counter, and moved lithely to the door. Raul gave the rest of us a nod, then the doors slid closed behind the two.

  I spun my chair again. “How long has it been?” I whined.

  Philip leaned against a counter and folded his arms over his chest. “I think we’re up to a whole five minutes.” He straightened and patted his pocket. “Crap. Left my phone in the treatment room. Be right back.” With that he headed back the way we’d come.

  Pushing off against the desk, I sent my chair careening across the floor. “I just want to dooooo something.” My eyes fell on Kyle’s book, and I scooped it up to peer at the cover, which had a cool painting of a sword with dragons carved into the hilt. I began to flip through to see if I could find out more about the dragons, then jerked my head toward the main corridor at the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.

  Naomi bolted upright. “Kyle!”