Bear didn’t appear to be mentally ill like my mother was and, if he was any sort of addict, he hid it damn well. Not that either was a requirement or excuse to be abusive. Bear was scary and intimidating under ordinary circumstances. I couldn’t imagine being on the receiving end of his anger.
Yet there was every chance that what I’d witnessed was an isolated incident. Parents and kids argued for all sorts of reasons. Even the most well-adjusted families had the occasional screaming match—which was one of the reasons why Pierce worried about family members of zombies being in the know. Nick never mentioned his family or personal life, but then again neither did most of my other coworkers, not in any sort of depth. How was I to know if there was a pattern of abuse—verbal or otherwise—from Bear? And, if I did know, what the hell could I do about it?
Thoughts stewing, I drove out to the park behind the municipal auditorium. Dusk turned the western sky purple and maroon as I sat on the hood of my car. And, while I consumed my monthly quota of fried food, I continued my internet search of Bear Galatas.
It was common knowledge around these parts that Bear was a survivalist who preached the virtue of preparedness. What I hadn’t known was how serious he was about it. A frequent contributor to Survive This! magazine, he wrote articles on everything from how to escape handcuffs, zip-ties, and duct tape to the increase of martial law in the U.S to how to grow a survival garden. He even had a popular blog called “Bear Talk” where he discussed how to prepare for and survive various catastrophes, from house fires to hurricanes, terrorist attack to alien invasion.
I added this info to my own observations of the man. Big, tough guy, smart and confident enough to run a very successful business, a planner with strong opinions, and openly dismissive of anyone he deemed a slacker. Worked out hard, and a big believer in mind-and-body strength.
Shit. And then there was Nick—not at all big and tough and strong who no doubt embodied everything that Bear considered wimpy and worthless. But damn it, Nick was smart. Surely that was an important survival trait?
Worry for Nick gnawed at me, but I had zero idea what to do to help him. Maybe I could talk to Derrel—without naming any names—and get his advice.
Nothing else I could do right now. Damn it.
Frustration simmered as I continued home, but by the time I arrived, I’d wrenched my thoughts back to murder-clue hunting. In the bathroom, I peeled the skull fragment off my forehead, then attacked the makeup and glue residue with makeup remover, baby wipes, and cold cream. It probably would have been quicker to claw my skin right off, eat brains, and grow my face back, but I figured mopping up the blood and flesh bits would burn more time than I saved.
It was full dark by the time I finished removing all of the makeup. I checked my watch, changed into dark jeans and a black t-shirt, killed another fifteen minutes with a skim-through of my Biology notes, then got my ass in gear.
Zombie Spy Powers, Activate!
• • •
Judd lived in Bob’s Trailer Park, a rundown shithole with a dozen lots and a driveway that had more potholes than level ground. The owner, Bob, was a real prince who dealt meth on the side and by some miracle had yet to be busted for it. The residents were the kind of people who either didn’t give a shit about the nasty conditions, or were desperate enough to tolerate them for the cheap rent. Judd wasn’t desperate. He simply preferred to spend his money on the finer things in life. Guns. Pot. Prostitutes. Antibiotics. Judd had lived there the longest of any of the residents, and was one of the few with anything resembling a steady—and legal—job.
The good thing, for me at least, was that I seriously doubted any of Judd’s neighbors would call the cops if they saw weird crap going on since everyone here had something to hide. The bad thing was that the neighbors would likely just shoot anyone they deemed suspicious.
In other words, I needed to be super-ultra-sneaky. I parked a street over, ate a packet of brains, jumped a ditch, and cut through a thin stretch of woods. At the edge of the trees I watched, listened, and scented. Neither of his neighbors on either side were home, and I thanked baby Jesus for that little advantage. Both the front and back doors of his trailer were locked with padlocks, but that didn’t bother me. I’d been here a few times before, back when I was dating Randy. Though, at the time, I’d hated hanging out with Judd, I was glad now that I’d listened to his dumb ramblings about escape routes and secret trap doors in case of terrorist attacks. Because, god knows, if I was a terrorist, a piece of shit trailer park in bumfuck Louisiana would totally be my first target. Totally.
After tugging gloves on, I crept up to the back of Judd’s trailer, crouched, and peered beneath it. Cobwebs and trash and way too many bugs made a nasty, creepy jungle, but at least it was relatively dry. Though I had a mini-flashlight in my pocket, I didn’t dare use it outside where it could draw attention. Lucky for me, the recent top off of brains gave my vision a decent boost, and I spied a difference in the floor near the very back of his trailer.
Judd’s idea of an escape hatch wasn’t fancy—nothing more than a two foot square hole covered by a piece of plywood and an area rug. I had no trouble shoving them aside to shimmy into the trailer, then took a minute to brush spiders and other yuck off me. Ugh. I’d been through nastier places, but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
No bed or dresser in this room. Old mail and miscellaneous trash littered a floor that had never known the sweet kiss of a vacuum. A gun safe hunkered in one corner, and a matte black crossbow that looked like the lovechild of an assault rifle and Satan’s longbow hung on a rack beside it. A workbench covered in reloading equipment and fletching supplies took up the entire back wall, and on the opposite wall hung a huge image of Bear in camouflage gear and toting an axe, surrounded by posters of naked women with guns. Wow. Talk about hero worship. Ew.
I did a quick search of the room and found a vast collection of porn, but no murder weapons or bloody clothing. The gun safe seemed to mock me. That was the most logical place to stash evidence, and its big lock would keep out anyone who didn’t have the combination or major explosives. I didn’t have any explosives, but I did have experience. I’d been on a lot of crime scenes in the past year and a half, and I knew that a whole lot of people didn’t trust their memory. In less than two minutes I found the scrap of masking tape on the underside of the workbench, and in another thirty seconds I pulled open the safe in triumph.
“Well, crap.” So much for triumph. Guns of every possible variety were cram-packed into the safe, but no machete, no blood, and no car keys or anything else that might have come from the murder victim Seeger. Annoyed, I shut the safe door and locked it. There’d been no room to spare in the safe, so maybe he hid stuff elsewhere?
I proceeded through the trailer, searching as quickly and carefully as possible. The second bedroom held Judd’s bed and dresser along with a three-foot high pile of dirty laundry that I forced myself to root through. I even got on the floor and peered under his bed, and found only a collection of cum-crusted socks and several pounds of weed.
The kitchen was surprisingly clean, and I realized I hadn’t seen dirty dishes or food in any of the mess elsewhere in the trailer. That explained why I hadn’t seen any roaches. Okay, so Judd was gross, but he still had standards. Nice to know. I dutifully checked the cabinets and found jack squat of interest, then moved on to the last room—a marginally tidy living room. But disappointment reigned as I turned up nothing but enormous dust bunnies under the couch, and desiccated Cheetos in the cushions.
Crap! My hopes of getting this done nice and quick vanished. Failure here meant I had to check out Coy’s place, and it would take me at least fifteen minutes to get there. Still, it was that or give up the search, and I wasn’t going to do that. Not if there was any chance Randy was involved or that a clue about the murder might surface.
Fuming in annoyance, I turned to leave but stopped as my gaze fell on a
small table in the corner. It held an ancient computer that I didn’t think Judd had ever used in all the time I’d known him—probably because he bought it cheap and second-hand, and only later discovered that whatever part it needed to connect to the internet was busted. He’d insisted he was going to fix it, but that was at least four years ago. Not surprising since Judd had less computer smarts than me, which wasn’t saying a whole lot. I hadn’t bothered to check the computer during my search since it didn’t seem like a place to hide evidence of murder but, beneath the dust, a red light winked on the front of the computer tower.
A tingle started at the base of my spine, spread up as I moved to the table. Papers cluttered its surface along with a yellow legal pad and a bubble pack for two USB flash drives—with one drive missing. Penis-shaped flash drives, because this was Judd.
What was so important that Judd decided to crank up this dinosaur? I wiggled the mouse and was rewarded with a Windows ME screen. It took me several frustrating tries to find a list of his files, but as far as I could tell everything was several years old. There also wasn’t a damn thing on the computer that looked to be worth saving onto a flash drive.
My eyes dropped to the legal pad, and the tingle increased. I grabbed up a pencil and rubbed the lead over the surface of the paper, like I’d seen in every detective TV show. Words appeared, light against dark, and I had to bite back a whoop of delight. Hot damn. The shit worked! Now I could see exactly . . .
zombie heal
zombie turn
zombie speed
“What the . . . ?” Comprehension seared through me as if I’d grabbed a live wire. These matched the filenames on Grayson Seeger’s printout. If Judd knew the filenames, he either had a second copy of the list, or—
I tugged a crumpled receipt from beneath the penis drive package. It was from the XpressMart with a time stamp of four-nineteen p.m. today. He wouldn’t need to buy a flash drive if all he had was a printout of the list. The only thing that made sense was that Judd somehow had the actual files themselves.
I chewed my lower lip as the implications came together in ugly patterns. Judd must have gotten the files from another flash drive—and the most obvious suspect was one belonging to Seeger. Shit. Judd had bought the penis flash drives between the afternoon and evening hunts. In other words, he checked out the files on Seeger’s drive and then decided he wanted a copy—so badly that he ran out and bought flash drives during the break between hunts. What the hell could’ve been that important?
Mouth set, I continued rubbing the pencil lead over the paper.
zombie feed
zombie frenzy
“Frenzy” was circled. Could be Judd saw the Zombies Are Among Us!! trailer this afternoon and thought that the zombie_frenzy video file—the one I suspected matched up with the film—was interesting because lots of locals were in the big melée scene.
zombie turn 2
The last was underlined four times with a heavy hand. I chewed my lower lip as I pondered those fierce underlines. The sneak preview today hadn’t shown anything that matched up to that filename, but I figured the full mockumentary would. I’d find out for sure at the Fest tomorrow. I rubbed lead over the last few inches of the paper.
ANGEL
The pencil slipped from my fingers. What the shit? My pulse stuttered, and my mouth went bone dry. My name. Why did he have my name listed with the files?
Panic sent waves of cold running over my skin, and my thoughts jabbered like a room full of angry people. I stumbled back from the table and pressed both hands to my stomach. My name on a page of zombie crap. He knew. Judd knew. It was over. I needed a dose so I could chill and figure out what to do. I—
“Stop it!” I gasped, both frightened and furious at myself. “Stop being stupid!” This wasn’t me, wasn’t the Angel who’d remade herself. This stupid freakout was Old Angel, the one who couldn’t handle shit and took the easy way out. I didn’t need a dose. Not for this. Goddammit, I’d survived worse.
The panic gradually crumbled as I forced myself to breathe, steady and deep. The mad galloping of my heart slowed to an unsteady trot. Straightening, I moved back to the table. There, see? I could handle this. No need to freak out. Without the panic gibbering in my ear, I had no trouble thinking of any number of perfectly logical reasons for why my name was on the paper. Judd might have written it on the pad earlier, and it had nothing to do with the files at all. Or could be he wrote my name down because he spotted me in the Zombie Frenzy!! clip of the mockumentary. Hell, maybe he met some other chick named Angel and wanted to hook up with her.
Calmer now, I ripped the sheet from the pad, folded it, and shoved it into my pocket. Best case scenario was that I got my hands on those files to see for myself. Nothing else I could do now except make sure I didn’t miss the full mockumentary tomorrow—and track Judd’s worthless ass down as soon as possible to recover both Seeger’s flash drive and the penis drive copy.
Unfortunately, the list of files still didn’t prove Judd’s involvement in the murder. Seeger could have dropped the drive after he left the movie premiere, and Judd then picked it up completely innocently. I knew in my gut that was bullshit, especially when added to the other evidence from the crime scene—the American flag cigarette with the smear of camo makeup, the yellow lighter, and the zombie hunter kit. Top it off with the squirrelly way the guys were acting, and I had a really bad feeling that Randy, Coy, and Judd were in neck deep. Damn it. But I needed to be sure.
Next stop on my breaking and entering spree: Coy’s place.
Chapter 17
My phone vibrated seconds after I settled into my car. I slid it from my pocket and glanced at the screen.
V12
“Holy shit.” I blinked at the message on my alarm. Unfamiliar pride swelled within my chest. I’d made it. Even though I’d really fucking wanted a hit, I’d made it until it was time for my dose. A smile pulled at my mouth as I got out the syringe and vial. I still craved the V12 like no one’s business, but that wasn’t the point. Not yet, at least. I hadn’t caved, and that’s what mattered.
Warmth spread through me as I injected the half-dose. Stress melted away and the world brightened. I was an addict, and I’d always be an addict, but I was facing it now. For the first time ever, I was facing it.
I took one of the capsules Dr. Nikas gave me to counter withdrawal side effects, downed a packet of brains, and got on my way, body tingling delightfully. And, when my tires hummed on the bridge over Bayou Zaire, the water laughed with me.
• • •
Coy’s closest neighbor lived half a mile away from him, which meant I didn’t have to be as sneaky. All I had to do was park behind his house so no one could see my car from the road. Oh, and avoid setting the place on fire. That might draw a bit of attention.
Breaking into Coy’s house was even easier than Judd’s since I knew he kept a spare key taped to the top of the hummingbird feeder. After I pulled on fresh gloves and let myself in, I checked the place out. It was about half the size of my house, which meant it was damn tiny. Main room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen—all spotless. A nice change of pace after Judd’s trailer, and quick to search, too. With a sigh of relief, I finished my sweep and shoved the sofa back in place. Not a speck of blood or murder weapon to be found.
My next stop was the detached garage where Coy did his taxidermy. To my annoyance, it was locked tight, and no amount of searching under rocks and potted plants turned up a key. My lock pick experience was limited to the time I broke off a bobby pin in the outside door of an XpressMart bathroom. The clerk was being a major prick and wouldn’t give me the key to the crapper, so I’d tried to pick the lock. When that failed spectacularly, I made tracks before the clerk discovered the ruined lock or the surprise I left him. Hey, I really needed to go.
Breaking Coy’s lock—or taking a shit by his door—weren’t my first choices. I c
ircled the building and searched for a way in. Two small windows near a dryer vent in the back. A skylight on the roof. Nothing easy or open.
Crap. I was going to have to break in for real. But surely busting one little window wasn’t that much worse than sneaking through a trapdoor or letting myself in with a key. If Coy was guilty, it had to be done. If he wasn’t, I’d make it up to him. Later.
I found a rock the size of my fist, smashed the window then went still, listening. No alarm sounded. A dog barked twice in the distance. Doing my very best to not slice my hands to pieces, I unlocked the window and slid it open.
A variety of scents swirled around me as I clambered through the window and onto the washing machine. Epoxy and paint. Musk and blood. I scrambled down and panned the beam of my mini flashlight around. I’d never been in a taxidermy studio before, and I took a few seconds to gawk. It was obvious Coy was serious about his work. The space was orderly, with cabinets and shelves filling one wall, and printed labels organizing everything from glass eyes to glue. I grinned at a shelf of protective gloves, aprons, and filter masks. I had a shelf like that back at the morgue. A large chest freezer took up the wall by the door. Two broad wood tables filled the center of the garage, with a pole between them that held three unfinished deer heads. Several finished pieces perched on the far wall—squirrels, ducks, and even a wild boar head. Bare polyurethane animal forms hung from a rack along the ceiling.
“This is so cool,” I breathed then got my ass in gear.
Like the house, the neatness of Coy’s garage made it a snap to search for things that didn’t belong. I combed through shelves, storage bins, cabinets, and every nook and cranny. No murder weapons. No blood. Nothing suspicious.
But my heart dropped to my toes at the sight of a black garbage bag inside the washer.
Be cool, I told myself as I tugged the bag out. Maybe it was Coy’s dirty laundry. He could’ve been in a hurry and chucked the bag in the washer with plans to wash it later.