The world leapt into green and black focus, just like in the movies. “These are so cool,” I breathed.
“Can you shoot a gun?” he asked.
“I’m not a great shot or anything, but I know which end to point at the bad guys,” I replied.
“Good enough.” He pressed the butt of a pistol into my hand. I couldn’t see details with the goggles on, but it wasn’t a very large gun. Some kind of automatic. Bigger than a .22 but smaller than a .45. And that was about the extent of my gun knowledge.
He began moving through the trees, and I followed, doing my best to be quiet but certain that we sounded like a pair of rampaging elephants. It probably took us close to fifteen minutes to get through the stretch of woods, part of which was a swampy section that we had to wade through, soaking us to our knees. I kept scanning but didn’t see anyone lurking in the woods lying in wait.
We dropped to the ground a few feet from the other edge of the woods and watched the house for several minutes. Finally Ed turned to me and pulled his goggles off. “Too much light around the house for night-vision now,” he said in a barely audible voice. I quickly tugged mine off, then had to blink a few times to get used to normal vision again.
“I don’t see anyone,” I said, doing my best to match his low volume.
“Me neither.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t smell anyone either.”
He shot me an uncertain look. I shrugged and smiled sweetly.
“Uh, okay,” he muttered. “Well, I think we should go for it.”
We shifted into crouches, then moved quickly through the back yard and pressed ourselves up against the house. I edged to the door and started to reach for the handle, but Ed grabbed my arm before I could touch it.
“No gloves,” he hissed, giving my hand a pointed look. I winced. Oh, yeah. Probably best not to leave fingerprints.
But he didn’t release my arm. “Look at the door frame,” he said.
I followed his gaze, cold settling into my gut at the scrape marks around the lock.
“Lock is broken,” he whispered, grim expression coming over his face. He gave the backyard another quick scan, then—since he did have gloves on—gently tugged the back door open.
“Stay here while I check it out,” he murmured.
“The fuck I will,” I shot back.
He gave me a sharp look. “You’re a big tough zombie,” he whispered. “How can you be afraid to be left out here alone?”
“’Cause I’m also a neurotic chick who’s already been attacked once today,” I whispered back with a scowl.
He processed that, then nodded. “Fair enough. Follow me, and try not to shoot me in the back.”
“No promises,” I muttered.
He snorted in response and slipped inside. I followed and quietly pulled the door closed behind me. The house was utterly silent except for the hum of the refrigerator. The cold feeling in my gut began to increase as we moved through the kitchen and into the living room.
Yet even with the sense that something was really fucked up, it still shocked the hell out of me when I saw Sofia lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the floor.
I stopped where I was as I took it all in. She was on her back with one leg bent up under the other and her right arm flung out to her side. Her eyes were open, and blood tracked across her forehead from where she’d been shot in the head. I couldn’t tell if that was the only wound, but either way she was clearly dead. I’d seen hundreds of bodies before, of course, but I’d always been prepared for it. This time, though, I’d been coming here to lay into her and hopefully find out what the hell was going on. I’d never honestly believed that she’d ever really been in danger.
I let out a shaking breath as I scanned the room. No sign of struggle—just like Marianne’s house—except for a knocked-over can of Coke that had made a large brown stain in the pale carpet. Sofia didn’t keep a terribly neat house, though the mess was mostly clutter, not dirt. I moved over to the table. A desk calendar covered much of the surface, surrounded by stacks of books and magazines. The calendar was at least two years old and covered with notes and phone numbers and reminders. She probably didn’t want to get a new calendar because then she’d lose all the information scrawled onto this one. I could appreciate that mentality. I almost liked her a bit more now that I knew she hadn’t been perfect. Almost.
“We need to get out of here now,” Ed said, grabbing me by the arm.
“Hang on,” I said, peering at one phone number that was circled. Above it was scrawled “
[email protected]
/* */
” The number looked vaguely familiar, as if it was one that I’d dialed a few times. It wasn’t Marcus’s, I knew that much. What the hell did
[email protected]
/* */
mean? Was it an email address? If so wasn’t it supposed to have a “com” or “net” at the end?
I didn’t want to risk touching anything so I did my best to memorize it and the number instead of finding a pen and scrap of paper. Ed tugged on my arm again, but this time I didn’t resist and allowed him to lead me to the back door. He eased it open and did a quick scan, then seized my hand and took off at a run toward the woods. I had no problem keeping up, and when we reached the woods, I pulled the goggles back on as if I’d worn them a thousand times. I didn’t say a word as we returned to the truck, remaining silent until we were well away from the house and the subdivision.
“You okay?” I finally asked.
Ed’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Not really,” he said. “I’ve known Sofia a long time. She could be a real bitch sometimes, but…” His expression darkened. “I’m going to kill that McKinney motherfucker.”
“You think McKinney did it? But I thought you shot him.”
“He was wearing a vest,” Ed told me. Then he thumped his chest with his fist. “So am I, for that matter.”
Blinking in surprise, I took a closer look at him. Yeah, now that I was looking for it I could see a slightly thicker look to his torso beneath the hoodie. I’d been so distracted by the skulls and other goth or emo stuff that I hadn’t even noticed.
Goth…
“Oooooh,” I breathed. Now I knew what
[email protected]
/* */
meant and how I knew that phone number. “Sofia was two-timing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She was playing both sides of the zombie factions. There was a phone number on her desk calendar that looked vaguely familiar, with what I thought was an email address above it. But it wasn’t. It stood for ‘Kang at Scott Funeral Home.’” Kang, the seventy-year-old zombie who’d always dressed like a twenty-year-old goth.
“Who the hell is Kang?” he asked, sounding slightly exasperated.
“The zombie you killed at Scott Funeral Home.” Yeah, sure, Ed had rescued me and seemed to be changing his ways, but I still wasn’t ready to pull any punches. “If anyone was a leader of another zombie faction it would have been Kang,” I continued, talking it out more for my own sake than for his. “He was old as shit and had a tight hold on the brain distribution from the funeral homes in this area.”
Ed was silent for a moment, face stony. “That’s how I tracked him down. Two of the others had his name and number.”
As sorry as I was for Kang, I still couldn’t help but feel a teensy bit of I told you so. I’d told the damn man that I thought someone was hunting zombies and that he should be careful, and he’d blown it off as “not his problem.” Jerk.
“I need to call Marcus again,” I said after a moment. “And Pietro. He needs to know.” I frowned. “Shit. I don’t have his number.”
“I know his number,” Ed said. Then he gave me a puzzled look. “But what does Pietro have to do with any of…” His expression abruptly shifted to one of shock. “Oh, my god. He’s a zombie too, isn’t he.”
“Yeah, he’s another Zombie Leader. I think Sofia was playing Kang and Pietro off each other. In fact,” I said, musing, “I bet it was Kang’s murder that started getting her all freaked out.” I considered this for a moment as I fought to get all the pieces to fit together. I was still missing something. “You’ve known Pietro a long time, haven’t you?”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “He and my parents were friends.”
A horrible suspicion came over me, but I didn’t want to say anything just yet. However, Ed wasn’t stupid.
“How long has he been a zombie?” His voice was calm, but I had the feeling that if he tightened his grip on the wheel any more it would crumble.
“Um, a pretty long time, as far as I know.” I watched him, wary. Dude was about to snap. “He’s the one who turned Marcus,” I continued. “Marcus got bit by a raccoon or something and got rabies.”
Surprise flashed over Ed’s face. “I remember that.” His shoulders slumped and his death grip on the steering wheel relaxed a fraction. “He…Marcus told me he got the shots in time.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “He didn’t know he was infected until he started to get symptoms. It didn’t even occur to him.”
Ed shuddered. He was medically trained and knew that it was almost always too late by that point.
“He was going to die,” I went on. “So Pietro…saved him the only way he could.”
Ed didn’t respond. He stared at the highway ahead as we drove. I didn’t ask him where we were going. Right now it didn’t really matter.
“He’s the one who killed my dad,” he finally said in a voice so raw it made me shiver.
I didn’t ask him if was sure. He was. I could see that. His eyes were on the road, but memories flickered behind them.
“He killed my dad,” he repeated. “But not my mom.” His throat bobbed again as he swallowed hard. “He loved her.” His voice broke on that, and then it was as if the dam opened up. He began to sob, and I quickly put out a hand and took hold of the steering wheel. To my relief he slowed down, retaining enough control of himself to pull over to the side of the road and put the truck in park before completely breaking down.
