Philip twitched then went still again, eyes remaining closed. I had a feeling he was awake and was trying to get his bearings without giving himself away. And he’d have probably pulled it off if I hadn’t been paying close attention—also known as “bored out of my mind.”
“Hey, Philip,” I said. “There’s no one else in here or the observation room, but I’m sure they’re still monitoring us.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. I allowed myself a moment of self-congratulation that I was right about him being wide-awake. He sat up, eyes flicking around the room, taking in the blood that covered the floor and us.
“There’s some food for you,” I said with a nod toward the second tray. “Brains too, which you’ll want to eat, I’m sure.”
A flicker of disgust passed over his face, and I almost laughed. “Yeah, I know,” I said. “But your instincts will take over quickly enough.”
“He shot me,” he said in a low voice. Frowning, he pulled his shirt up, but even through the dried and congealed blood it was obvious he was unwounded. He ran his hand over his chest. “That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, it’s fucking miraculous…as long as you’re tanked up.”
“Tanked up?” He gave me a puzzled look.
“Well fed on brains,” I explained.
“Ah. Well that shouldn’t be a problem,” he said.
I lifted an eyebrow. “Uh, right. Well, here’s the deal. The more you exert yourself, the more brains you’ll need. So your days of weight training and ten mile runs are over.”
His brows drew together as he opened his mouth to argue, but I cut him off. “You still don’t get it, do you?” I said. “You don’t need to do all that training anymore. The zombie part of you takes care of being strong and fast, and all it wants in return is brains.”
He considered that for a moment. “But if I had sufficient brains, I could train to improve, right?”
Frowning, I shrugged. “I guess. Honestly I have no idea. I’ve never been much of a fitness chick. And I’ve never had so many extra brains that I would’ve been able to test it out.” Not that I’d want to. I still had nightmares about high school phys ed class. I pulled the second tray over to him. “Here. You need to eat.”
He lifted the plastic fork, hesitated, then dug into the brains.
“Jesus,” he mumbled, an expression of bliss crossing his face.
I grinned. “Yeah. Crazy shit, huh?” I let him eat for a few minutes. “Why on earth would you volunteer for this?” I asked him when he was nearly finished with the contents of the tray. “Did you know what you were getting into?”
A faint smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “Well, I didn’t know I would be shot and then…”
“Eaten?”
“Well…yes.” A bit more of a smile revealed itself. Maybe this guy had a personality after all. “We were told it was an experimental program with a high risk of death.”
“Again,” I said, “why the hell would you volunteer for something like that?”
“Because we were also told that if the procedure succeeded we would be unstoppable.” He ran a hand over his chest again. “Invincible.”
I sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Dude, you really should’ve read the fine print. It’s all candy and roses as long as you have the brains, but just see how you feel after you’ve been without for a few days.” I picked at a flake of dried blood. “This is all about making super zombie soldiers or some shit, right?”
He frowned and didn’t answer, which was all the answer I needed. I smiled thinly. “You look like the kind of guy who’s been in the military.”
“Three tours in Iraq,” he answered gruffly.
“Okay, well, I imagine there’s lots of exertion, right? Now can you see yourself lugging a cooler of brains around with you…?” I trailed off. God, I was slow sometimes. Dr. Charish had found a better use for fake brains than feeding civilian zombies. Zombie super soldiers. Unstoppable and invincible.
Philip didn’t seem to notice my shift in mood. “They’ll take care of me. I have no doubt about that.”
The door swung open, and the man in the suit came in. “Yes, we’ll take good care of Philip,” he said, confirming my suspicion that they were constantly listening in. “In fact it’s time for him to come with us so that we can see what he’s capable of.” Philip scrambled to his feet and stood at attention. I rolled my eyes.
“Take him,” I said dully. “Happy fighting. Rah rah, and all that shit.”
They took me back to “my” room, let me shower the blood off, gave me fresh clothes to change into, then left me alone. I didn’t know what time of day it was or how much time had passed since I’d been taken, but I curled up on the narrow bed and fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.
It might have been half an hour or ten hours later that I woke up, but either way I felt fairly rested. I lay there quietly, ignoring my need to pee while I listened, doing my best to get some sort of clue as to where I was.
The place smelled like new paint, but beneath that there was a faint scent of rust and brackish water. My first instinct was to wonder if I was on a ship or barge or something, but if that was the case, I thought that surely I’d be able to feel some sort of motion or rocking, even if it was docked. Instead I could hear and feel an occasional low rumbling, as if a truck was driving by. Great, so I’m close to a road. Yeah, that really narrows it down.
It didn’t matter. The important thing was to break the hell out however I could. Then I could figure out where I was and how to get to safety.
And warn Marcus.
A fierce ache squeezed my chest at the thought of him. I still wasn’t completely certain of my feelings for him, and I knew it was far too soon to think about whether I was in love with him or anything like that. But I did trust him. We had issues to work out, but I was absolutely certain that he would never throw me under the bus. Pietro was the one who’d betrayed me. I didn’t fit into his bigger plan for Marcus and whatever schemes he had going.
I let out a low laugh. His bigger plan was tiddlywinks compared to what Dr. Charish was up to. I couldn’t imagine that he had any idea. He loved his power too much. There’s no way he’d want to have to answer to some government or corporate type.
The light abruptly increased. They knew I was awake. I sat up and raked my fingers through my hair as a guard I didn’t recognize entered with another tray. Brown eyes, mole on his chin. I mentally tallied the number of different faces I’d seen so far. At least half a dozen, plus Philip. Maybe not so low-budget after all?
There was a slice of brain on the tray again, which didn’t fill me with a warm fuzzy feeling. If they were feeding me so much it had to mean that they had more tests or other bullshit planned.
I ate quickly, then attended to my various personal needs. McKinney and two guards came in as I finished and marched me across the hall again. For an instant I thought perhaps it was a different room, because every speck of blood had been cleaned up. But no.
Dr. Charish was on the other side of the big window, of course, as well as two other lab-coated people I hadn’t seen before. The blue-suited man wasn’t there. Beside Dr. Charish was a new observer: mid-forties perhaps, dark-skinned with an angular face, wearing a black suit that was a somewhat nicer cut than blue-suited guy. I got the unmistakable impression that this was who Dr. Charish was working with. Or for. This was who was really interested in this whole super zombie soldier thing.
“Morning, Doc,” I said, baring my teeth at her. “Who’s your new pal?”
“Good morning, Angel,” her voice came through the speaker above me. “I trust you slept well?”
“Like the dead,” I answered.
She chuckled low in her throat. “Funny. Well, let’s see what you can do for us today.”
The door opened. A sick feeling began in my gut that increased to near panic levels as McKinney and a black man in white t-shirt and grey sweat pants walked in.
Clenching my fists by my sides, I watched in helpless rage as McKinney pulled his gun.
“No, not again,” I pleaded. I looked over at the doctor. “I can’t do this again!”
“Well, you’ll need to give it the old college try then.” The doctor’s voice chirped from the speaker. “Oh, wait. You didn’t go to college, did you?”
Fury burned through the sick feeling. I’d never killed anyone in my life, but I was more than ready for her to be the first. “Don’t shoot him,” I pleaded with McKinney. “You don’t have to do that. I swear I’ll try.” I turned to the new dude. “You do know that’s what he was going to do, right? He shot the last guy on the gamble that I could turn him into a zombie.”
The new guy’s expression didn’t shift, but I saw a muscle in his jaw leap. “Yeah,” I continued. “That’s right. You have to die for this to work.”
McKinney lifted his gun, pointed it at my head. “He knows how the soldier program works. Just do it.” Except he slurred the word soldier oddly.
“Wait…are you saying soldier with a Z?” I asked. I laughed despite the horror of the whole situation. “Oh my god, seriously? You’re calling it a ‘Zoldier program’ because it’s zombie soldiers? That has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
To my surprise, McKinney shrugged and chuckled, though the gun didn’t waver. “On that I have to agree with you, but unfortunately it wasn’t up to me.”
Jesus, this guy was a fucking psycho with his weird mood swings. Scared the ever living shit out of me. I shot a look toward the window. Black suit dude was scowling. I had a feeling “Zoldiers” had been his idea. Figured. A name that stupid could only come from the government. Besides, if they were with an Evil Corporation, their suits would be nicer.
