But Kang merely gave a slow nod and shoved his hair out of his eyes, grimacing. “It definitely sounds like a possibility.” Then he let out a string of curses that made my eyebrows go up. “Sorry,” he said, “but shit like that makes it tough on all of us.”
I hesitated. “You know about the wreck I had, right?” He nodded, which didn’t surprise me. Everyone knew about the damn wreck. “Well, it was caused by Zeke Lyons, who used to work at—”
“Billings,” he said with a nod. “I know him. Stupid stubborn ass.” His eyes narrowed in anger. “He was trying to get the body in your van?”
I nodded. “And possibly more, I think. I mean, he didn’t know I was a zombie until after he’d caused the wreck.” Then I snorted. “Hell, I didn’t even know I was a zombie until then. That was the first time I’d ever seen another one.” I fought back a shiver at the memory—the sick horror that I might become like that some day. Rotted. Desperate.
“I ended up giving him some of the stash I had with me,” I went on, swallowing back the lingering unease. “He came by the morgue, and I gave him more, but,” I grimaced, “he was a bit of a dick, and he hasn’t been back since.”
“You don’t need to fucking give your stash away, Angel,” he told me. “Zeke knows he can buy from me.”
“With what? He doesn’t have a job anymore, remember?”
Kang’s lip curled. “He should have thought of that before he screwed up the job he had.” He shrugged. “But even so, I’d be willing to work something out with him.”
I spread my hands on the table, gave a slight nod. “That’s cool. Zeke said he was set up, that he didn’t steal anything.” Were you the one who cost him his job? I thought. I didn’t want to come out and say it, though. I wasn’t quite ready to piss Kang off.
He snorted. “Of course. The guilty man is never really guilty. He was lucky they only fired him.”
“Well, maybe whoever’s doing this is someone new,” I suggested. “I mean, if I hadn’t been given this morgue job, I don’t know what I would have done.”
The scowl stayed on Kang’s face as he leaned back. “And that’s exactly why there aren’t many zombies. You don’t make one just for shits and giggles, because the next thing you know you have dozens of them, desperate for brains. And brains are pretty hard to come by without causing a fuss, as you know.”
My mouth felt dry. “So, how bad does it get? The hunger, I mean. Would any of us be driven to kill to get brains?”
I could see that Kang wanted to deny it, but I’d already seen the wince of discomfort. “It can get bad,” he admitted. “And the hungrier you get, the less control you have. You’re not . . . you’re not you.”
“Have you—” I clamped my lips shut on the question. “Never mind. I’m sorry.”
He exhaled a long slow breath and didn’t answer. That told me more than I wanted to know. It could happen to me. If I got hungry enough, I wouldn’t simply die. I’d become a monster first.
“Is there anything that can be done?” I asked, fumbling for anything to say to get past this horrific topic. “I mean, about this, um, rogue. Whoever it is.”
Kang looked up, and it seemed to take him a couple of seconds to focus on me, as if I was drawing him out of a terrible place. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t exactly have a directory of the local zombies.” His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Let’s hope that whoever it is sticks to killing losers and old farts.”
A flare of anger coiled in my belly. “Wait. That’s it? Sit back and hope he doesn’t kill anyone important? Kang, that’s bullshit.”
“What the hell do you want me to do about it?”
“I don’t know! You’re the expert here. You said yourself that this sort of thing could draw unwanted attention to us.”
“So would making a big stink about deaths that are completely unrelated in every other way. There’s no link except for the missing brains, and that’s easy enough to explain away.” His face twisted into a sneer. “Go on, I dare you to go to the police. Tell them that these people were all killed by the same person.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said dully. I hated him right now, but I also hated the fact that he was right.
He stood, then leaned forward and put his hands on the table. “There’s nothing we can do, Angel. Sometimes shit happens that way. One way or another, this will get worked out. It always does. This zombie will either move on, or someone will take him out.”
With that he straightened and spun. A second later he was out the door while I stared after him in confusion and anger.
Would this zombie move on? How long would it take before people started to wonder about all of the “accidental” deaths? And would anyone ever notice that the victims were all low on brains? I clutched the mug like a damn lifeline, thoughts tumbling in jangled disarray.
All he needs to do is start hiding the bodies so they aren’t found for a while—enough time for them to decompose. Then no one would ever realize that the victims had been killed for their brains. Half of this parish is fucking swamp, too. It’s not like it’s tough to hide a body around here.
Of course, that thought also gave me a chill. How did I know there weren’t bodies slowly rotting in the swamp already? Prey on people who wouldn’t be missed. It would be so easy to get away with it.
The very fact that I was working out how to do it left me nauseated.
The waitress came by, and I went ahead and ordered another hot chocolate, along with a piece of apple pie. The comfort food was going to be working overtime.
On the other hand, Zeke had been so out in the open with these three murders that I kinda had a hard time believing he had a secret pile of bodies hidden in the swamp. That made me feel ever so slightly better. I could maybe believe that the murder of the drug dealer had been planned—I mean, even I could get behind the idea that if you have to kill someone, make it someone who was a piece of shit. I, the former druggie, endorsed this. Now that was damn funny.
And the murder of Mr. Harris with the lawn mower had to have been spur-of-the-moment. Zeke was hungry, saw the guy outside working on his mower, and seized an opportunity.
“Angel?”
I jerked and nearly spilled my hot chocolate. Standing by my table were Ed and Marcus, both looking at me with questioning smiles. The two men were dressed casually in jeans and T-shirts, which probably explained why I hadn’t noticed them coming into the diner since I’d only ever seen them in uniform before. That and the fact that I was so deeply absorbed in my thoughts they could have paraded around nude and it might not have registered.
My mind wanted to continue exploring that line of thought, but I ruthlessly yanked it back to the here and now. “Hi. Sorry. I was a million miles away,” I said, smiling weakly.
“You looked like you were doing some serious thinking there,” Ed said. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, just letting my mind wander.” I waved toward the empty chairs around the table. “Y’all wanna sit? I’m killing some time.”
In answer, both men seized chairs and sat. The waitress materialized and slid my pie in front of me, then turned to Ed and Marcus. “Y’all eatin’?”
Ed smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I’ll have the double bacon cheeseburger with fries, loaded baked potato, cinnamon apples, mac and cheese, and a side salad with ranch dressing. Oh, and a Barq’s.”
“And I’ll have a Diet Coke,” Marcus said as soon as the waitress had finished scrawling down Ed’s incredible order. “Also a turkey club with extra bacon, a cup of gumbo, garlic bread, and an Italian salad—with extra olive oil.”
I stared at the two of them as the poor woman finished writing and hurried off. “Holy shit. And I was feeling guilty for indulging in pie.”
Marcus grinned. “I can’t hold a candle to Ed. This is a light snack for him. He has the metabolism of a hummingbird.”
Ed spread his hands and gave a rueful shrug. “He speaks the truth. I have an overachieving appetite. But surely you could eat more than that,” he said with a nod to my pie. “You don’t have a spare ounce of fat on you.”
“The word is ‘scrawny,’ ” I retorted. “And I think I’d barf if I tried to eat as much as either of you.”
Ed raised an eyebrow. “You of the legendary Iron Stomach? I think not.”
I cast a doubtful glance at him. “Legendary?”
Marcus grinned. “It’s true. Everyone knows that nothing bothers you on a scene.”
“But that’s not true!” I blurted in surprise. I could feel my face heating, and I quickly jabbed a fork at my pie in an effort to cover my sudden embarrassment. I kinda liked being thought of as hardcore, but I wasn’t keen on being known as some sort of heartless robot. “Stuff bothers me,” I muttered.
“Easy, Angel,” Marcus said, touching the back of my hand briefly. “No one’s implying you’re cold or made of stone. You’re as human as any of us.” He offered me a slight smile. “Please trust me when I say it’s a good thing when cops and paramedics say that you’re tough.”
“I don’t feel tough,” I said, unable to completely keep the sour note from my voice.
“Yeah, well, you fake it well,” Ed told me, then smiled at the waitress as she poured his coffee. “Thanks, ma’am.”
“So what are you two up to today?” Yes, I wanted to change the subject.
“Deer season opens this weekend,” Marcus replied. “We’re going to go check out the property where we usually hunt and make sure everything’s in order.”
The pie was good, but I had the faintest hint that I was missing something in the flavor. Then I realized. A day without brains is like a day without sunshine. My last brains had been early yesterday.
