Not that I wanted to place any bets on that.
I also had every reason to believe that the freezer full of my stash of brains was safe and sound in my storage unit. That was on the other side of town, so it wouldn’t have been affected by the spillway. Okay, so I currently had as assets: Life, Dad, Job, and Brains. Oh, and twelve hundred soggy dollars.
Yesterday Marcus would have been on the list. Damn it. Taking a deep breath, I pushed away the pain that tried to rise again.
A rasp of sound to my left cut my musings short. I froze, listening. Labored breathing. Grateful that the bench was in shadow and that by blind luck I’d chosen dark clothing, I willed myself to remain still. I knew that sound, one that could only come from lung tissue breaking down accompanied by a hint of fluid. This was a zombie—and likely a very hungry one.
My pulse gave a weird double-thump as the figure came around the corner of the gym and limped away from me along the perimeter fence of the practice field. Not just any zombie. This was Philip.
The asshole was obviously suffering and hungry. Smug satisfaction with maybe a touch of gloating washed through me but, a moment later, yielded to a rush of dismay as Philip stumbled and nearly fell. Reflexively, I threw out my hand as though I could reach him and offer support.
Damn. There it was again, whatever parental instinct my parasite had included in its total package. However, this time, I was aware of it. If I hadn’t felt the out-of-place compassion for Philip during the extreme bullshit at the boat launch, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought and chalked it up to natural compassion. Both perspectives were alive and kicking and a genuine part of me. I hated Philip, and he terrified me, but it also twisted my guts to see him hurting.
Was this why Marcus was so overprotective? Because he was my zombie-daddy? And if so, did he even realize it was his parasite influencing him? Now there was some serious food for thought. Not that it mattered anymore.
But for now I wanted—no, needed—to see what the hell was going on with Philip. As silently as possible, I stood and followed at enough of a distance that he wouldn’t be able to hear me. I was fairly sure there was no risk of him scenting me; as hungry as he was, he’d be keyed to brains that were actually edible, and wouldn’t be able to detect much of anything over his own decay.
He continued along the fence line, then slipped between two outbuildings to cut across a lot and onto a dark residential street. I hung back before crossing the empty lot, certain that he’d glance back at any moment and bust me, but he seemed utterly focused on his destination, and I managed to follow without incident.
I almost missed it when he ducked off the sidewalk. He headed into the shaggy yard of a vacant Acadian single story house that outdid the creepiness of the gym by about a thousand percent. I drew back into the shadow of a tree and watched as he pulled a paper bag out of his jacket, went to the side of the steps, crouched, and…what the hell was he doing? His back to me, I could only wait and wonder what the fuck was going on. I heard a couple of soft clicks, a disturbing muffled noise, like a sob or moan, then the quiet rustling of the paper bag.
After about a minute, he stood, hands clenching and unclenching as his gaze swept the area, face twisted in…desperation? He didn’t have the bag in his hands anymore. Had he tucked it back into his jacket? Left it under the steps? I remained still, watching and barely daring to breathe. He stood, returned to the sidewalk, and crossed back toward the lot, his breathing even more labored and noisy.
On the other side of the street, he paused, visibly shaking, head jerking to the side the way it had when he attacked me at the boat launch. I watched as he appeared to grapple with indecision, then he turned to the right and continued, near staggering, up the street.
After a brief internal debate, I hurried to the steps, crouched and peered under. Yeah, that did a lot of good. Since I didn’t have a flashlight, my only option was to reach under and feel. Okay, I was a tough-ass zombie, but something about reaching blind under those haunted house steps made me question how badly I really wanted to know what was under there. After a brief struggle with my inner wimp, I put my hand into that darker darkness and groped for who-the-hell knew what. My fingers brushed something hard and moveable, and a second later I pulled out a shoebox-size black plastic container with a snap-lid.
Moving quickly, I flipped the catches and lifted it into the dim light to peer at the contents. Two zip-top baggies, one with a USB flash drive and the other with a bunch of two-inch-square papers, each with a number penciled in one corner and a dark splodge in the center that looked suspiciously like…blood?.
What the hell was going on? I snapped the box closed and shoved it back under the steps, then hurried to the street to see if I could locate Philip. He’d been moving slowly, probably to conserve his resources, and to my relief I caught a glimpse of him as he turned a corner about a block up the street. I broke into a jog to catch up and saw him ahead. I followed him a few more blocks to the parking lot of a small brick warehouse-like building that had seen better days, deserted except for two cars near me on the edge of the lot.
Philip’s attention seemed to be completely focused on reaching the building, so I took the opportunity to duck behind one of the cars to watch him. He stopped about a dozen feet from the first of two doors—a dismal, solid thing with faded paint and a flush lock. He dropped into a crouch, wheezing so badly that I half-stood to go to him. I clamped down hard on that mama-zombie impulse and huddled down again, heart pounding from nearly revealing myself. I took a shaky breath and tried to figure out what he was doing. I had the feeling he was psyching himself up to go up to that door. But why hesitate? He was big and bad and tough even without being a zombie.
After about a minute he stood and staggered to the door, one hand on the wall for balance. The light above the door illuminated his face, and I had to bite back a noise of dismay. He looked awful. Yeah, he had some mild zombie-rot happening, but that wasn’t what got to me. His eyes and features radiated a level of pain and despair that struck right to my core, even beyond any parasite-driven compassion.
Before Philip could knock or ring a bell or anything, the door opened and a Hispanic-featured man in a dark blue suit stepped out, a raised gun in his hand. His eyes narrowed as he took in Philip’s appearance.
“Sir,” I heard Philip rasp, “I…need sustenance and stabilizer. There was…none at the drop.”
The suited man frowned. “Wait right there,” he told Philip. “Don’t move.” He lowered his gun and pulled a phone off his belt, dialed a number. “Glenn,” he said a few seconds later. “Reinhardt is on our doorstep.” A pause as his gaze swept the parking lot. I shrank back in the shadow of the car. “No, no sign of anyone else.”
Philip remained still as ordered, and then the sound of a female voice came from the open doorway. Though I couldn’t see her, I knew that voice. Why couldn’t I place it?
“Well, do you have them?”
The suited man looked back at the speaker and shook his head. “Not yet. Reinhardt’s here. He says he needs brains and stabilizer.”
What the hell was stabilizer? Did that have something to do with how messed up Philip seemed to be?
The woman stepped to the door, and I sucked in a breath as shock coursed through me. Slim and auburn-haired, and probably only a couple of inches taller than me. Of course the voice was familiar. Dr. Kristi Fucking Charish. I hadn’t recognized it immediately since this time she wasn’t using an intercom on the other side of a lab observation window while she forced me to do horrible things. Last time I saw her she was fleeing the about-to-blow-up factory with Philip and a handful of other guards. I’d figured she’d gone and set up shop somewhere else since she wasn’t the sort to let one failure stop her. Ever since Philip tackled me on the movie set, I’d had the nagging worry that she was around.
She had on simple jeans and a sleeveless blue top, and didn’t look much like a cold-as-ice crazy scientist, but I knew better than to let her lack of a lab coat this time fool me. The bitch had no heart.
The man at the door lifted his gun slightly, and Charish stepped back out of sight.
“Dr. Charish,” Philip said, the ugly rasp in his voice even harsher than before. “Please, ma’am. I need brains and stabilizer.”
Even though I couldn’t see her, I definitely heard the condescending sneer in her voice when she spoke. “You were left more than enough a couple of nights ago,” she snapped. “If you failed to ration them appropriately, it’s not up to us to waste more resources on you. Get them from your handlers. Now leave before you’re spotted.”
“Required extra,” Philip wheezed, desperation tingeing his rough voice. “God, please, ma’am. Please. I can’t do this.”
My hands curled into fists. Even as much as I hated Philip, I dearly wanted to slug Charish for being such an all-around heartless bitch. I already owed her quite a few hard punches. I knew what it was like to starve as a zombie, but this was something different, worse. Pieces started to fall into place. Philip. Tim Bell. Roland Westfeld. All three had been with her when she had me kidnapped. If she hadn’t been fully working for Saberton then, it sure as hell looked like she’d signed on since.
The bitch in question gave an aggravated huff. “This one time only, and then you leave and don’t come back here.” A moment later she returned to the door and handed a paper bag to the suited man, who in turn gave it to Philip. “Now go,” Charish ordered.
Philip clutched the bag to his chest and backed away. “Thank you, ma’am,” he rasped. “Thank you,” he repeated, then turned and staggered off.
Charish turned to suit-man, mouth tight and eyes narrowed. “Get the items from the drop now,” she ordered, before both returned inside and the door closed.
What the fuck? Could this be the place where Heather rescued the zombie Garrett from his vivisection hell? It was only a few blocks from the movie set where she’d followed Brent Stewart to kill him, so it was more than possible. After all, how many secret labs could one town hold? But any fantasies I might’ve had about breaking in and freeing zombie prisoners were gone now that I’d seen it would be pretty much impossible without getting shot a whole bunch. Or tranqed, which would be even worse, since it would probably land me right on my own vivisection table.
