How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

by Diana Rowland

  “You’re going to get us the hell out of here,” I growled at Andrew. “Now get your ass up.” I climbed to my feet, tranq gun on him. I felt good, clear headed, but the thrill of being tanked on brains had subsided to a mild buzz, burned off by the adrenaline-charged exertion and the healing of my bullet-grazed butt. I remained plenty fast and strong, but a part of me missed that sharp and awesome feeling. “I’m getting hungry,” I added, “so don’t try anything stupid.”

  Andrew paled but didn’t freak. He stood, keeping his hands well away from his body. “I’ll walk you out,” he said. “No troubles.”

  “Yeah, that’s a real good plan,” I said and hoped Naomi was listening. “Is that a real good plan?”

  “Sounds good since I don’t know what the hell you’re doing,” Naomi said in my earpiece. “We’ll meet you at the service entrance in the parking garage.”

  “Gotcha. Philip, you okay?”

  “Angel, down!” he ordered.

  Zombie reflexes still in high gear, I dropped into a crouch without even thinking, dragging Andrew with me. A fraction of a second later, Philip leaped over us and onto the guard he’d slammed into the wall earlier, wrenched a tranq gun from his hand and smacked his head into the floor hard enough to stun but not dent him.

  Philip straightened as I did, then strode to the guard who’d dropped his weapons. Moving with brisk efficiency, he put the guard on the floor and ziptied his hands behind his back, then retrieved my gun from under the table and tucked it into my holster. “We’re good now,” he said with a satisfied nod.

  Andrew’s mouth had dropped open at the entire display, and I grinned despite everything. Apparently he’d never seen tanked zombies in action. “How’s the bullet wound?” I asked Philip.

  “Handled,” he said, patting the side pocket of his pants, which told me he’d already downed some brains.

  “Excellent.” I gripped the back of Andrew’s collar. “Let’s get moving. Parking garage service entrance.”

  Andrew’s throat bobbed. “This way,” he said as he moved toward the door, still carefully keeping his hands out to his sides. Philip fell in behind us, gun in one hand and a tranq gun in the other. Though we made it into the hallway without incident, I didn’t need zombie senses to know more guards lurked right around the corner. Andrew started toward the elevators, but I stopped him with a quick yank.

  “Wait,” I said. “I’m not real happy about going in an elevator. Is there another way?”

  “There are stairs a little farther down,” Andrew replied, words clipped.

  “Stairs are good,” Naomi confirmed.

  I glanced back to see Philip with his gun trained behind us. If I had to be on the bad guy side of a hostage situation, at least I was doing it with an experienced operative. “Okay, heading that way now.” I had Andrew as my human shield, but a big chunk of our safety depended on how much of a shit Nicole gave about the life of her son, and so far I wasn’t impressed by Mommie Dearest. I shook Andrew by the collar. “They’ll keep the way clear for you?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course,” Andrew replied, though I caught the faint hesitation in his tone.

  “I don’t know about that,” Naomi said.

  “Yeah, I’m with you,” I said. Andrew flicked a glance back at me, only now realizing I was talking to someone else as well. I gave him a tight smile. “Keep moving, Andy,” I told him and took twisted pleasure at the angry annoyance that flashed in his eyes at the nickname.

  We made it to the stairs without incident, and Philip checked to be sure it was clear before we went in. “It’s too damn quiet,” I said as we started down the ten flights, voice shaking as nerves and stress threatened to get the better of me.

  “We’re pulling into the garage now,” Naomi said. “Don’t see any threats yet, but watch yourselves.”

  “You know they’ll have the exit covered.” I prodded my hostage in the back with the gun. “You ready to do some fast talking for us, Andy?”

  “I want out of this in one piece as much as you do,” he retorted, then blew out a frustrated breath. “Thea Braddock’s out of commission—the one whose elbow Reinhardt broke.” Andrew glanced back at Philip as we clattered down the stairs. “That’s the only reason this way isn’t already blocked.”

  I hustled him down as quickly as possible without tripping and going splat. “Great. Wonderful,” I snapped. “I’ll send flowers to her, but right now I want to get the fuck out of here.”

  “If he goes right at the bottom, you’re golden,” Naomi said. “If he goes left, it’s a setup.”

  “Got it,” I said as we came around the last turn in the steps. “Which way, dude?”

  “As soon as we get through the door we go right,” he replied to my relief. “Straight down the corridor to the warehouse and loading dock.” His hand went into his pocket, and I gave him a hard yank on his collar.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them!” I ordered, then saw the pad beside the door.

  “I’m getting my fob out so I can open the door,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Somewhere above a door crashed open, the sound echoing heavily in the stairwell. My heart gave an ugly lurch like a stripper who found out her pole was greased. “Jesus. Hurry!”

  He glanced up at the sound, then shot me a black look. Too slowly, he pulled his keys from his pocket and swiped the fob across the panel. The light flashed red.

  “It’s not working,” he said. “They must have disabled my fob.”

  “Lying sonofabitch,” I hissed. “You didn’t swipe it in the elevator.” I snatched the keys from him and pressed the fob solidly to the panel. The light flashed green, and the latch clicked. I tossed the keys back to Philip. “Try a stunt like that again and I’ll—”

  Philip cut off my threat of doom as he moved forward, pushed the door open, and shoved us both through. The door swung shut with a heavy click behind us, and a quick look around told me we were in an industrial grey cinderblock corridor lit by glaring fluorescent lights along the ceiling.

  “Keep moving,” Philip said in his I’m-not-fucking-around voice.

  “You’re out now,” Andrew protested, his feet planted. “Let me go!”

  “We’re not out,” I shot back and gave him a hard push toward the double doors at the end of the corridor about fifty feet away. “What’s next?”

  Anger flushed Andrew’s face, but he didn’t fight me. “A small warehouse for goods reception,” he said tightly, gesturing ahead. “Then a door to the parking garage.”

  Philip loped ahead toward the doors, pausing only to check that a side corridor was clear of bad guys.

  My comm crackled in my ear. “We’re at the dock,” Naomi said. “It’s clear for now, but you need to hurry.”

  “We have people behind us,” I told her as I prodded Andrew into a jog. I sure as hell didn’t want to be caught in the corridor when those guys came out of the stairwell. We had zero cover if they started shooting. “Philip’s checking out the doors into the warehouse now. We’ll be out in a sec.”

  Philip gave me a nod, pressed the fob to the key pad and opened the door. A moment later we passed through and into a warehouse filled with stacks of crates and boxes. A brightly lit EXIT sign hung over a regular door next to a large rollup bay door on the opposite wall. I herded Andrew onward but stopped halfway there and turned at the sound of ca-chunk ca-chunk ca-chunk ca-chunk behind us.

  It was Philip as he pumped the lift handle of a pallet jack loaded with cases marked, “Economy Copy Paper.” He shoved the whole thing toward the double doors we’d come through and, after maneuvering the jack into position, lowered it to set the pallet as a barricade against the doors. “It won’t stop them,” he said as he hurried my way, “but it’ll slow them down.”

  I got Andrew moving again. “Good enough,” I said. “All we need is time to get out and into the c
ar.”

  When we reached the door, Philip pulled out Andrew’s keys and again pressed the fob on the control panel. As soon as the latch clicked, I shouldered the door open and hustled Andrew out into the chilly air on a loading dock in the underground parking garage. The dock was probably meant for vans and smallish trucks since it was only a short drop from the platform to the pavement, and the garage didn’t look anywhere near roomy enough to handle an eighteen wheeler. To our left a ramp began a sloping descent toward the lower levels of the parking garage and, off to the right, daylight filtered down the incline that led to the street above.

  About twenty feet beyond the edge of the dock, Kyle bailed out of the passenger seat of Naomi’s car and opened the back door, ready for us.

  Andrew jerked against my grasp. “Now will you let me go?” he asked, jaw clenched.

  “Are we all safe?” I snapped, patience worn thin. “No. Didn’t think so. Now stop fucking asking me that and move!” I glanced at the steps by the end of the dock, then wrangled him straight toward the edge. No time to waste.

  Andrew opened his mouth to protest, but a moan from Philip cut him off. I looked over in horror as Philip’s legs buckled.

  “Philip! Shit!” Could the MegaPlague possibly have worse timing? Muffled shouts and banging on the warehouse double doors sent my heart soaring into my throat, even as I swayed from the wave of plague fatigue that rolled over me. Though it only lasted a couple of seconds, it was all Andrew needed.

  He slammed a fist down on my forearm, sending the tranq gun tumbling to the pavement below, and I yelped, more from surprise than pain. Taking advantage of my brief shock, he shoved me off balance, then jerked out of my grasp and spun toward the shouts. I didn’t fall, but my brief stagger gave him enough time to dash back to the door. Recovering, I launched myself at him in a flying tackle as he yanked the door open, but I only managed to knock him into a stumbling sprawl halfway through the doorway. I crashed hard into the wall and went down, my breath rushing out in a painful whoosh. As Andrew scrambled to get up, I struggled to suck in air, to shift to my hands and knees.

  A heavy thud followed by a screee of metal on concrete echoed from inside the warehouse as the pallet jack barricade gave way. We had only seconds before the Saberton guys were on us. My mind whirled. Maybe it would be better to cut our losses and let Andrew go? But we still weren’t out, and though we couldn’t count on Nicole Saber’s motherly priorities, having Andrew as a hostage had kept us whole to this point.

  Even as I came to that conclusion, Kyle bounded up in a blur of zombie speed, flung the door fully open with one hand and grabbed the back of Andrew’s suit jacket with the other. In a smooth, swift action, he shifted his grip, hauled Andrew up by collar and waistband and flung him like a sack of potatoes toward Philip.

  Andrew let out a strangled cry of shock but managed to keep his limbs tucked in as he landed. He’d be bruised and banged up but not broken.

  “Philip!” Kyle cried out. “Grab him and get to the car!”

  “That’s Griffin!” a voice said from inside the warehouse.

  Kyle yanked me fully upright and shoved me hard between the shoulder blades to propel me toward Philip and Andrew. “Go!” he ordered, then wheezed a sharp cough.

  “What’s wrong?” I tried to turn and look at him, but he shoved me again as the door clanged shut behind us. Philip shook off the MegaPlague greyout enough to drunkenly grab Andrew and roll with him off the edge of the dock.

  “Go,” Kyle gasped as he staggered into me and gave me a hard double-handed push that sent me careening over the edge.

  I tumbled down and only avoided a faceplant because Naomi was right there and helped break my fall. She’d pulled the car closer to the dock, and I saw that Philip and Andrew were already in the back seat.

  “Kyle! No!”

  I jerked my head up at Naomi’s anguished cry. Kyle lay crumpled on his stomach, partially body-blocking the door like a meat doorstop. Two darts protruded from his shoulder and neck, and I realized he must’ve tried to go back to block the door when he realized he wouldn’t make it off the dock before collapsing.

  He still had enough control to shift his head to look at us. “Go.” I couldn’t hear it, but I saw it on his lips.

  “Kyle!” Naomi screamed and lurched toward him, but I grabbed her and wrapped my arms around her to drag her back.

  “You can’t!” I yelled. Already the door opened and crashed into Kyle, and I knew the Saberton dudes would be happy to tranq the rest of us as well. A heartbeat later, Edwards squeezed out, tranq gun in hand. Naomi stopped fighting me, and I released my bearhug, though I kept a hand on her arm. “We’ll come back for Kyle,” I told her as I pulled her toward the car. “We have to go. Now!” A dart whined past my ear as if to punctuate my words, and I clamped down on a shriek.

  She ran with me to the car, eyes full of anguished determination. “Get in!”

  I didn’t need any more encouragement. I dove into the passenger seat and slammed the door as another dart whacked against it. A second later Naomi took the driver’s seat, shoved the car into reverse and squealed tires out of the dock area. I set my foot against the dash, bracing myself as she threw the car into drive and gunned it toward the exit.

  “Sonofabitch!” Naomi yelled, and I looked up to see three cars blocking the exit. Her face twisted in a storm of rage. “Hang on!”

  I clung to the seat as Naomi slammed on the brakes. Cold dread wrapped around me. “Now what do we do?”

  “Everyone get seatbelts on, NOW,” Naomi snapped out as she yanked her own on. I hurried to obey and hoped Andrew was smart enough to do so as well.

  Naomi shoved the car into reverse and hit the gas again, then did something with brakes and the wheel and who the hell knew what else, and suddenly we were going forward in the other direction, down into the garage.

  “Did you just do a bootlegger turn?” I yelled in a weird mix of terror and excitement.

  “Sure did,” she yelled right back, then did a sweet as hell high-speed drift around a corner before accelerating again.

  “That’s too fucking cool!” Damn, this chick knew how to drive. I clung to my seatbelt as she took another tight turn at obscene speeds. From the back seat I heard manly cries of alarm. “Where the hell are we going?” I asked.

  “To the bottom,” she told me, eyes narrowing in grim focus. “There’s a hatch with access to service tunnels. We should be able to get out that way.”

  I didn’t see any vehicles in pursuit yet, but that was probably because a) Naomi was driving like a well-trained maniac, and b) Saberton likely figured they could take their time since they had the only exit blocked. Still, it wouldn’t take them long to determine we’d found a way out.

  “I know the tunnels really well,” she said after another turn. She opened her mouth to say more but stopped. I had a feeling she’d been about to spill how she knew the tunnels then remembered Andrew was in the car.

  A final screeching turn. This was the bottom floor of the garage, a dead end. “There’s the hatch.”

  I peered ahead and saw a hinged metal hatch, a bit larger than a manhole cover, in the pavement a few feet from the far wall. “Stop the car right in front of it and leave the engine running,” I told her. “I have an idea.”

  She didn’t question or ask for details and brought the car to a rubber-burning stop directly in front of the hatch. Philip threw the back door open and dragged Andrew not at all nicely out of the car. I jumped out on my side, and together Naomi and I managed to haul the heavy metal hatch lid up and open to land on the concrete with a heavy clang. I peered into the exposed shaft to see a ladder fixed to the wall, its bottom lost in shadow.

  “No way to lock it from the inside, right?” I asked.

  “Nope. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

  “You go down first,” I said. “Andrew and Philip next. T
hen I’ll park the car over the hatch. I’m skinny and can squeeze under to the hole.”

  “Jesus,” she breathed. “I think that’ll work. Slow them down enough for us to lose them.” She set her hands and feet on the outside of the ladder the way she’d done at Andrew’s apartment, and slid down into the gloom. A menacing growl from Philip got Andrew moving, though he climbed down in the more traditional manner, as did Philip.

  I didn’t stick around to watch. A low rumble from above told me the Saberton team was on their way. As soon as Philip’s head was clear, I drove the car forward until it covered the hatch, killed the engine, set the emergency brake, then climbed out and locked the doors. Headlights washed the far wall as I shimmied my scrawny ass beneath the car, but instead of an easy crawl to the hatch, I found myself wedged between the undercarriage and the pavement. Stupid low clearance car!

  Hot metal against the back of my lightweight jacket went from warm to painful in seconds. I thrashed, trapped, but the squeal of tires on the last curve fueled my determination. No way in hell would I let them capture me again. Not in a stupid way like this. I blew out my breath and managed to wriggle far enough to get my hand on the lip of the hole, then dragged myself forward. It took a few heart pounding seconds to make an awkward transition to the ladder, but I began to clamber down as a car slid to a stop a few yards away. With each movement, fiery pain like the worst sunburn ever flared across the back of my shoulders, and Hunger twisted inside me as my parasite sought resources to heal the damage.

  At the bottom of the shaft, a dim bulb brightened pitch darkness to gloom, but it was enough light to see that we were in a grungy tunnel about eight feet wide. Pipes and conduits ran along the ceiling, and more bulbs dotted the tunnel every fifty yards or so.

  I noted with grim satisfaction that Andrew’s hands were cuffed behind him. Philip looked unhappy, but I assumed it was simply the usual we’re-in-really-deep-shit until I saw Naomi sitting against the wall, face contorted in pain as she clutched her ankle.