How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

by Diana Rowland

  “I’m not a monster!” I screamed at Andrew, shaking him. “I’m not! You’re the monster. It’s your fault. All of it!”

  “Angel, stop!”

  The knife-hard edge in Naomi’s voice was like a slap in the face. I turned my head to see distress and pain twisting her features as she stood on her good foot, one hand on the wall for balance and the other holding a tranq gun leveled at me.

  Philip let out an ominous growl and lurched toward Naomi, but his legs buckled before he reached her, and he had to grab at the wall to avoid falling in a heap.

  The panic in Andrew’s face retreated as he took in the situation, and he sniggered. “Oh, this is rich. The zombie-loving whore protecting the lowly human from the crazy hick zombie while the cripple tries to stop her. Worse than the Three Stooges.”

  I jerked my hand away from him and stumbled back as the insults struck home. Naomi’s hand shook as she held the tranq gun, but she didn’t resist when Philip fought his way up to take it from her. Her hands dropped to her sides, and she slid down the wall, meeting my eyes with a look of OMG what did I just do, this is all fucked up and damn this hurts.

  I took another unsteady step back from Andrew, from the others. My chest ached with tension and a mild nausea that I knew was only partly because of the MegaPlague. The whole situation was fucked. Andrew was right. We were bumbling around like idiots, and I didn’t have the slightest idea how to fix any of it.

  Swiping a hand across my face, I turned and hurried off down the tunnel, away from the others. I heard Philip’s voice behind me, angry and intense as he spoke to Andrew.

  “Say another word, and I’ll take you around the corner to piss and give you some pain you won’t believe—without leaving a mark on you.”

  I stopped about fifty yards away in a shadowed section of the tunnel and sat, crying and attempting to be quiet about it.

  Naomi’s voice carried to me. “I may be a zombie lover,” she growled at Andrew, “but I’m not a whore, you dick.” Then she peered into the darkness toward me. “Angel?” she called, worry in her voice. “You okay?”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone right now, not while the utter humiliation of what I’d done still had me in its grip. Why the hell had I threatened him like that? He was a prick, yes, but the whole “ I’m being held hostage by creatures who might eat my brain” thing had to be pretty fucking stressful. No wonder he’d lashed out.

  “Angel?” Naomi called again.

  “Annngellll.” A second voice from the gloom in the opposite direction, like an evil echo of Naomi’s voice.

  I scrambled to my feet, heart hammering. That second voice hadn’t been an echo, but it sure as hell seemed familiar. “Who’s there?” I demanded, voice thin as I backed toward Naomi and the light.

  The only response was a low groan, followed by the sound of something hitting the floor. Something soft and heavy. Like a body.

  I continued to back warily as Philip staggered up to me.

  “What do you have?” he asked, peering past me.

  “I heard something,” I told him, holding my freakout down with supreme effort. “There’s someone down there. Someone said my name.” I had the weirdest sensation I’d heard that voice before, but I couldn’t quite place it. Maybe the echoes in the tunnel were messing with my head?

  Philip gave my shoulder a squeeze, then moved slowly forward, tranq gun in his hand, while I stayed bravely behind him. He was steadier now. Hopefully he’d stay that way until we dealt with whatever was down the tunnel, whether it was a Saberton guard or a giant talking rat.

  “There’s someone there,” Philip murmured.

  “A person?” I peered cautiously around him and barely made out a form on the ground, but I couldn’t see enough to rule out Giant Talking Rat just yet.

  “Yes, a person.” He continued forward then let out a soft curse. “Saberton uniform.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed. “They followed us. They found us.”

  Philip paused, drew a deep breath through his nose. “I don’t hear or smell any others.”

  I sniffed as well, then frowned. “Wait. I don’t smell this guy either.” That made no sense. I was definitely hungry enough to smell human brains.

  Curiosity overrode my weenieness, and we closed the distance. The man lay crumpled on his side, either unconscious or faking it really well, and most definitely in a Saberton uniform.

  Philip flipped open his phone and shone the feeble light on the man’s face.

  “It’s Gentry,” Philip said, following it with a curse as he continued to scan around us.

  Mr. Perfect Eyebrows? I owed him a few dozen knees to the balls for mistreating Pietro. I moved closer, baffled. The voice had sounded a lot like his, and it sure as hell looked like him, though for some reason his eyebrows didn’t look as precisely pruned as usual. I crouched and sniffed, then sniffed again. “This doesn’t make sense,” I said. “There’s no way this is Gentry. It can’t be.” I looked up. “Philip, this is a zombie.”

  Frowning, Philip used the toe of his boot to roll him onto his back. “Angel, that’s Gentry,” he insisted. “I worked with him long enough to know him, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have an identical twin. Certainly not one who works at Saberton.”

  I shook my head, baffled. “Then he must’ve been turned? But that doesn’t make sense either.”

  Philip rested a hand on my shoulder briefly as he crouched beside me, this time more to steady himself than for comfort. Lowering his head, he copied my sniff-examination. “You’re right, he’s a zombie. He must have been turned.” He mirrored my own WTF expression. “By Mr. Ivanov? Kyle?” He sat back on his heels, face drawn in thought.

  “But we saw this guy a few hours ago, and I know he wasn’t a zombie then,” I stated. “Even if he got turned right after we saw him, it doesn’t seem as if there’s been enough time for him to be up and about now.”

  “Well, he did collapse,” Philip pointed out.

  I gave a grudging nod. “Okay, but how is he here? How did he find us?”

  “No clue, but we need to secure him,” Philip said. “My only set of cuffs is on Asshole.” He stood, then had to grab at the wall as he swayed. I hurried to steady him.

  “Hey, Naomi,” I called, “you got any zipties?”

  “Always,” she replied, squinting in our direction. “What’s going on?”

  “Sit back down,” I ordered Philip. “You can keep an eye on Gentry from right where you are.” As soon as he complied I ran back to Naomi. Andrew had been gagged and blindfolded, which pleased me tremendously. “It’s a Saberton guard, Gentry,” I told her. “He collapsed, so we need to secure him.” I didn’t want to say yet that I thought he was a zombie, mostly because I didn’t want to risk Andrew hearing.

  She dug zipties out of a side pocket and passed them to me. “Gentry? Shit. Are there any others?”

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll let you know the instant that changes.” I started to turn and run back, then stopped and gave Naomi a quick hug. “Sorry about earlier.”

  “It’s cool, babe,” she said. “We’re all stressed to the max.” She gave me a light shove. “Go.”

  I returned to Philip and passed him the zipties. “We absolutely can’t let Andrew know Gentry’s been turned,” I said in a low voice. “Especially since we have no clue how.”

  “Agreed.” He shifted to a crouch and quickly secured Gentry’s hands behind his back, but when he stood he had to stop and catch his breath.

  “I’ll help you haul him back,” I said and took one of Gentry’s arms.

  Philip gave me a warm smile. “What would I do without my Angel?”

  I chuckled, absurdly cheered at the simple statement. No matter what else went to shit, my friends were still my friends. Fuck the whole insider suspicion for these two. There was another e
xplanation. There had to be.

  Together we drag-hauled Gentry back to the circle of light. Jeez, but the dude was a helluva dead weight. If he’d been conscious, the strain on his shoulders would have been agonizing, but I didn’t really give a shit about his comfort at the moment. I resisted the urge to drop him on his face, and instead set him against the wall a few feet beyond Naomi.

  Philip lowered himself to sit. I looked around, even though I knew too damn well what our situation was. Two prisoners now, Naomi barely mobile, and Philip all fucked up by the MegaPlague. What the hell was I supposed to do now?

  “We’re stuck,” I murmured to myself, but Philip lifted his head.

  “What happened with Brian?” he asked.

  I hesitated only an instant before spilling the entire sordid tale to him, including how I’d disguised myself as a pregnant woman.

  “Ah, I’d wondered about the coat,” he said but then gave me a pained look. “You’re right. We’re stuck, for now at least.” He sighed. “You and I are the only ones mobile. And I’m not reliably so.”

  “We need supplies until we can figure out a plan,” I said, struggling to think. “Stuff for Naomi’s ankle, splints and painkillers. That sort of thing.”

  “Probably need duct tape and blankets. Baby wipes to clean up, and some clothing.”

  “Deodorant,” Naomi put in. “For the love of god, please get deodorant.”

  “I need to make a list,” I muttered. I glanced over at Andrew, smiled and snagged the pen from his pocket. It was a really nice one, heavy and sleek, and it wrote like a dream even on the grimy scrap of paper I picked up from the floor of the tunnel. “Blue-green algae. More food and water,” I continued as I jotted down the list of items.

  “Definitely water,” Philip agreed. “I could drink a gallon right now.”

  “Got it.” I folded the paper and stuffed it into my pocket. “We’ll figure out what to do after I get all this.”

  “Get the supplies, then we both need to hydrate and rest,” he corrected. “Once that’s done, we can secure our two prisoners, leave them with Naomi, and you and I will go recon options.”

  “Glad you have a clue,” I said, giving him a light shoulder punch.

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” he replied with a wink. “Be careful.”

  “Always,” I said automatically, then damn near jumped out of my skin as the phone buzzed in my pocket. My heart leaped when I saw the caller ID. “It’s Brian! I mean, it’s my number which means it’s Brian since he had my phone.” What if he’d been captured? What if this was really Saberton? Not yet daring to feel relief, I hit answer and then the speaker button so Naomi and Philip would be able to hear in case he said anything suspicious. “Brian! What happened? There were Saberton people crawling all over the place you sent me.”

  “Angel,” he said, voice oddly flat. “I know it’s you. You’re the insider.”

  Chapter 28

  His words sliced through me like ice cold razors, leaving me frozen and shattered at the same time. In my peripheral vision I saw Philip visibly jerk in surprise.

  “Wh-what?” I managed.

  “You’re the insider,” Brian repeated, slowly and clearly. “Every leak came from you: Mr. Ivanov’s schedule and the meetings with Dr. Charish, the change in routine from lunch to dinner for him and Dr. Nikas, the new codes to get into the lab, even the location of our meet today.”

  I felt as if I was in one of those horror movie shots where the focus zooms in on the victim while everything else retreats into the background. “No. No . . .” My blood pounded in my ears. “Brian, how can you even think that? I swear, I didn’t betray you or anyone else!”

  “Saberton would have had better intel and a smoother abduction plan if it had been one of my security team leaking info,” he said, eliminating Rachel, Kyle, and Naomi in a single sentence. Philip too, even though he wasn’t on Brian’s security team. “They heard it through someone with peripheral contact,” Brian continued. “You.”

  Naomi let out a small gasp. Philip stood, eyes widening. “Oh my god,” he murmured. “He’s right.”

  I spun to face him as the nightmare sensation tightened its grip. “What? No! No, he’s not right!”

  Philip took a step toward me, hand extended and eyes on mine as if trying to calm a wild horse. “Angel, relax,” he said, then, louder, “Brian, I have this. We’ll call you back.”

  I fought the urge to drop the phone and flee. “I’m not the insider,” I insisted. “I didn’t leak info. I swear!”

  Philip gently took the phone from me, closed it and slipped it into a pocket. “Angel, it’s okay,” he said, tone soothing, but then he shifted his attention to Andrew, crouched and pulled the gag and blindfold from the man. “And he saw no need to tell us.”

  The word “baffled” probably had my picture next to it in the dictionary. “Huh?”

  Philip straightened, put his hands on my shoulders, then leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “You’re bugged.”

  I jerked in shock and drew back to meet his eyes. “How?” I finally managed to get out.

  “I think I was a party to it,” he said, voice going dark and dangerous. “Wasn’t I, Saber?”

  I spun toward Andrew and saw the glowering expression of a man who’s been caught doing something really sneaky. Realization smacked me like a shovel to the face, and I slapped my hand over the crook of my left arm. “Shit!”

  “The boat launch parking lot,” Philip said. He took my wrist and pulled gently to straighten my arm.

  My distress shifted to white hot fury. A few months ago, back when Philip was still undercover, he and some Saberton goons attacked me at the Tucker Point boat launch then held me down while a tech took blood samples from me. At one point the needle had felt like a ball point pen being shoved into my arm . . .

  We’d never been able to figure out why they’d taken blood and then simply let me go. But now it all made sense. It was brilliant. I had to hand it to them. A lot of information got dropped in my presence, and all they had to do was wait for the perfect moment.

  My lips pulled back from my teeth. “Get. It. Out.”

  Face set, Philip palpated my arm and finally paused with his thumb over a spot a couple of inches below my elbow on my inner forearm. “I think this is it.” Philip flicked open a folding knife, met my eyes briefly, then made a careful slice through the skin. I clenched my jaw as the pain burned up my arm before receding. “Sorry,” he murmured as he carefully worked his fingers into the gash. “I don’t want to risk cutting any blood vessels, low as we are on brains.”

  “It’s cool,” I reassured him, then glowered at Andrew. “Y’all heard everything?”

  He paled, but I decided it was more at the sight of Philip digging in my forearm than because of my accusation.

  “That’s how you knew we were at your apartment,” I continued, pissed, then exhaled in relief as Philip withdrew a slim plastic and metal tube about an inch long and about an eighth of an inch wide. Cripes, no wonder my arm had been itching and bothering me so much.

  Philip dropped it to the floor and ground it beneath his heel. I turned to Andrew and enjoyed his wary frown as I untied his tie and pulled it free of his neck. His eyes widened with shock and dismay as I proceeded to wrap the silk around the gash in my arm.

  “That’s an Ermenegildo Zegna!” he sputtered.

  “And now it’s a Band-Aid,” I snapped. “How come you didn’t have people waiting at your apartment for us when we broke in?”

  He pulled his gaze away from the ruined tie, scowled. “It was intermittent at best after you went to the bar and got into that fight. The audio reduced to bits and snatches, and the tracker ceased working completely.”

  I quickly turned away and put a hand over my mouth to hold back a slightly hysterical laugh. The stun gun. That stupid stun gun had partially fried
the bug and saved our asses.

  After taking a few deep breaths to get myself under control, I took the phone back from Philip then walked a short distance down the tunnel before calling Brian back.

  “It’s out and dead,” I said as soon as he answered.

  “Good.” He exhaled. “I’m sorry. I should have screened you for anything unusual after that incident with Saberton, even for a piece of lint stuck to your shirt.”

  “I hate that I was the cause of all of this crap.”

  “You weren’t,” he told me firmly. “Saberton played a good hand. Anyway, now that we have that settled we need to join up and figure out our next step.”

  “Yeah. Stuff with Philip and me is getting worse, and it would be darn awesome if Dr. Nikas could do something about it.” I sucked in a breath. “I almost forgot to tell you! We have one of the Saberton security guards here. Weird as shit—he stumbled right up and collapsed.”

  “And no one has ended him yet?” Brian asked with dangerous calm.

  “Er, no.” I moved further down the tunnel and lowered my voice. “He’s a zombie. And don’t ask me how the hell that’s possible, because he wasn’t only a couple of hours ago.”

  “You’re certain he’s a zombie?” Brian asked, doubt thick in his voice. “It doesn’t seem possible that he could be up and around so soon, even if he was turned immediately after you saw him.”

  “I’m positive, and Philip agrees. But I can’t figure out why the hell Pietro or Kyle would turn this guy. I mean, he’s an asshole! And Pietro hated him as much as I did.” I snorted. “He even told me not to kill him if I saw him on the street—said Gentry was his.”

  “Kyle?” Brian asked, and I realized he didn’t know Kyle had been taken. Before I could explain I heard a frantic scuffling sound on the other end of the line, then Dr. Nikas’s breathless voice.

  “Angel. Repeat what you said.”

  Mildly perplexed I did so.

  “Oh, dear,” Dr. Nikas murmured. “What is his condition now?”

  My confusion increased. “Out cold,” I told him. “We have him secured, though. Ziptied wrists and ankles.”