by Davis, J. Q.
I pointed to her nub. “Your arm. If we let Dr. Roberson die, he won’t be able to fix your arm. Are you okay with that?”
She immediately grabbed on to what was left of it. She glanced over at Kate. “Won’t there be someone else to fix it?”
Kate’s expression wasn’t promising. “Unfortunately, we have only done that type of surgery to a handful of Zombrids and he was the only one who has performed the procedure. I’m sure we can figure it out later, but I can’t guarantee a timeframe or even if anyone could do it for sure.”
I could tell Sonny was having a mental argument about whether or not she wanted to be okay with this.
There was a long pause before she finally answered. “Yeah. I’m okay with it.”
I knew it had to be a hard decision, but I was glad she understood this went deeper than her getting a new arm.
“Okay, dolls. We’ve got to get outta here. We’re running out of time,” Ian informed.
We all agreed and headed toward the Z lab.
Being the Worry Bug that I was known to be, I fought with my uneasiness over the whole situation while we crossed the courtyard. So much could go wrong. The agent guys could come and ruin the plan…and kill us. The two doctors could turn out to be stronger than we thought…and kill us. Dr. Roberson could come back to life…and kill us.
Okay, maybe the chances of that last part happening without the serum were low. But the other two scenarios could happen. Either way, we were all in danger.
We got inside the Z lab without any interruptions. It was still quiet, but I knew now that was because Dr. Roberson sent everyone back to the states, which made total sense considering he had plans to turn. He was anticipating no incidents. Just a quick, simple turn.
We reached the second floor and quietly made our way to the procedure room where Dr. Roberson was awaiting his injection.
Kate stopped outside the door.
“How are we doing this?” Ian whispered.
“I’ll go in. Once the doctors have euthanized him, I will text Grace. Then, the three of you come in and do what you need to do.”
“Why is it okay for you to go in? Doesn’t he only trust those two doctors,” Sonny asked curiously.
“It’s fine. I’m family.”
What?
She must have noticed my furrowed brows and puzzled reaction to what she just said.
“I’m his daughter.”
WHAT!
I almost choked on my own spit!
She was Dr. Mark Roberson’s daughter? How did I not know this?
Before I could even begin to comprehend what she just revealed, Kate entered the procedure room.
“Holy crap! Dr. Roberson’s own daughter wants to kill him?”
“Shh…Sonny, we’ve gotten this far, let’s not blow it,” I said.
“So when she messages you, the three of us are going to rush in. I’ll grab one and Grace, you grab the other,” Ian ordered.
“Hey, what about me?” Sonny whined.
“Sonny, you can watch Kate to make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. We still don’t know if we can completely trust her,” I whispered.
We sat quietly and stared at my phone while I clasped on to it tightly.
“It’s cause I have one arm…”
“What?”
“The reason why you guys won’t let me have one of the doctors. It’s because I’m missing my arm. You think I’m weak,” Sonny insisted.
I shut my eyes in frustration. “No…it’s not, Sonny.”
It was quiet again.
“Well, as long as you guys let me eat some, I’ll promise to pretend it isn’t about my missing arm.”
“Two doctors should be enough for all of us,” Ian reassured her.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown: Now.
I took a deep breath. “You guys ready?”
Ian and Sonny both nodded.
I took a deep breath before we busted through the door.
Chapter 18
The News
I opened the door to the procedure room with my crew in tow.
The doctors immediately turned in our direction. Dr. Roberson was on the examining table and looked as though he was sleeping.
Kate was standing next to him.
“Hey, you can’t be in here!” one of them yelled. I didn’t know who was Dr. Charles and who was Dr. Jones.
Sonny hurried over to Kate’s side. I kept one eye on her and one on the doctors. I just wanted to make sure there was no funny business from Kate.
Ian dashed over to the closest doctor. When the doctor saw Ian coming his way, he held up his hands as if surrendering to a gunman.
Ian took advantage of this and grabbed the doctor’s arms, pulling them behind his back. In one swift motion, Ian locked the doctor into a type of wrestling move and buried his face into his neck.
The doctor let out a deep, agonizing cry and I didn’t have to look anymore. I knew Ian could take care of the rest.
I turned my attention to the second doctor, who was too stunned from watching what was happening to his colleague to even move. I made the decision to steal Ian’s moves and sprinted over to him while his focus was on his friend. But he must have seen me coming in his peripheral vision and turned in my direction right as I reached him.
I threw my weight into him and we both stumbled onto the ground, knocking over the metal tray of surgical tools. I landed on top of him and maneuvered my legs in order to straddle his body.
I grabbed his wrists and attempted to hold them down, but this guy was proving to have enough strength to at least hold me off a little.
He then thrust his hips into the air, causing me to lose control of the power in my legs. My body bounced off of him and he turned me over. Now, he was on top of me!
Really? Why did I have to get the tough old guy?
He pressed my wrists into the floor and I fought with all my might against him.
I quickly glanced around, searching for anything on the floor that might have fallen off the tray I could use to help.
I spotted Ian and Sonny hunched over the other doctor. They were in their food trance. I looked over to my right and could see Kate’s legs and feet. She was still standing near her father.
I looked up at the doctor. He was sweating and shaking, fighting to overpower me.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked through clenched teeth.
A twinge of remorse washed over me.
Although he was subduing me in that moment, I had just eaten and knew I could have this guy’s flesh in my mouth at anytime if I really wanted to.
But why was I doing this? I was going to kill this poor old man. And for what? To get to Dr. Roberson? Doesn’t this make me just as evil?
And right before I could make any decisions on whether or not to spare the doctor’s life, a needle was plunged into his neck.
His eyes widened and he froze.
I let go of his wrists and he quickly grasped on to his neck. He immediately fell onto his side.
I sprawled out on the floor and allowed my body to relax. The old man put up quite a fight!
Kate’s head came into view above me. She held up a large needle and said, “Serum Z.”
She injected the doctor with the serum, which will kill him because he was injected without being dead first.
“Nice,” I said between catches of breath. I didn’t have to kill him after all.
After a few minutes of gathering my bearings, I stood up.
I glanced over at the doctor. He was still in the fetal position, but began shaking.
“Um…is this supposed to happen?” I asked Kate.
“Yeah. He’s going to start convulsing pretty violently before he dies, so you might not want to watch. It’s kind of disturbing.”
Although a part of me did want to see it, the other part felt too guilty to watch.
I looked over to Sonny and Ian, who were still in a food coma. As much as I wanted to get over there to ha
ve my share, I had to check up on Dr. Roberson.
He was still lying on the table. He looked peaceful, like he was sleeping soundly after a long, hard day of work.
Kate stood at his side, staring down at him.
“Are you okay?” I asked. Certainly she had to feel something for her father who lay dead in front of her.
She didn’t look up. “Were you surprised to hear I’m his daughter?”
“Um…yes. I had no idea.”
“Yeah. No one really knows.”
“He never mentioned you. And I just thought you were one of his employees,” I admitted. “You called him ‘Sir’”.
She sighed. “Honestly, I chose to call him that. And of course he didn’t mention me. Zack was all he cared about.”
I didn’t respond.
She lifted her hand and gently soothed his hair. “Zack and I were playing with a red ball in the backyard. We had a pool, and we both knew not to get near it unless Mom and Dad were outside watching us. But the ball rolled into in. I yelled at Zack because it was his fault. He didn’t catch it. He was younger than me, and I was frustrated because he just wasn’t as good at catching balls as I was.”
“So, he went over to the pool, kneeled down, and tried to reach for it. But he fell in. Did I mention he wasn’t a good swimmer, either?”
She finally glanced up at me and I shook my head no.
“You’d think that he would have been considering we had a pool, but Mom and Dad were always too busy to give us a proper lesson. Anyway, he fell in and I froze. Instead of trying to help him or running to get my parents, I just…froze. By the time Mom and Dad came outside, he was already faced down in the pool and it was too late.”
I felt sadness for Kate. That must have been an awful memory to have.
“For years I struggled with the idea that I was the one that killed my brother. Mom and Dad were too distraught to comfort me, and they even blamed me on a few occasions. How could I have let him go near the pool when I knew the rules? I was the oldest, I should have known better.”
“Mom ended up divorcing my dad and left him. I guess she felt like she no longer had children, since I let her down and Zack died. I never heard from her again.”
Okay, this story was getting worse and worse by the minute.
“I was forced to stay with him.” She glanced down at her dad again, only this time there was a different look on her face. It was empty, as if she was looking down at a stranger.
“And all he did was work. There were so many nights I spent home alone. He spent nights at his research lab, sometimes not even coming home for days. He barely spoke to me. If he did, it was about the serum or Zack. I was forced to raise myself…and felt alone for most of my life. Now, here he is. Dead. And I couldn’t be happier.”
Woah. Talk about family drama! Kate had years of hatred for Dr. Roberson boiling inside her.
I was afraid to interrupt her venting, but I had to ask. “Why did you start working for him then?”
“Because I thought that maybe if I became interested in what he devoted his life to, then he would at least show me the attention I deserved. But he didn’t. He just got deeper and deeper into this whole Serum Z bullshit.” She chuckled, “I actually started to feel like I wasn’t his daughter. Like I was just another employee he hired.”
I didn’t know if that was exactly a funny thing. But I could identify with her on some level. Her mother left her and never spoke to her again, just like my dad. The feeling like you’re to blame will never go away. It’s always there, lingering somewhere in the back of your mind.
Kate glanced at her wristwatch. “Well, in twenty more minutes, Dr. Roberson will be gone forever.”
“Kate, I would understand if you…change your mind. I mean, I didn’t know he was your dad and—”
“Are you joking?”
I didn’t know how to answer that.
“Did you not hear anything I said? There is nothing I want more than to bury his ass once and for all. At least then he can finally be with his precious Zack.”
“Well, then it’s settled. Dr. Roberson remains dead,” Ian said behind me.
I turned to look at him. Blood was smeared all over his mouth, neck, chest and arms. A similar blood-smeared Sonny came up behind him.
“Grace! Aren’t you gonna eat?” She seemed drunk with fulfillment.
“Um…yeah. I just wanna wait till this is all over.”
We stood around Dr. Roberson and watched his lifeless body in silence. Yeah, I thought about remorse and the empty, heartless feeling I felt knowing that I have murdered people. But, I’m a Zombrid. Having to eat humans was a part of my life now, and apparently because I was immortal, it was something I will have to deal with for a long, long time.
However, as I stood over Dr. Roberson, there was not one ounce of me that felt repentance. There was no shame, no guilt…no regrets about what was going to happen to him in about fifteen minutes. He was going to be gone forever, and to quote his own daughter, “I couldn’t be happier”.
I wasn’t sure what was going happen from here on out. But I knew one thing: I won’t have to look at Dr. Roberson’s creepily excited grin anymore.
I watched Kate as the minutes counted down. There were no tears. There was no pain or sadness in her eyes. This made me feel better about our decision. I was worried that she would have enough time to mull it over and vote to keep him alive.
She looked at her watch again. “Okay. That’s it. The window has closed.”
“Thank God! Who wants a drink?” Sonny asked.
“Let’s go down to Newport and get some celebratory Z juice,” Ian suggested.
“Mind if I come?” Kate asked Ian.
“Sure.”
“Wait, Grace hasn’t eaten yet.” Awe, Sonny…my keeper.
“Dr. Roberson is dead right there. Go on, Grace. Take a bite out of him,” Ian insisted.
I looked at Kate. There was no way I was going to eat her father in front of her face. Although she hated him, it would be…disrespectful.
She glanced into my eyes. “How ironic it would be. He wanted to feed you so badly. Well, he would be doing just that.”
I guess that was her go ahead. I looked at Dr. Roberson again.
What a satisfying ending this story would have? The heroine seeks revenge on the evil villain, then she eats his soul.
But it was too predictable. And I didn’t want to have that man’s flesh and blood inside of me.
“Honestly, I don’t think he would taste good,” I said.
“Yeah, he’s probably rotten on the inside,” Sonny chuckled.
I smiled.
Ian walked over to the doctor he and Sonny were munching down on. He was lying on his back, arms and legs spread out. His entire torso was ripped open, exposing only the ribs Ian and Sonny left behind. He was completely hollowed out. Nothing was left inside him.
Ian picked up one of the doctor’s arms and twisted until there was a snap. He placed a foot on the doctor’s hip then pulled on his arm. There was a tearing sound, from both his skin and the sleeve of the lab coat he was wearing.
He then walked back over to me, with the doctor’s entire arm in his hand. “Here you go. A little appetizer.”
I didn’t know if I should be disgusted or grateful for what Ian had just done.
But the smell of the luscious blood dripping down to the floor made me quickly make up my mind.
“Thanks.”
I devoured my “appetizer” within minutes, and was now ready for the main course. But I didn’t want the others to have to wait, so I opted for us to go down to the mess hall without it. The arm was enough to hold me over for a while.
I glanced at Dr. Roberson one last time before we left the room.
It was finally over.
We walked out of the Z lab doors and I squinted at the sunlight. It was early morning, and there was an eerie feeling in the air. The compound was empty now. Dr. Roberson was gone, his employees were away
, and the rest of our crew didn’t make it through the long and emotionally exhausting night.
I was actually looking forward to finally being able to sit down.
Upon entering Newport, Kate’s phone rang. “Hello?”
I wondered who it could be. She had connections to all of Dr. Roberson’s minions, which could be beneficial to us while we tried to figure out what we were going to do next.
“Oh…I see. Okay well, you had to do what you had to do. No. It’s fine. Listen, Dr. Roberson wanted me to give you and the others orders to stay at East Cocos. Yes. He will meet you there with the remaining subjects. Yes. Uh huh…”
She was attempting to keep the guards away from us. That was great, but my heart pounded over what the news was about V.
“Yes. I will let you know. Okay. Bye.”
We all walked up to the bar and I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me what happened.
She sat down on the stool. “Grace, sit down.”
“What happened?”
She sighed. “I’m sorry. They had to take him down.”
“Take him down where?” I was being coy, but I knew exactly what that meant.
“They had to kill him. It was either their lives or his.”
My heart sank.
I turned away from her and glanced down at my hands. He didn’t deserve to die this way.
I felt a hand on my shoulder, attempting to comfort me, but I shrugged it away. I didn’t want to be touched. I didn’t even want to be near anyone at that moment. I wanted to go home. I wanted to get off this island and as far away from it as I could.
I was so angry. I was so pissed at all the things this stupid place had taken away from me. I lost someone that I could have loved. I lost life-long friends that I could have had. I lost my innocence to a world that I once felt safe in. I lost a relationship with my mother that I wasn’t sure I would ever get back. I lost any hope that I would ever be a normal person again. And now I lost the closest thing I’d ever had to a father.
I didn’t think I had enough tears to shed.
Ian placed a bottle of Z juice in front of me. “Drink up, doll. It will make you feel better.”
I felt drained and void of any feelings. I was emotionally shattered.
