by Bryan Smith
There could be no doubt of it. The man was dead. Blood was smeared all over his face and Daphne saw bits of tissue stuck between his teeth when his head rotated slowly in her direction.
Zombie.
That was the wild notion she had tried to deny moments ago, but there was no denying it now. Her life had become one exercise in horror show insanity after another. Maybe it was time to reexamine the idea that perhaps none of this was happening. Some kind of psychotic break with vivid hallucinations would account for a lot of this. The idea was comforting, but she knew it was bullshit. Unfortunately, she felt as firmly tethered to reality as she always had.
It was just that something had gone totally fucking wrong with reality.
Ambrose took a lurching step toward her and slumped over her when he bumped against the table. Daphne screamed as his torso pressed down on the knife embedded in her hip. She screamed again when she felt his teeth graze her skin. Her terror adrenalized her and she bucked against her restraints harder than ever in an attempt to dislodge Ambrose, maybe even knock him back to the floor. That didn’t happen, but the gyrating of her pelvis did temporarily prevent him from sinking his teeth into her. Buoyed by this meager success, she kept at it, screaming again as she thrust her injured hip against him with all her might. She again narrowly avoided being bitten, but the zombie’s cold fingers clutched at her and dug into her flesh, holding on tight. Ambrose raised his head and growled at her. The next time he tried to bite her she wasn’t able to stop him. His teeth pierced her thigh and dug deep, making her writhe and scream some more. He wrenched his head back and forth and tore loose a chunk of bloody Daphne meat.
Daphne screamed and screamed.
Through her screams, however, she became aware of more groans rising up from other parts of the room. Within moments, she saw the portly little Frenchman Francois pop up at the opposite end of the table. His beret was gone, exposing the expected bald dome.
He bit off one of her big toes.
Daphne’s screaming was nonstop by this point.
Soon the rest of them were back on their feet. To Daphne’s amazement, this included Kate. Given the deteriorated condition of the woman’s body by the time of her death, becoming ambulatory again should have been impossible, but here she was, converging on the table with the rest of the resurrected dead.
They were hungry and she was the only warm food in the room.
Daphne was hyperventilating by the time the others reached her. Ambrose had already taken a couple more bites out of her, but she was now moments away from being thoroughly devoured by these growling remnants of the people she had dined with a short while ago. It was going to hurt. A lot. Her only hope left was a quick end.
And then their teeth were on her, biting hard, digging in deep, tearing away huge chunks of flesh. She was right about the pain. It was an explosion of soul-scorching agony worse by far than anything Horst had done to her. One of the last things she felt was Kate’s mouth stretching wide across her throat. The dead woman growled and tore her throat open, severing the carotid vein. Blood jumped from the wound.
The last thing Daphne saw was Kate.
Chewing her flesh with a rapturous look on her undead face.
31.
Jessica waited three days to visit her father. It was three days of switching vehicles, hiding out in abandoned buildings, and sleeping under overpasses. In a bid for anonymity, she cut her hair short and dyed the remaining choppy locks black. A cheap pair of aviator sunglasses and some dark clothes from a thrift shop completed a sleek new look. She was accustomed to a certain image of herself—tough blonde bombshell—but right now she had bigger concerns than her vanity.
On that third day she drove by her father’s house in a stolen Toyota. The owner was in the trunk, bound and gagged and beaten varying shades of black and blue. She hadn’t decided whether to kill him yet. That would depend on how the visit with her father went. And there was always the chance she might not come out of the old man’s house alive. In that case, the guy would become somebody else’s problem.
Her father lived in a nice neighborhood. The houses here were old but well-maintained and, in most cases, extensively renovated. A lot of the city’s wealthiest and most influential citizens lived within a few square blocks of her father’s house, which was not the house Jessica had grown up in. Captain Sloan had moved into his new home shortly after Jessica enlisted in the army. She had done some digging over the last few days. His house was worth somewhere in the vicinity of three-quarters of a million dollars, which was a hell of a lot of house for a retired army man. The man also had a curious amount of pull and influence for someone who’d achieved a relatively modest rank. It was hard not to conclude that much of what she knew about her father’s military career was a carefully crafted fiction. She suspected a deep involvement with the same secret unit that had plucked her out of the regular army.
She drove by the house at a hair over the posted speed limit. Though she did not look directly at the house, she was able to do a good visual scan of the area from behind her dark sunglasses. There was no sign of a security detail. Of course, if he did have people watching the house, it was safe to assume they were consummate professionals. They would not be seen unless they wanted to be seen.
Jessica continued down to the next intersection. She took a right turn and kept going until she reached the middle of the block, where she took another right turn into a narrow alley. A pass through the alley would give her a good view of her father’s back yard. From an intelligence-gathering perspective, that could prove enormously beneficial. However, it might also allow her father’s security team, if he had one, to box her in and trap her.
But Jessica was willing to risk capture and possible execution. She had been itching for this confrontation from the moment she learned of her father’s treachery. It had consumed her days and nights to the point of total obsession. Moving on with her life simply wouldn’t be possible without this. At the first hint of trouble, she would go into suicide mission mode and bolt from the car, and, if necessary, shoot her way into the house.
But there was no obvious evidence of surveillance as she passed through the alley. The only person she saw was a middle-aged man in khaki shorts, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt taking out garbage on the opposite side of the alley from her father’s house. He lifted the lid on a large silver trash can, dumped a bulging white bag inside, and raised a hand in greeting as she drove by him. Jessica responded with a terse nod and kept going. The guy might be an agent in disguise, but she doubted it.
Her father’s manicured back lawn was as devoid of human presence as the front yard had been. A glance at the rearview mirror showed that Mr. Hawaiian Shirt was gone. Either he had ducked out of sight to call her dad or he was back in his own house doing whatever guys like him did, listening to Jimmy Buffett and guzzling margaritas, probably.
Jessica turned right out of the alley and circled back to her father’s house. There was still no visible evidence of surveillance. She parallel parked at the curb almost directly in front of the house. This was a decision based on impulse. She knew it was a dumb thing to do and that it contradicted everything she had learned about approaching a target. The smart thing would have been to go somewhere far away and disappear for at least several months, perhaps as long as a year or more. A prolonged absence would lull her father into a sense of false security. And then one day she could show up, put a bullet through his head, and walk away with no complications. But that wasn’t really an option, not with her emotions running so hot.
After a final look around at her surroundings, Jessica got out of the Toyota and opened the trunk. The bound man looked up at her with wide, frightened eyes. Jessica took another look around, saw no one watching, and removed a hunting knife with a long, serrated blade from her jacket. She punched it into the man’s throat and left it there as she slammed the trunk shut. She took no pleasure from killing the poor slob, but she didn’t know how long it would take to conc
lude her business here, business that might have been made more complicated had he been allowed time to make noise and draw attention to the car.
She strolled across her father’s front lawn at an unhurried pace, doing her best to stay alert for any threats that might be converging on her. But she reached the sidewalk in front of the house and climbed the steps to the porch without incident. She raised her hand to knock, but hesitated one last time.
In her heart, she believed her father was guilty of all the things Zelda claimed. It all fit too perfectly and jibed too well with things she’d learned since her second escape from Hopkins Bend. But it was all circumstantial. She had no concrete evidence at all, other than the word of one woman who was now dead. Didn’t she owe her father the benefit of the doubt one last time? The apparent lack of a security detail also fed into this last minute resurgence of uncertainty. What if the old man didn’t have people watching his house because he had no reason to believe he was in danger from anyone, least of all his daughter?
Fuck.
The possibility of his innocence had occurred to her more than once, of course, but each time she chalked it up to sentimentality. She had learned to trust her instincts in matters of intrigue and life and death and those instincts were rarely wrong. But there was an exception to every rule, right? What if this was one of those rare exceptions? She didn’t want to hurt the man who’d raised her unless she was absolutely certain he was the monster she believed he was.
She thought about it a moment longer.
And then she knocked on the door, three hard, strident raps that communicated urgency and authority. It was a policeman’s knock. At one time, she had considered going into law enforcement after her military service was over, but that was just one of so very many options no longer available to her.
Her father opened the door, his expression uncharacteristically taciturn. He was a trim man an inch shy of six feet tall, with eyes the same cold shade of blue as hers and iron-gray hair cut very short. The lack of outward emotion told Jessica all she needed to know. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen the man without him immediately breaking into a big smile and drawing her into a rib-crushing hug.
“I suspect you want to talk.”
Jessica didn’t say anything.
Her father stepped aside. “Come on in if you want. I imagine you feel like me. The sooner we get down to it, the better.”
When Jessica didn’t move, he turned away and moved deeper into the house, leaving the door open. She realized he was giving her one last chance to go away and put off this unpleasantness indefinitely, perhaps forever. It was so damn tempting to seize the opportunity.
But Jessica couldn’t do that.
She walked into the house and shut the door behind her. The house was silent save for the ticking of a grandfather clock in a corner of the foyer. The clock was an heirloom, handed down on her mother’s side of the family for generations. It had stood in the foyer of the home she grew up in throughout her childhood. Seeing it in this unfamiliar place triggered feelings of bittersweet nostalgia.
Her father was waiting for her in a living room dimly lit by floor lamps. He sat in the middle of a long black leather couch. In front of him was a coffee table with a beveled glass top. On the coffee table was a manila envelope, an open bottle of bourbon, and two whiskey glasses.
Jessica took a seat in a recliner to the right of the couch.
They sat there in silence for a longish time. Her father’s subdued manner surprised her even more than the lack of a security buffer. He looked like a man charged with conveying very grave news to someone not prepared for it, like a cop who has to tell a mother her child has died in an accident. The impression heightened Jessica’s already intense state of apprehension.
Her father reached for the bourbon bottle and poured an inch of amber fluid into each glass. He handed one to Jessica, who accepted it without hesitation and tossed it back in a single gulp. The possibility that it might have been poisoned didn’t occur to her until after it was sliding down her gullet. But then Captain Sloan sipped from his own glass.
Jessica set the empty glass on the table. Her paranoia was out of control. She had good reason to be wary of everything associated with her father, but this wasn’t some cold war spy movie. If her father tried to kill her, he’d do it in a more direct way.
Jessica decided it was time to break the silence. “I did a lot of checking, even hacked into some law enforcement databases, and as far as I can tell there are no warrants out for me anywhere in the world. Isn’t that interesting? I think it is, because it’s the exact opposite of what you told me a few days ago.”
Her father took another small sip of whiskey. “Did you come here armed, Jessica?”
“What do you think?”
“I think that jacket is a strange summer wardrobe choice.”
Jessica said nothing.
“Of course you’re armed. You always are.”
“I’m my father’s girl.”
The corners of Captain Sloan’s mouth twitched at that. “You certainly are.”
“Why no security, daddy?”
He shrugged. “I was sure it wouldn’t be necessary. You’re my own flesh and blood, after all.”
“I’d like you to tell me what this was all about.” For the first time Jessica spoke with some heat in her voice. It worried her. She didn’t want to lose control. Not yet. “I ran from the house of a murder victim. I left DNA evidence behind. Someone should be looking for me, the local police at the very least, but no one is. What makes it even stranger is that I can’t find a news item anywhere about the murder. It’s as if it never happened.”
Her father made direct eye contact with her for the first time since greeting her at the door. “In a way, it didn’t happen. The body was disposed of and the scene thoroughly scrubbed.”
“You orchestrated the whole thing, didn’t you?”
He nodded. “This was a test, Jessica.”
Jessica clamped down on another surge of anger. There were still things she needed to know before she could fully give in to it. “What about Zelda? Was she a test, too?”
“Yes.”
Jessica’s hands curled into fists. “She might have killed me!”
Her father sighed and poured more whiskey into his glass. “Yes. And that would have been unfortunate. But you needed to be tested in the most strenuous manner possible after your mistakes. The threat had to be real.”
Jessica shook her head. “What’s the fucking point? I’m a civilian now.”
Her father smiled, but the sadness in his eyes belied the expression. “No, Jessica. You’re not. And you never will be again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you are still active military. Your discharge was part of the charade.”
Jessica didn’t want to believe this. It was absurd, the kind of thing one assumed never happened in real life, and yet it fit with everything else. As surreal as it seemed, the strange truth was inescapable. Her father, in conjunction with the others in charge of her unit, had conspired to put her through a cruel psychological ordeal, a mind fuck of truly epic proportions.
Her anger burned brighter, surged closer to the surface. “So what now? Am I to be sent back into the field? Because I don’t want that. I want out. For real and for good.”
“I told you, that can’t happen.”
Jessica scooted to the edge of the recliner. “This is bullshit. I’ll run. I’ll go somewhere where you’ll never fucking find me.”
Her father laughed. “No such place exists. Not for you. Let me break this down for you.” And now he was the one with an edge in his voice, one so pronounced it made Jessica afraid of him in a way she hadn’t been before. “I stuck my neck out for you. I pulled strings and got you an opportunity few ever get, the chance to serve in a unit so elite hardly anyone knows it exists. I did this because I thought you had what it takes to excel in the most ruthless business in the world. And for a whil
e you distinguished yourself. But that didn’t last. You botched too many big operations, including that last one in Kabul. God’s sake, Jessica, you were sent to take out one fucking person and killed hundreds!”
“We all make mistakes.”
Her father glared at her. “Well, your mistake nearly cost us everything. There was a lot of blowback. The unit was almost shut down. Some of my colleagues wanted to have you eliminated, but I went to bat for you again, despite the embarrassment you caused me.”
Jessica grimaced. “And so you came up with this test to pacify your friends in the unit. If I survived, all is forgiven, kind of. If not, oh well. Right?”
“That’s the long and the short of it.”
Jessica sat there and shook her head as she let this sink in. Accepting what her father was telling her meant going back to a dark existence she’d hoped she was leaving behind forever. But her old masters weren’t going to let that happen. She was their slave and their weapon, a tool to be utilized however they wished.
“I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
When her father spoke again, the harsh edge was gone from his voice. “I know you don’t, sweetie. But for good or ill, this is your lot in life now. You’re being given yet another chance to excel at something you’re very good at. I suggest you embrace the opportunity.”
Jessica glanced at the manila envelope. “That have something to do with my second chance?”
Captain Sloan picked up the envelope. “Indeed it does. This contains a picture of your next target. But, sweetie, what I’m about to show you is more than just your next assignment. It’s the final part of your test. Accept the assignment and execute it successfully with no blowback to the unit and your reinstatement in good standing will be complete.”
“And if not?”
The lines around his eyes and mouth deepened. “You know what happens then.”
“I guess I do. All right, then.” Jessica nodded at the envelope. “Let’s see it.”
Her father opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of high quality photo paper. He set it in front of Jessica, turning it so it faced her squarely. She thought it was to her credit that she managed to suppress any outward evidence of shock, but the glossy image printed on the paper had her reeling inside. After staring at it for nearly a full minute, she looked at her father. “So. All I have to do to get back in the unit’s good graces is kill one of the most powerful men in the world?”
