How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back (34 page)

Marcus stood chained to the wall like a storybook ogre—naked, shackles at wrists, ankles, neck, and another chain wrapped around his waist. His arms were bent at odd angles and seemed to have too many joints. Rotted flesh peeled away from bones where the chains bit into him, and black blood dripped from a deep gash in his thigh. His breath came in ugly, wet rattles, and drool streamed from the corner of his mouth to string over his chest.

Eyes wild with hunger, he lunged at me a with wailing scream that sliced right through my core, then slammed to an ugly, flesh-shredding stop at the limit of his chains.

“Angel. Angel!” That was Pierce. “Get Andrew!” he shouted as he sprang toward the tranq wielding guard.

Cursing, I tossed the open bag of brains to Marcus, pausing only long enough to make sure he caught it before I pushed off into a sprint to chase down Andrew. Behind me I heard Marcus's growl and the
squish slurp
of him devouring brains.

I tackled Andrew before he made it to the door, then hauled him right back up with the idea of using him as a handy dandy human shield. Pierce dropped the other guard and turned our way, even as Braddock emerged from the room and ran at me, gun in hand and face twisted in pain and determination. A stupid little squeal slipped out of me at the sight of the security chief charging in my direction, and I thrust Andrew at her as hard as I could.

Braddock caught Andrew and staggered back a couple of steps which gave me all the time I needed to dash past her. She lifted her gun again, but I dodged to the other side of the blue mini-dumpster and shoved it at her to knock her off balance.

“I have this,” Pierce said as Andrew went sprawling. “Check on Kyle.” He gestured to the next door as he slapped our last three brain packets into my hand, then shifted his attention to Braddock and Andrew.

Hands shaking from adrenaline, I yanked a blood-drenched ring of keys from Baldy's belt and got Kyle's door open. I steeled myself for a sight similar to Marcus: broken, twisted, rotting, mindless, and slavering—

It was a thousand times worse.

Head lowered, Kyle crouched against the wall, naked and covered with areas of deep rot that showed bone and organs in places. Only one chain around his waist held him, and it took me a hideous second to process that his wrists weren't shackled because his hands had been cut off. He lifted his head, eyes full of fury and agony, and I received a second vicious shock as I saw what was left of his face. No lower jaw or tongue—nothing but a gaping and ragged hole. He breathed in wet gurgles, blood bubbling from his throat with each exhalation.

My reeling mind fought to make sense of the scene before me. With that much rot Kyle should've been mindless and hunger-crazed, yet his eyes reflected full awareness of me and his agony.

Realization shot through me.
The new drug.
The first guard said they'd used a new drug on him that slowed rot and kept him aware.

Kyle's gaze tore from mine and went to my left. I followed it to where a large metal bowl containing red and brown lumps rested in the corner.

No. Containing his hands and jaw and tongue.

A white hot scream of rage tore from my throat. I grabbed the bowl and ran to him. “Fuck. Fuck them. These fucking assholes.” I seized the severed jaw first, ripped open a packet with my teeth. No way would three packets—or even all the brains we had with us—be enough to fix this. “Oh, Jesus fuck, Kyle.” He wouldn't be able to eat the brains properly, I realized, and so I squeezed the paste out onto the exposed flesh of the jaw, then set it against his face as best I could. “Hold still,” I said as a heavy shudder went through him, but once it passed he held himself motionless, eyes blazing with hatred and anger that I knew wasn't directed at me. My hands shook as I squeezed the rest of that packet and a second one into his mouth and throat, but fortunately the parasite seemed to know its business. Within seconds the jaw shifted in my hands as the tendons and muscle began to knit together to pull the bone into place.

As soon as I knew his jaw wouldn't fall off, I grabbed up one of his hands, ripped open the third packet and squeezed more brain paste out onto the stump of his forearm and the severed hand. I caught myself right before sticking the right hand onto the left arm. That would've been a bit embarrassing. I hurriedly grabbed up the other, brain-pasted it, and put left hand to left arm then flicked a glance up to his face. To my relief his jaw continued to adjust and knit back in place, though it sagged open still.

“I'll be right back,” I said once I knew his hands weren't going to fall off. I darted out of the cell in time to see Andrew face down on the floor with his wrists zip-tied behind him, and Pierce bodily shoving Braddock into the room next to Marcus's.

“Remember that and come over to the dark side sometime,” Pierce said to the security chief as he slammed the door closed and locked it. I didn't waste time trying to figure out what that was supposed to mean and instead grabbed the lunch box of brains from the bin and raced back into Kyle's room.

His hands and jaw hadn't fallen off in the few seconds I was gone, but he let out a heart-wrenching cry of pain. I bit off a corner of the baggie and squeezed diced brains into his mouth, relieved to see his tongue move sluggishly to help him swallow, though his hands didn't seem to be functioning yet.

From the corridor, I heard the crackle of a radio.

“Rutledge,”
said
a voice I recognized as Edwards.
“What's your status down there?”

“Mr. Saber and Gentry are in with the guests,” Pierce answered in a gruff voice convincingly close enough to Baldy's to send a shiver through me.

“Davis and Gordon are running late, but should be here in five. You got anywhere you need to be?”

“I'm good. Checking new guests into the hotel. I'd pay for the privilege.”

“Roger that. I'll be down to tuck them in later.”

Kyle shifted. “Hate . . . them,” he gurgled, deep anger boiling in his eyes.

“You and me both, dude,” I muttered, hands shaking with my own fury. While he swallowed brains, I tried keys from the guard's ring until I found the one that opened the padlock on the chain.

I turned sharply at a clatter behind me. It was Pierce, pushing the mini-dumpster through the door. His eyes flicked from Kyle's jaw to his hands to the bloody bowl, and rage tightened his face as he drew the correct conclusion.

Kyle sucked in a wet breath at the sight of Pierce. “An . . . gel.” Even through the gurgle I heard the alarm and warning in his voice.

Oh, right, he didn't know about Pietro/Pierce. “It's okay,” I assured Kyle. “He's an ally. I promise. I'll explain later, but right now we need to get the fuck out of here.”

Kyle growled low but didn't resist when Pierce slid his arms beneath him, lifted him gently and placed him in the bin with the tranqed Brian and messed up Marcus. I peered in, disturbed to see Marcus lying with his head lolling and eyes glassy. After eating the bag of brains he should have been better off, more responsive. “Marcus?”

Pierce answered instead. “He was coming out of the hunger craze then went down. Most likely due to whatever they drugged him with earlier.” He placed a hand on Marcus's shoulder. “He seems stable for now.”

“Stable” didn't do much to ease my worry.

The radio crackled again.

“Jenkins. Ms. Saber just got here and says she can't get Mr. Saber, Ms. Braddock, or Gentry via phone. Who's still down there with you?”

Pierce shook his head. “Can't fake Jenkins. We're out of time.”

“Jenkins, do you copy?”
A pause.
“Rutledge.”
Another pause.
“Gentry.”

“Best for me not to answer. That way I can
surprise
them.”

“How many more guards are between us and The Fuck Out Of Here?” I asked Pierce.

“Eleven to fourteen if they stick with the Special Security Team,” he said grimly as he pushed the bin into the hallway and started down the corridor toward the exit. “Grab him,” he angled his head toward Andrew, “and then we can get out of this deathtrap area, collect the package, and reassess.”

“Package?” I gave him a puzzled look.

He tapped his chest and gave me a knowing look.
Oh. Gentry's body. The
original
Gentry, the one now missing a brain.

I hauled Andrew up to his feet. “You promised to let me go,” he said with an accusing glare at Pierce.

“You promised to see this through, and last thing I remember is you bolting,” Pierce said. “Now would be a bad time to get me thinking about altering the terms of our agreement.”

Andrew fell silent and didn't resist as I hustled him after Pierce. As soon as we were past the security door, Pierce and I both breathed a sigh of relief. Even though we still had a long way to go, being pinned in the Torture Zone would've been the worst case scenario.

A bank of overly bright fluorescent lights lit the concrete-walled area beyond the door. It was as if they'd tried—and failed miserably—to create a sense of sunlight underground. I turned a quick circle to get my bearings and found no noteworthy features other than an elevator and four doors: the one we'd come through, one marked Maintenance, one marked Electrical Room, and the stairwell.

Pierce called the elevator then blocked the doors open with the bin when it arrived. I sat Andrew down in front of the bin and gave him a
Don't you fucking dare move
look.

“Stairwell door,” I said, “Need to block it too.”

Pierce frowned. “I'll dismantle the lock on this side. That should slow them down a few minutes, at least.” He dug a big screwdriver out of the bin and proceeded to destroy the lock control panel, then leaned into the elevator as if listening.

“Got any change?” I asked as I scowled at the stairwell door. “Coins, I mean.”

He looked at me blankly, then nodded in understanding. He quickly rifled through Andrew's pockets, and came up with enough coins for me to penny the door. A couple of stacks of coins wedged high and low between the door and frame would jam it shut. In theory at least. It was a long shot, but it had sure as hell worked on Sissy Collard's bathroom door during a junior high prank involving a big ass spider in the sink and a rubber snake by the toilet.

“Good thinking, Angel,” Pierce said with an approving nod as I prepped the coins. “I'll get the package.” He lifted the lid of the mini-dumpster, reached in, and pulled out the body bag, then headed toward the door marked Maintenance. “Back in a minute.”

“Got it,” I said, and by the time the coins were wedged in place Pierce was back, with the loaded bag slung over his shoulder.

Andrew stared. “Who the fuck is that?”

I ignored him and peered into the bin. “Hey guys, got a body coming in. Sorry.” Kyle shifted to sit up and gave me a weak nod. He'd made an effort to pull the blanket over his crotch, but his hands were still too weak to untangle the blanket from the tools and bodies. Keeping my expression even and clinical, I reached in and tugged the blanket up for him. I couldn't do much else for him, but I could at least give him a little fucking dignity. Marcus groaned, stacked on top of the still-tranqed Brian. Worried, I stroked a hand over his hair, then helped Pierce get everyone rearranged, with the corpse at the bottom beneath Kyle.

“We only have one way out,” I said to Pierce after we closed the dumpster lid. My heart pounded as the weight of the situation hit me. “We lost Brian, and we can't just walk out with Andrew now.”

“They still don't know what they're dealing with.” He turned intense, calm eyes on me. “For now, we wait. A team will be on the way to check out why no one's responding. They'll run into a stuck elevator and blocked stairwell and realize shit's fucked up. Based on how they respond, we make our plan. They're fucked if they try one at a time through the elevator hatch. Stairwell is a better option, but ambush outside the elevator upstairs is what I'd do.”

Oh, great. Ambush. That made me feel SO much better.

A dull thud and muffled voices came from the stairwell door. I spun to face it, tense, and twitched at another thud.

“It's holding for now,” Pierce said from behind me.

A face appeared in the little window in the door, then the man's eyes widened, and he ducked down. More muffled voices.

I glanced back to see Pierce lowering the gun he'd pointed at the window. “
Now
they know what they're dealing with,” he said as he pulled out his phone. How the hell could he be so calm? “We have a few minutes while they scramble,” he continued. “I'll call Dr. Nikas to give a sit rep.”

I gave him a blank look. “A what?”

“Situation report,” he clarified. “Dr. Nikas and Reinhardt need to know our status and might have some new info.”

“Oh, right, gotcha.” I moved over to the sullen-faced Andrew and crouched just inside his personal space. “Did you see what they did to Kyle?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he gave me a slight nod. He didn't look away, though a faint flush of what I sure fucking hoped was shame crept up his neck. Behind me I caught bits and pieces of Pierce's conversation with Dr. Nikas.

“
No, he's out. Tranqed . . . No antidote that I could find . . . Right. Got it . . . Marcus is barely under control, and I think they gave him something as well. Weaker than he should be . . . No, Brian never got to use it . . . Right. All three syringes should still be on him . . . Yes, of course . . . No, it would take too long for him to get here . . . Griffin . . . Griffin's in very bad shape.”

I kept my gaze locked on Andrew. “You're okay with that sort of thing?”

His flush continued to rise, but along with it came that damn defensive wall I'd seen before. He lifted his chin arrogantly. “It was a foolish move, given the circumstances.”