Patient Z
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgment
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Loose Id Titles by Becky Black
Becky Black
PATIENT Z
Becky Black
www.loose-id.com
Patient Z
Copyright © July 2013 by Becky Black
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
eISBN 9781623004460
Editor: T. Mitchell
Cover Artist: Scott Carpenter
Published in the United States of America
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 809
San Francisco CA 94104-0809
www.loose-id.com
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning
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Acknowledgment
With thanks to Kay Berrisford and Star Ostgard.
Chapter One
Dizzy and sick and hurting everywhere, Cal struggled toward the light. If he made it to the light, he wouldn’t be pulled back into a body that had become an abomination. People claimed the zombies didn’t have anything of the living person they’d once been left in them anymore, but how could they know for sure? Cal feared being trapped inside his body, his mind driven by the compulsions of the parasites, but intact. Mourning his body as it decayed with him still inside it, like wearing clothes as they rotted off his frame.
The light grew brighter, glaring enough to make him lift his arm to shield his eyes. The metallic
clank
this produced and the weight of the manacle on his wrist brought him awake fast, and he sat up, gasping. The room spun around him. Manacles on both his wrists, and fetters on his ankles. Shit. This sure as hell was not heaven.
“Don’t move around too fast. You’re…weak.”
A man’s voice, with plenty of authority in it, except for the hesitation on the last word. Cal squinted, eyes still unfocused, adapting to the light. A dark shape resolved itself into a man. A big guy—big shoulders and broad chest. He had a strong, square-jawed face. Not a man to be messed with. A woman, barely more than a girl, stood beside him.
“Bring the doctor, please,” the man said to the girl. “Tell her the patient is awake.”
“Patient?” Cal stood and raised his manacled hands as the girl hurried away. “You meant another word there, right? Also starting with P.” The chains were bolted to the wall, and he could move no more than a few yards from the cot he’d woken up on. Mr. Square Jaw was standing beyond reach.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “We can’t take a chance.”
“On what?”
“How did you get the bite on your leg?”
Shit. Cal glanced down at his leg, clad in gray sweatpants that weren’t his—he’d never have owned anything so ugly. He knew what they assumed, this guy and his little girlfriend and doctor, and whoever else was here.
“A dog. Pack of feral bastards came at me.”
“A dog.”
“Border collie was the one that got me. Before I got him.” He reached unconsciously toward the belt holster that wasn’t there. “Where are my weapons?”
“When were you bitten?”
“Depends how long I’ve been here. And speaking of here, want to tell me where the hell I am?” He looked around at the metal walls. The room had no windows. The low ceiling and dim lighting made it depressingly gloomy. Not very warm either—especially as his captors hadn’t given him a shirt to go with his ugly pants. If there’d been movement, he’d have thought he was on a ship, but the place was as steady as dry land, now that his head wasn’t spinning so much. “And while you’re at it, who you are?” he added. Whoever he was, he was a good-looking guy. Nice blue eyes. Dark blond hair trimmed short and neat.
“My name is Mitch Kennedy. You’re on a decommissioned oil rig six miles off the coast of California. What’s your name?”
“Calvin Richardson. Call me Cal.”
“Okay, Cal. We found you unconscious on a boat and brought you aboard.”
Yeah, the boat. That had been a mistake. Should have checked it actually had fuel. And a life raft and emergency supplies and flares and all that shit. Someone had clearly stripped the damn thing before Cal ever found it, but he hadn’t realized this until too late. Until he was drifting helplessly out into the Pacific, doomed to be smashed into rocks eventually. Not that he’d be alive by then.
“We found—” The entrance of two other people interrupted Mitch. Leading the way was a tall woman in her late twenties, wearing cargo pants and a long-sleeved khaki shirt, her hair cut nearly as short as Mitch’s. She carried an assault rifle. Cal looked at Mitch and realized he had a pistol in his hand, held down by his side.
Chains, manacles, fetters, and guns. Cal started to go right off his rescuers.
An elderly black woman followed the butch-looking woman, back bent with age, limping and walking with a cane. She had to be pushing eighty, but she fixed bright and intelligent eyes on him.
“Stay back from him, Doctor,” Mitch said.
“It’s a little difficult to examine him from ten feet away. And I’d like to get another blood sample.”
Another? When had they got the first one? And what had they found in it?
“Is there much point in another one?” Butch Chick asked. “You already said you didn’t find any parasites in the first one.” She gave Cal a dark look, as if this only made her more suspicious of him.
“And if they already moved to his brain, they wouldn’t show up,” Mitch said.
God, they definitely thought he was infected. That was why they had guns. If he did anything to let them think he was about to attack, they’d shoot him instantly.
“You know, polite people don’t talk about people as if they aren’t there,” Cal said. “And they introduce themselves. I’m Cal.”
“This is Bren and Doctor Burnett,” Mitch said. “Cal here says he was bitten by a dog.” Just the way he said it made clear he didn’t believe it.
“I
was
bitten by a dog.”
“Cal,” the doctor said, bringing his attention to her. “I have to tell you that we’ve given you a vaccine.”
“What…for rabies?”
“No. Though if you were bitten by a dog, I should give you rabies shots too. We’ve given you a vaccine against the zombie parasites.”
Cal’s heart pounded wildly, and he moved at them fast, until the chains stopped him. And the guns pointing at him stopped him.
“I am not a fucking zombie!”
“Not yet,” the woman called Bren said. “Calm down, pal. Do it.”
Reluctantly, but fearing they’d at least wing him if he didn’t obey, Cal backed away. Mitch lowered his handgun, though Bren kept her rifle aimed.
“There is no vaccine,” Cal said. “Before everything went dark, they said the CDC hadn’t even come close to creating a vaccine.”
“I know,” the doctor said. “I used to work at the CDC before I retired. Some friends there sent me the research before they were overrun. I’ve been continuing it.” She sighed. “And I’m sorry, Cal. We had no choice. You’re the first guinea pig.”
Bullshit. This was a trick. There was no vaccine. But he’d go along with their game.
“Well, much appreciated, Doc, even if I don’t need it. I’m sure it won’t kill me or anything.” He saw a flash of guilt on the doctor’s face, but that could have been faked. “Believe me, if I feel the urge to start biting anyone…” He looked at Mitch. “You’ll be the first to know.” He’d quite like to bite that one. Make him squirm a bit. He smiled, but Mitch scowled back.
“I’m sure you’re well aware the urge to bite only occurs after revival,” Mitch said.
“Only too well fucking aware, yeah.” After two years out there in the zombie-infested wasteland America had become, Cal knew plenty about the natural history of the species Homo sapiens zombie. More than these people sitting pretty on their oil rig. Smart plan, though, oil rig. Zombies couldn’t swim. Even if a zombie drifted here on a boat or walked here on the seabed, it couldn’t climb up a ladder to the rig. The creatures couldn’t climb anything more than stairs—and not even steep stairs at that. Mitch and his people were safe here. But they were still wary. They were not giving Cal the benefit of the doubt.