Time of Death Book 2: Asylum (A Zombie Novel) (33 page)

Because of their beauty, the wall spanning
this side of the mansion had been notched years before to allow
visitors access to the great trees. The interlocking trunks created
a natural barrier the undead couldn't get through, and I felt safe
in the shade of the branches that loomed above. Light filtered
through what few breaks were still visible, and I saw some
scratches on a few of the larger trunks. Taking a closer look, I
discovered people had carved their initials into the bark as far
back as 1952. JR+EF. My heart pummeled against the wall of my chest
at the initials and I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against
the trunk, pretending the initials belonged to Jake and I. Jake
Rossi + Emma Ford. My Jake, pre-apocalypse Jake would have found
the symbolism romantic.

* * *

I heard Boss barking from where Tom worked
with him and Daphne, and I smiled at the sound before remembering
the only other time I'd heard the dog utter a peep. I spun,
instantly on alert and scanned the lawn for zombies. Nothing looked
out of place—other than Boss running full speed in my
direction.

The thought that I might have been in danger
occurred a split second before I felt the first tug on my hair.

"Ow! What the hell?" I exclaimed.

A zombie had stuck its decrepit hand through
a small gap in the wooded area behind me and wrapped its gnarled
fingers into my hair. I screamed, an earth-shattering,
blood-curdling shriek that got the attention of every man, woman,
and child outside and sent them running in my direction.

My head slammed against the tree while the
creature's teeth snapped shut inches behind me, and I heard the
most terrifying sound possible: splintering wood. I was afraid to
grab the hair at the base of my scalp for fear that the zombie
would latch onto my fingers. Lightning bolts of white, hot pain
blinded me and my scalp felt like it would tear away under the
resistance.

Boss reached the tree and leapt in the air,
snarling and snapping at my attacker. "Boss, off!" commanded Tom,
who had reached me, and took up position where the dog had just
vacated.

"Help me!" I screamed, sobbing from both pain
and crippling fear.

"I can't get to it," Tom said to the
black-clad man trying to maneuver around my other side.

"Shit!" I heard him shout. "The space is too
narrow to get a knife through."

More splintering came from the space behind
me, putting the gnashing teeth that much closer to my flesh, and I
continued to scream.

"Cover your ears," shouted Tom. "Emma, cover
your ears now!" He shook me and I did what he said.

A moment later a sonic boom exploded on my
right and my knees gave out from under me. I hung by my hair,
disoriented and dazed, with a deafening ring emanating from inside
my head. I heard the others shouting but couldn't make out what
they were saying; everything except the ringing was muffled.

One second I was suspended by my hair, the
next I was falling into someone's arms. Before identifying who held
me though, I blacked out.

The first thing I did when I woke was cup my
hands over my ears in an attempt to lessen the ringing. The second
thing I did was roll onto my side and vomit profusely into the
grass. The third thing I did—I'm not ashamed to admit it—was cry
like a baby.

I squinted, opening one eye, and saw a lot of
feet. Kneeling next to me was Dr. Chen. He saw me looking at him
and said something I didn't understand.

"What?" I asked. My voice sounded like a
fun-house mirror, assuming it had sound effects. He shook his head
at me.

Meg stooped down to my level and said
something else I couldn't understand. Only, her voice sounded like
a high pitched warble. Someone had hefted me up and carried me into
the house and up to my fourth floor penthouse closet. In between
the raging stabs of pain, I felt sympathy for whoever drew the
short straw on that one. Those stairs sucked just carrying my own
body weight. I couldn't imagine the exertion carrying someone else
would require.

Dr. Chen put two tablets in my hand. The
first I recognized as Vicodin, and I swallowed before Meg had
gotten back with a glass of water from the bathroom sink. I didn't
know what the second pill was though, and I knew enough not to take
medicine without knowing what it was for. He saw my hesitance and
mouthed the word Reglan. I repeated it back to him and waited until
he confirmed I had it right before sticking it on my tongue and
washing it down with warm water. I would have much preferred the
anti-nausea medication via injection, but beggars couldn't be
choosers.

Meg tucked me in like a toddler and stayed in
the room until I fell asleep. When I reentered the land of the
living, she was still in the room, but her attention was focused on
her new bestie, Jahayra—she preferred Jah—sitting on the bed next
to her.

I groaned, and they both jumped up and
scurried to my side. "Say something," I said to Meg, "softly."

"Can you understand me?" she asked, barely
above a whisper.

"Yes, but fuck, this ringing is killing
me."

"Dr. Chen said the ringing will be there a
while, and that you'll likely have some long-term tinnitus."

"Joy," I grumbled.

I touched the back of my scalp tentatively,
not sure if I'd find chunks of skin missing or not. My hair felt
weird, and I looked quizzically up at Meg, who in turn winced back
at me.

"Yeah," she drew out, "about that. When they
shot the zombie it kind of wouldn't let go."

"I don't get it," I replied. My brain was
still muddled from the narcotic, and she wasn't making sense.

She grimaced, and tightened her fingers into
a claw. "It kind of had a death grip on your hair when it
died."

I was missing something important here, I
just knew it.

Jah rolled her eyes and blurted, "Oh, for
crying out loud. They had to cut your hair because the thing
wouldn't let go."

"Okay, so they cut my hair. Wait a minute." I
felt around at the bristled ends and finally got it. "Oh, my God!
They cut my hair!"

"That's what I just said," she replied,
rolling her eyes like I was a dunce.

"Outta the way!" I pushed them aside and
lurched into the bathroom to assess the damage in the mirror. My
tortured cry was strangled in my throat when I saw the ragged edges
of a missing chunk of hair that stopped just below my neck. A
section of my long hair was missing. My hair, that I had always
taken such pride in, was gone in back, and the sides hung down past
my bra like Goofy ears.

Meg stood in the doorway behind me, and I
glared at her reflection in the mirror. She had the decency to look
ashamed, even though I knew it wasn't her fault.

"At least you're alive," she offered.

"True, but now I feel like killing
someone."

Jah popped her head into the door, smiling.
"I can fix it," she said.

I doubted it, unless she had lots of
extensions and magic pixie dust to root them to my head.

Chapter 21: Sanctimonious
Prick

Florida winter was in full swing, and we were into
sweater weather. I pulled my scarf up to my chin and slurped beef
stew from my spoon.

"Hard to believe it's February already,"
mused Tom beside me. Daphne and Boss were pecking away at their
kibble on the patio next to us. It took the little princess a few
days to accept defeat about not having the luxury of eating people
food anymore, but she'd stopped whining about it and chomped
happily away at the hard little kernels.

I gave him a snide glare. "Yeah, time really
flies when you're having fun."

He snickered at my quip. "What's the matter,
don't like playing Alice to Mack's Brady Bunch?"

I rolled my eyes at him and swapped the spoon
into my other hand while I tucked the freezing appendage under my
armpit to warm up. My mood was crap, and I didn't feel much like
talking. Instead, I reflected on my current predicament.

We'd been residents of Asylum for three
weeks. Meg and Jake settled in well, and I think they actually
liked it there. My sister-in-law was content with her monotonous
job of cleaning up after people, and Jake quickly assimilated into
the jock's group who called themselves the Guard.

I ate outside with Tom and the dogs, most
days, today included, freezing my ass off. But when it came down to
it, I preferred their company over most others. Some days Meg
joined us, but they were infrequent. I peered through the window at
the jock's table where Jake now sat. Of the ninety meals we'd had
since arriving, I could count on one hand the number of times Jake
and I had eaten at the same table.

I caught sight of Meg and smiled sadly when
she threw her head back, laughing at a joke I couldn't hear. Jah
wasn't lying when she said she could fix my hair. Cutting my long
locks was liberating, and I felt like it afforded me the
opportunity to become a new person. Michele had been right, Meg and
Jah got along famously, and I was glad she had made a new friend.
Even though I was secretly jealous at how easy it had been for her
to fit in while I felt like a jilted leper.

From what little time I'd spent with Jah, she
struck me as a good person. I couldn't quite put my finger on
it—not like I'd given it much thought—but there was something about
her. She was female, there was no question about it, but very
masculine in both her mannerisms and physical features. Her voice
was lower than I expected, and I could swear she had a small Adam's
apple.

Jah had a fantastic sense of humor, and I
enjoyed bantering with her. I ribbed her about her name.

"Call me Jah," she'd told me as she worked on
my traumatized hair.

"Jar?" I asked, faking a confused expression.
"Okay, if you insist. Jar it is."

"Not Jarrrr," she emphasized, drawing out the
R at the end. "Jah—like La."

"Nope, sorry. You will forever be Jar to me
now."

So now whenever I addressed her, I made sure
to really give that R some oomph.

My marriage wasn't doing so hot. Jake had
become distant, and he snapped at me when I tried to talk to him
about it. The day I'd been nearly zombie-chow at the banyan tree,
he came back to the mansion and ran upstairs to make sure I was
okay. But instead of doting on me compassionately, he scolded me
for putting myself in that situation.

There had been no sexy-time for us since we'd
arrived in Sarasota, and most nights we didn't even share a bed.
More and more lately, Jake found an excuse to stay up late and I'd
wake up to find he'd either woken early and slipped out quietly or
slept elsewhere. He'd changed the day Vinny died, become someone I
didn't know, or like, very much. But I still loved my husband and
wanted things to go back to normal.

I'd lost nearly everyone in my life in the
last four months, and the only thing that had kept me putting one
foot in front of the other was knowing that I still had Jake. Jake,
who had surprised me with bike rides to the beach on warm
afternoons. Jake, who cuddled on the sofa with me and watched funny
Vince Vaughn movies. Not the stranger I saw when I looked at him
now.

I heard people whispering about us, felt
their pitying glances when my back was turned. In a house where
more than two-hundred people lived on top of each other, not even
the health of my marriage was sacred. So I kept to myself. I went
about my days doing laundry and cleaning toilets in misery.

On a much happier note, Tom had done wonders
with Daphne. To my amazement, she actually listened to me when I
gave her a command now. And, the best part of it all, she didn't
spaz when I left her alone. That's not to say she still didn't
attack me with affection at every available opportunity, because
she did, and I ate up every minute of it. After the first week of
working with her solo, Tom had started working with both of us. It
was a nice respite from the bottom of a toilet bowl.

It dawned on me early on that there were no
elderly people at Asylum. Not only that, but there were no sick or
physically handicapped either. I kept the observation to myself,
but it had me curious. It would be presumptuous to assume that not
a single old person had survived. I guess I could see the
difficulty in outrunning a herd of undead without the use of legs,
but still, not a single survivor with any mobility issues?

On the outside, I played Asylum's game. I was
a good little worker bee and poured on the charm when Mack was
around, even though I knew the man despised me. Even though I knew
I would never steal the title of best friend from Striker, Jasper
held that title for me. Being around him made me feel good, and I
noticed he was almost invisible to the others, like a fixture. When
I was with him, I felt invisible, too. I guess I'd changed just as
much as everyone else. In my past life, I reveled in being the
center of attention and leading, not following.

Now, I flew under the radar. At least that's
what I wanted them to think. I knew something bad was going on
under our noses, and I was still hell bent on finding out what it
was. If making nice-nice was what it took to find out, so be
it.

* * *

"Hello," Tom knocked his knuckles against the
top of my head. "Earth to, Emma. Come in, Emma."

"What? Oh, sorry, I was just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Ha ha, very funny, wise guy."

"As I was saying," he continued. "You'll be
dining alone tomorrow. Me and Boss are headed out with the Guard to
the Hospital."

"What is Mack thinking?" Panic rose in my
throat and my brain cycled through every bad scenario. "Sarasota
Hospital is like five miles from here. Not to mention, hospitals
are a death trap."

"No idea. He found me this morning and asked
me to go out with them for some extra security. By asked, of
course, I mean told me we were going."