How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back (7 page)

A weird fatigue settled on me. The same relationship problems kept popping up, over and over. We were in a rut, and while it was usually a pleasant one, the banks only seemed to be getting steeper. I'd been in a rut with my ex-boyfriend, Randy, as well, one I'd stayed in for almost four years before being turned into a zombie shocked me out of it. The nature of that rut had been different, consisting more of the habit of being together and a lack of desire to change what worked well enough most of the time. Yet, weirdly enough, even though my time with Randy had been unhealthy on a number of levels, I knew there was no way in hell he'd have ever made a big decision for me like this.

“I don't want a long distance relationship,” I heard myself say as my thoughts finally settled.

“It wouldn't be,” he insisted. “Sure, we wouldn't see each other as often, but . . .” He trailed off, and it was obvious he didn't want a long distance relationship either. “Angel,” he said, obviously torn. “I
need
to do this, but I don't want to lose you.”

“I know,” I said, “and I want you to go to law school and kick all the ass. But I think that if we try and do the long distance thing, it'll fall apart. Us, I mean.” I kissed him lightly. “I think we would do better being the absolute best of friends than we would being long distance boyfriend and girlfriend.” Bizarre relief bloomed within me. A way out of the rut?

Shock spread over his face. “Angel—”

“Marcus,” I said quietly, “I don't ever want us to get to the point where we break up and never want to see each other again. I don't ever want to
not
be around you. Does that make sense?”

“I wish to hell it didn't.” He let out a heavy breath and tightened his arms around me. “I think I've just been dumped,” he murmured.

Hugging him close, I leaned my head against his chest. “No. You've been gently placed on a soft cushion so that you'll still be all shiny and pretty when it's time to play with you again.”

Marcus snorted. “Better be a damn nice pillow.”

“It's an
awesome
pillow,” I assured him.

“I believe you.” He hugged me tighter before releasing me. “You still want a ride home, or do you want to try and get your car fixed now?”

“Crap, I forgot about my car.” I wrinkled my nose. “A ride home, if you don't mind. I don't want to deal with the car in the dark, and no one's going to mess with it here.”

Taking my hand again, he walked me down the street to his truck. “This is going to take some getting used to,” he said, glancing down at our hands before releasing me and opening the truck door.

I'd taken his hand just as automatically. Best friends probably didn't do that sort of thing. “It would've been a big change either way,” I said, hating the question in my voice.

He gave me a hand as I climbed in. “They say change is good.” He managed a wry smile. “I'm not so sure.”

“If you don't change you die,” I replied glibly.

“No chance of that.” He kept the smile, but I knew him well enough to see how hard he was working to keep the hurt from showing. “Let's get you home,” he said and closed the door for me.

Marcus pulled into my driveway, put the truck in park and killed the engine.

“I guess this is it,” he said, voice low and rough.

I gave him a light punch on the shoulder. “It's not like we're never going to see each other again,” I pointed out. “We're still best buds. And I'm not giving you back your mix tapes or anything.”

A brief chuckle escaped him. “I've never in my life made a mix tape. Don't lay that on me.” He let out a long breath. “This isn't at all how I pictured things going.”

I mirrored his sigh. “I know, but you keep forgetting to let me be a part of drawing that picture.”

“I get it. I really do,” he said. “I'm glad we're still friends.”

“I am too,” I said, though I wondered how much he really did get it. It wasn't the first time this issue had cropped up. At the same time, I was glad he still wanted to be friends. That was way better than pissed and distant, which would have made the break up a billion times harder. “Marcus, I know this is gonna sound pompous and preachy, but I'm really glad you're taking control of your life and going to law school.”

“Uncle Pietro has been after me to do it for ages.” A corner of his mouth quirked up. “Looks like we've come full circle. A year ago I was the one getting you to take control of your life.”

I snorted and filed away the fact that Pietro had been nagging him. Another thing he hadn't bothered to share with me. “I'm not sure me telling you to go to law school after you'd already been accepted compares to everything you did for me, but I'll take the credit if you're going to offer it.”

He laughed. “Sure, what the hell.”

“Do you know where you're going to live?”

“I'll drive to the city tomorrow and start hunting apartments,” he said.

Without me. “I think you're going to fucking shine,” I said.

He leaned over and kissed me, chaste and sweet enough to make tears spring to my eyes. “So will you—”

Whatever else he was going to say got cut off as the truck door on my side flew open. Yanked open, I realized as I let out a stupid girly shriek and jerked back against Marcus. “What the shit?” I yelled, bringing my legs up to kick out at the attacker, even though all I could see was a looming shadow.

Marcus grabbed his gun from the console and was out the door in a flash to draw down on the assailant. “Back off!”

“Wait!” I yelled, then dropped my legs and leaned forward. Holy shit, it was Philip, face flushed and one hand gripping the truck door so hard I was shocked he didn't dent it. “Jesus, dude, are you all right?”

Philip's lips pulled back from his teeth, and he shot a hand toward me, even as survival instinct had me scrabbling back toward the driver's side door. He got hold of my ankle for a second, then released it and staggered back several feet, hands held out as if for balance, and face pinched with an expression I knew too well as his splitting-headache face.

Marcus came around the front of the truck to my door. “Angel, you okay?” he asked, continuing to cover Philip.

“Yeah, I'm good.” I quickly slid out of the truck. “But something's wrong with him.”

“No. No . . . nothing's wrong,” Philip said, fighting to straighten. His throat worked as he swallowed, and then he plastered a sickly smile onto his face. “I was . . . worried about you. I called you, but you didn't answer.” He held up his left arm, and the dim light from the truck revealed a mottled patch of skin above his elbow. “I, uh, had a reaction. I put a call in to Dr. Nikas, but I was worried about you.”

Marcus frowned and lowered his gun. Dread rising, I yanked my sleeve up. “Aw, crap.” My arm held a discolored spot in a matching location, and when I poked it with my finger I found it grossly spongy. Pre-rot. But how could I be rotting when I wasn't hungry for brains?

Worry bloomed on Marcus's face as his gaze shifted back and forth between us. “What does this mean?”

“I'm sure it's nothing,” Philip said, shaking his head. “I overreacted because Angel didn't answer, that's all.”

He's covering
. He needed to talk to me on my own, and he knew there was no way Marcus would leave if he knew Philip hadn't exactly been himself when he came at me a few minutes earlier. On top of that, Philip obviously didn't want Marcus to be jealous. Perfectly natural for a nice guy like him, especially since he didn't know we'd just broken up.

A pang went through me. Broken up, and Marcus was moving away, at least for a couple of years. Marcus and I had been through a number of ups and downs over the past year and had broken up and gotten back together more than once. But he'd always been around. Near. He'd made me a zombie, saved my life. And he'd been a part of that life ever since.

“I feel perfectly fine,” I told him. “What did Dr. Nikas say?”

“I left a message,” Philip said. “I'm waiting for him to call me back.”

“I'd like to hear what he has to say when he does.”

Marcus twitched his hand toward mine then pulled it back. “You sure you're all right?”

“Totally,” I reassured him.

His eyes went to Philip and stayed there for several seconds, no doubt assessing and deciding whether it was safe to leave me with him. Philip looked perfectly fine now, though a little pale.

Marcus drew a breath and released it.
He
was the third wheel now, I realized with a sharp pang, and he knew it.

“I'll call you tomorrow,” he said. “If that's all right, that is.”

“It is,” I replied. “Thanks for the ride home.”

He leaned in and brushed his lips against my cheek, cast a hard look at Philip that clearly held all sorts of
Hurt her and I will destroy you
type messages, and then turned away, climbed into his truck, and drove off.

I waited until his tail lights disappeared around the bend of the road, then rounded on Philip. “What the
hell
was that?” I demanded.

Philip exhaled. “I came by to see if you were home yet. I didn't see your car, so I called, but you didn't answer. I decided to wait a bit to see if you'd come by.” He lifted his chin toward the end of the driveway. “You pulled in, and I had every intention of waiting until Marcus was gone, and then—” His face lost all color. “It was like I was watching myself go and yank the truck door open,” he continued. “No way to stop it and no idea what was coming next. Like being a backseat passenger in my own body.” He shook his head. “Then it was gone. Left me dizzy and with a headache like the one at the lab this morning, but worse. The headache's almost gone now, at least.”

Well, that sounded like all sorts of suck. “What about this?” I asked and pointed to the blotch on my arm. “You don't have any brains on you?”

Philip exhaled. “Angel, that's the problem. I'm tanked. It doesn't touch it.”

Permanent rot? An ugly twist of fear curled through me, and I had to fight the urge to rub at my arm. “We should call the lab and try and get hold of Dr. Nikas again,” I said.

He nodded agreement. “I left the voicemail earlier when I noticed the rot, but shit's going downhill.”

“Yeah, weird freakout episodes justify another call,” I said with a glower. “Come on in. I'll make the call, and we can go from there.” I led the way up the driveway and inside.

“Okay if I use your bathroom?” Philip asked.

“Yeah, no prob,” I replied and tried not to think about what condition the bathroom might be in. Horrific, most likely, even though I'd cleaned the toilet only last week, with possible nastiness that ranged from hair in the shower drain to Dad's skid-mark underwear hanging from the toilet flush handle, with a dying roach in the sink for added ambience. Best not to even think of it. “Since you've already left a voicemail for Dr. Nikas, I'll try Jacques or Reg,” I added.

“Sure thing,” Philip said. “I'll be right out.”

Detouring to the bedroom, I snagged a bottle of brains out of the fridge. A few gulps later, I peered at my arm in dismay as Absolutely Nothing happened. Shit. Double triple quadruple shit.

Returning to the living room, I hit the lab's number. Jacques picked up on the first ring.

“Leroux,” he snapped out.

“Hey, Jacques, it's Angel.”

“Oh. Angel,” he said with unmistakable disappointment. Who was he expecting at this time of night? A hot exotic dancer? “What do you need?”

“Philip had a freaky episode, and we both have matching pre-rot patches on our arms,” I explained. “He left a message for Dr. Nikas, but that was before he pulled a caveman stunt and tried to drag me out of Marcus's truck.” Philip came out of the bathroom with a hopeful look. I shook my head and mouthed
Jacques,
and he grimaced in disappointment. “It's not his normal Plague stuff,” I continued to Jacques. “I think it's a reaction to the procedure this morning. Is Dr. Nikas around?”

Jacques remained silent for a moment. “He's not available,” he finally said then cleared his throat as though choking down the urge to say more.

I frowned. Not even a
Maybe I can help you
, or
Come on in
? “Jacques, we need help, sooner rather than later.” Whether Dr. Nikas was available or not, I'd feel better at the lab in case anything else happened with Philip. “We'll head over now.”

“Now? Wait. Hold on.” A second later an onslaught of tinny elevator music screeched through the phone.

I glanced at Philip. “I'm on hold, and Jacques's acting weird.”

The music stopped and a female voice said, “Angel?”

“
Naomi?
” I replied. “What the hell is going on? Why is Jacques all stressed out, and why are you at the lab this late?”

“Kyle and I are assigned here tonight,” she said, an intense edge in her voice. “Jacques said you and Philip need to come in for an assessment?”

“Yeah. What's the deal?”

“Not on the phone,” she said. “You can come on in, but we changed the codes for the doors. Ready to hear them?”

“Did something happen to Dr. Nikas?”

“We'll talk when you get here,” she insisted, her tone no-nonsense. “These are based on the weapons locker code. The first one, add a twenty-three to the end. The second one, add a seventy-six to the beginning. Got it?”

“Weapons locker. Twenty-three at the end for the first, seventy-six at the beginning for the second,” I repeated, and a nod from Philip told me he knew the sequence. “We'll be there in about a half an hour, and no more dodging the questions.”

“You got it,” she said. “See you in a bit.”

I jammed the phone into my purse and headed for the door. “Something serious is up. Let's go.”

Kyle and Naomi's silver SUV was in front of the building when Philip pulled into the lot. He parked beside it, and as soon as the car stopped I threw open the door and clambered out. “What's the weapons locker code?”

“Three-seven-seven-six-zero-eight-four-one,” he rattled off as he noted mileage in his log book.

I hurried to the door, punched in up to the sixty-eight and called back, “What were the last two?”

“Four-one,” he said though the open door.

I entered that then added the twenty-three, and enjoyed an irrational sense of satisfaction as the lock buzzed. It wasn't as if I'd cracked the damn code myself or anything. I pulled the door open and glanced back. “Philip, come on.”

He still sat behind the wheel, his head lowered, writing. I frowned. No, not writing. His head lolled to the side. Alarm shot through me. “Philip!?”

He jerked and sat upright as though waking from sleep, a bewildered look on his face. I released the door handle and rushed back to the car. “Dude, what happened?”

“I don't know,” he said as he scrubbed a hand over his face. “I greyed out, but I feel fine now.”

“The fucking Plague strikes again,” I said with a worried scowl. “Let's get your ass inside.”

Philip climbed out of the car, swayed a bit, then steadied. “I'm okay. That sucked.”

The door clicked open, and Naomi stuck her head out. “You two okay? The code dinged, then you didn't come in.”

“Sorry,” I said, heading her way. “Philip had another episode.”

She opened the door wide. “Get inside. I'm not wishing bad stuff on you, but it'll be good for Jacques to have something to do.”

We passed through the drab reception area that I was certain was meant to convince anyone who managed to get through the outer door that they were most certainly
not
at a super secret high tech zombie lab.

“Enough of the riddle shit,” I said as Naomi punched the code into the next security door. “Why does Jacques need distraction?
What
is going on?”

The door clicked open, and we passed through. “Trouble,” Naomi said as she waved at the mirrored glass in the next small room, the last security checkpoint before entering the lab complex. “Hang on, I'll explain everything as soon as we're through.”

The heavy door on the far wall buzzed, and we passed through into a wide corridor. Ahead of us were the thick sliding glass doors to the central lab, with the medical wing and security office off to the right. Naomi continued forward as the glass doors slid open, and we followed her into the lab. Kyle lounged at a station, calmly reading a fat paperback, though he paused long enough to give us a nod.

Naomi finally turned to us. “You know when Kyle got that call at Top Cow? It was the alert that Mr. Ivanov, Dr. Nikas, and others were gone. Abducted.”

I stopped dead, feeling as though my whole world tilted. “What? How?”

Philip cursed softly behind me.

She took a steadying breath. “Mr. Ivanov and his driver, Simon Sirtis. Kristi Charish, along with Chris Peterson, and their driver, Ken Godwin. Plus Lawrence Hawkins, the security guard at the Retreat Lodge. All missing.”