Plague World (Ashley Parker Novel) (6 page)

“You gonna go all 3-D yawn on me?”

“No,” I managed to say. “Just a little nauseated.”

I took another deep breath, and then a few more until the feeling subsided.

Better now.

I stood up on slightly shaky legs, wiping cold sweat from my brow. I liked how JT let me use my own steam to stand, but stood close enough to help if I needed it. For a manic adrenaline junkie, he wasn’t so bad.

“You do realize,” he said, “that ‘nauseated’ actually means that you make other people sick. The correct phrasing would be ‘I feel nauseous.’”

I gave him a look, briefly reconsidering my previous evaluation.

“Thanks, Encyclopedia Brown.”

He grinned. “Technically that should be Dictionary Brown, but I take your point.”

“Thanks,” I said again, this time meaning it. “For showing up when you did. That was just so not what I needed about now.”

“You gonna tell someone about Mister Fifty Shades of Asshat?”

I shook my head. “Not unless he pushes his luck a second time. Too much other stuff to worry about.”

JT frowned. “Not so sure that’s a good idea.”

I sighed. “While I’m all about anti-harassment in the workplace, we’re short on wild cards, and I’m gonna have to work with him. Besides,” I added grimly, “I can pretty much take care of myself.”

“Having seen you in action mode, that much I know.”

JT’s tone was appreciative without being sleazy. “I noticed he didn’t try anything when you were armed.”

“Good point.”

We continued walking down the hallway toward the elevator bank.

“You know him long?”

“Hell, no.” I got angry all over again. “He was one of the personnel down here watching the video feed while we fought… and Mack died.”

Suddenly JT sprinted toward the elevator doors, and I tensed. He ran up them and flipped over to land on his feet like Donald O’Connor in
Singing in the Rain
, with as little effort as I used to get out of bed. In the short time I’d known him, I’d gotten used to his random use of any available surface as a launching pad. The man had enough energy to fuel a rocket ship.

He resumed his place at my side as if nothing had happened.

“Hmm,” he said. “That’s strange. There’s got to be something else going on. Because seriously, that dude acts like an ex doing the whole time-for-a-restraining-order routine.” He gave me a quick up and down. “And while you are undeniably hot in a Xena-kick-my-ass-and-make-me-breakfast kind of way, if he just met you, that’s not enough to warrant the vibe he’s putting out.”

“Kick your ass and make you breakfast?” Yes, I am easily distracted.

“You know what I mean—”

“No, I really don’t.”

“Classic warrior-woman fixation by your average nerd. Finding a glorious kick-ass goddess who can take out an Uruk-hai horde, looks good in a chainmail bikini, and will make you chocolate chip pancakes after a night of amazing sex.”

I stared at him. He grinned back at me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not your average nerd.”

The elevator doors opened. He must have hit the button with his feet.

“No, I don’t think you are,” I agreed, stepping into the elevator. He followed, leaning casually against the back of the car as the doors slid shut.

“So what’s next?”

I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Bad guys took your boyfriend and that dude who looked like a ferret. I assume there are plans to go after them. Any idea where they went?”

“According to the microchip in Gabriel’s arm, San Diego—”

“Wait.” JT held up a hand. “He’s got a microchip?”

I nodded. “All the wild cards do.”

“Makes sense.” He nodded. “Easier to track you all in the wild.”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “Why wouldn’t they want to keep tabs on their most valuable assets?”

“What do you mean, ‘they?’”

JT looked at me. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Well, crap.

“It’s not that simple,” I said uncomfortably.

JT nodded sagely. “It never is.”

My gratitude at being rescued morphed into irritation. Funny how that works.

“So,” he said. “You gonna tell me about it?”

My first instinct was to give him an unequivocal “no.” Then I thought of what he’d risked to help us get here, without once asking what we were doing or why, or expecting anything in return, other than an audience for his mad parkour skills.

Well, and a safe place to ride out the zombie hurricane
, I mused. Then I made a decision.

“‘They’ are the
Dolofonoitou Zontanous Nekrous,”
I said to the best of my ability. Greek wasn’t my language. “Just don’t ask me to say it again.”

JT cocked his head to one side, reminding me of the RCA dog or the annoying female robot in
Terminator 3
.

“
Dolofonoitou Zontanous Nekrous
,” he said, the words rolling off his tongue in what could have been an imitation of Simone’s flawless pronunciation. “Loosely translated, ‘killers of the dead.’ Not strictly correct, as far as the Greek goes, but close enough for government work.”

I hate it when someone is smarter than I am.

“Uh, yeah. You can just say DZN from now on.”

“So what do they do?” JT tapped his foot as if he didn’t know how to stand still.

I decided to go for it.

“They’re a super-secret centuries-old organization dedicated to the detection and eradication of the living dead.”

Wow. A lot of multi-syllable words in one sentence. My college education was finally paying off.

“Sort of like
SHIELD
meets
The Walking Dead
.” JT nodded again as if all this made perfect sense. And maybe in this weird world it kind of did. He was quiet for a moment, other than the tapping of his foot. Then he shook his head.

“Wow,” he said. “Zombies.”

“Yup.” My turn to nod.

“Real undead George Romero-type zombies.”

“Uh-huh. Right down to the crappy diet,” I confirmed.

“Right. And if they bite you?”

“You get infected, die a nasty, painful death and come back as one of them.”

“Unless you’re a wild card,” he finished.

“That’s right.”

I suddenly noticed the elevator wasn’t moving and none of the buttons were lit. I reached out and hit the button labeled S-1, the top floor of the facility and—more importantly—the floor with the cafeteria. I needed food in a big way, and
then
I’d go check on Lil.

“And how many wild cards are there?” JT asked.

I shook my head. “Not enough. Not nearly enough.”

“Hello, my name is Marcy,” Noopar said. “How may I be of assistance to you today?”

Noopar gave an inward sigh as she started yet another customer service call for Philatelic Inc. The stamp collecting firm was one of the smaller companies to outsource their IT to India, but they had as many IT issues as the huge global monsters, and just as many irate customers.

She used to have sympathy for her many callers. On an intellectual level, she understood that hearing a foreign accent could be off-putting when calling from New York about a problem in a New York office. But she did her best to help, no matter how abusive some of the callers could be.

After a year at the job, working ten- to twelve-hour shifts, six days a week, in cramped conditions, her well of sympathy was drained dry. She was hungry, her head hurt, and she very much needed a bathroom break. On top of that, her co-workers in the surrounding cubicles were ill with the latest flu that was going around.

It had just hit India in the last day or so, and according to the news, it was a bad one. Already there had been fatalities, and at least a dozen people in her section had caught it, bringing it to work. The noises were disgusting enough, but now Noopar worried about catching it herself.

She didn’t blame her co-workers. Calling in sick wasn’t an option—employees were expected to come in first, and be sent home if they were deemed sick enough. As a result, the call center was a Petri dish of germs.

An angry voice brought her back to the present.

“I am sorry to hear about your inconvenience, sir,” Noopar said, trying to remember the angry caller’s complaint. “May I have your name and contact information, so I may assist you more thoroughly?”

She typed in the information given by one Chris Anderson—“That’s Anderson with an ‘o,’ not with an ‘e’!”—trying to keep up with the flow of angry words and ignore the wet hacking cough coming from Vijay’s station directly across from her.

Noopar eyed the bottle of hand sanitizer next to her phone as she kept typing.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I believe I can help you resolve this issue—” She paused as a new spate of words blasted through her headpiece. “Yes, sir, I understand and apologize for this inconvenience and—”

A rattling cough and what sounded like liquid splatting onto a hard surface broke Noopar’s already shaky focus. A foul smell rose from Vijay’s workstation.

“Excuse me, sir, but may I place you on hold so I may further research this issue?” She cut off the response in mid-stream, slamming her finger on the hold button and slowly standing up to peer over the top of the partition computers.

“Vijay?”

In his early twenties, cocky, and in love with American cinema, Vjiay was both a source of annoyance and amusement. His use of American slang made her wince, especially when he tried to sneak it into the sacred customer service scripts. He was as harmless, irritating, and endearing as a hyperactive puppy.

“Vijay, what is wrong?” she gasped.

He looked up at her with yellowed, bloodshot eyes, black fluid coating his lower lip and chin. Blood oozed out of his eye sockets, nose, and ears.

“Noopar,” he said in a bewildered tone. “I am not feeling well.”

He fell forward, splayed hands knocking a penholder and scattering its contents over his desk, miring the pens in the black vomit already there.

“Vijay!” Noopar stared in horror as his body convulsed once, then again, before settling with ominous finality face down on the desk. She waited for him to move again.

“Vijay?” Her voice sounded small against the background buzz of dozens of voices.

The hum was suddenly broken by a scream coming from somewhere behind her. Noopar snapped around so quickly she pulled a muscle in her neck. A sharp, almost nauseating pain instantly radiated up into her head and down her left shoulder, but it barely registered as she took in what was happening.

All across the vast floor of the call center, dozens of workers were going through convulsions similar to Vijay’s, while others doubled over in coughing fits, spewing up the vile-smelling black fluid. Yet more lay unmoving in the narrow corridors between rows of stations, or draped across their desks.

Another scream, and then more echoed through the building as people tried frantically to help their friends and co-workers, or make their way over the fallen to one of the exits.

Then—as Vijay liked to say—the shit really hit the fan.

Some of the people who had collapsed on the floor or at their desks began to move again. Poonam, a woman who sat only a few stations away from Noopar, used unsteady hands to push herself to her knees where she swayed back and forth for a moment, staring blankly in front of her with the pale eyes of a corpse, blood and fluid smearing her face and darkening her green cotton top. In what seemed an almost random gesture, she reached out and grabbed the leg of another worker who was trying to squeeze by her.

He gave a startled yelp as she yanked on his leg, pulling it toward her now gaping mouth. She sank her teeth into his thigh, ripping through fabric and flesh with ease.

The man—Noopar thought his name was Amil, but she wasn’t sure—screamed in pain and fear, the high-pitched sound bouncing off the low ceiling. Blood gouted from the wound, most of it drenching his attacker as she went for another bite.

Noopar’s mind flashed briefly on the Aghori, an obscure Hindu sect whose followers practiced cannibalism. But those corpse-like eyes told her that Poonam was something even worse.

All across the room similar scenes played out with equally deadly results. Few of the victims had the presence of mind to fight back against their former co-workers. The attacks happened quickly, and the corridors became clogged with frantic men and women climbing over one another to flee the madness. Those who managed to reach the exits crowded up against the inwardly opening doors, making it impossible to escape.

The smell of blood mingled with the stench of the horrible black vomit, and screams mixed with the now constant ringing of dozens of phones. Noopar quietly slid down behind her chair and crammed herself into the space under her desk. Perhaps if she was very quiet, no one would notice her. Maybe she would get out of the call center alive.

The hold button continued to flash for another five minutes before finally going dark.

JT and I hit the cafeteria. Whatever the shortcomings of the interior design of the DZN facilities, they served decent food. Nothing fancy, but give me a good cheeseburger and crispy French fries and I’m a happy camper.

None of the other wild cards were there, so JT kept me company “in case,” as he put it, “Mister Boundary Issues decides to show up.” I seriously didn’t expect any trouble in a roomful of people, but decided not to argue. I was too busy eating.

There were a few other people present, most of them in lab coats and a few in the inevitable black and/or camo BDUs. I’d just finished the last of my fries when Josh, Dr. Arkin’s officious assistant, walked in wearing a lab coat and jeans.

A Hispanic man in his twenties, Josh had also been part of the lame-ass welcoming committee when our battered and bleeding team had tumbled out of the elevator. So I wasn’t predisposed to like him. He evidently didn’t think much of me either. After he filled his tray with food, he headed in our general direction, saw me sitting with JT, frowned, and turned sharply away to sit at a table on the other side of the room.