ZOM-B 11

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Simon and Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY

Copyright © 2015 Darren Shan
Illustrations © Warren Pleece

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.

The right of Darren Shan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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HB ISBN: 978-0-85707-792-9
TPB ISBN: 978-0-85707-793-6
EBOOK ISBN: 978-0-85707-795-0

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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THEN . . .

NOW . . .

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

TWENTY-TWO

TWENTY-THREE

TWENTY-FOUR

Becky Smith’s journey into darkness and pain began when a zombie ripped her heart from her chest and she became one of the walking, brain-eating undead.

Months later she recovered consciousness. As a child, she had been injected with a vaccine by someone working for a century-old scientist called Dr Oystein, and that had bestowed her with
the ability to regain her senses.

After a spell of captivity in an underground complex, B was set free by the nightmarish Mr Dowling, a mad, vicious clown who was backed by an army of mutants. He killed gleefully wherever he
went, but for some reason he let B walk away unharmed.

B found her way to Dr Oystein’s base in County Hall, where she became one of his Angels, a team of revitalised, teenage zombies. The doctor had been forced by the Nazis to create the zombie virus, and he believed he was on a mission from God
to make amends and help mankind overcome this most hideous of threats.

The doctor told B that he had subsequently created another pair of viruses which were the key to the outcome of the war between the living and the undead. One was a dark red liquid called
Clements-13, which would wipe out every zombie on the face of the planet within a couple of weeks if released. The other was Schlesinger-10, a milky-white substance which would have an equally
fast, fatal impact on humans if it was uncorked.

Dr Oystein couldn’t use Clements-13 to eliminate the undead forces because Mr Dowling had stolen a vial of Schlesinger-10 from his laboratory, with the help of his ally, the mysterious Owl
Man. The clown could unleash the virus on humanity if the doctor forced his hand, just as Dr Oystein could crack open his vial of Clements-13 if Mr Dowling ever attacked him. The pair were locked in a stalemate and the world looked like it would suffer indefinitely because of it.

The Angels did whatever they could to help the survivors of the zombie apocalypse, but their ultimate goal was to track down Mr Dowling’s supply of Schlesinger-10. If they retrieved
the vial from the killer clown, Dr Oystein could bring his sample of Clements-13 into play and deliver the world from its undead menace in one fell swoop.

When B was captured by a hunter called Barnes, an ex-soldier from America who was an expert when it came to killing or capturing zombies, destiny set her on course for a showdown with Mr
Dowling. Barnes was working for the Board, a group of rich and powerful humans who had granted his son a place on an island where zombies couldn’t attack him. In return for this favour,
Barnes was obliged to hand B over to the Board, whose members gleefully passed the time by watching her duel to the death with other zombies.

A repentant Barnes later helped B escape, before setting off to rescue his son, whose safety was no longer guaranteed now that his father had betrayed his foul employers. But B wasn’t finished with the Board, and again ended up in their
clutches months later. The most twisted of their party was the fiendish Dan-Dan, who strapped her down in his quarters in Battersea Power Station, and proceeded to pick her body apart as
painfully as he could.

It looked as if B’s time was up, but, to her shock, Mr Dowling charged to her rescue. Aided by his mutants and a team of lethal, genderless babies, he swarmed the Power Station and freed
her.

The clown’s babies carried B deep underground to Mr Dowling’s lair, where he patched her fragile carcass back together. She found out that the babies had been cloned from her DNA,
making her their virtual mother. The clown wanted her to marry him and rule by his side, so that they could eventually replace humanity with their eerie offspring.

B wasn’t interested in playing happy families with Mr Dowling, but, as he shared his memories with her, she began to feel sorry for him. He had been a decent man once, until something dreadful happened and cast him into a state of insane chaos.

When Mr Dowling promised to stop killing if B married him, she bowed to his wishes, hoping it might signal the start of his recovery. After a warped but oddly sweet ceremony, the pair retired to
their wedding chamber, where the clown granted her access to his innermost thoughts.

It should have been a peaceful, loving time, but B found herself instinctively smashing through Mr Dowling’s mental defences. Without having planned it, she pinpointed the location of his
vial of Schlesinger-10. The betrayed clown tried to kill her and the pair fought fiercely. B got the better of her husband, but, before she could finish him off, the enraged babies stormed the room
and ripped into her. They would have killed her, but one of their own – Holy Moly, a baby with a hole in its head – reminded them that B was their mummy. Confused, they let her go, and
she set off through the underground lair, wounded and alone, in search of the vial which would ensure victory for mankind if she could deliver it safely into the hands of Dr Oystein, but all too aware that time was against her and that Mr Dowling and his mutants would surely
execute her if they caught up.

I left Mr Dowling unconscious. I zapped him with enough electricity to put a normal person out of action for a whole day. But the clown is far from normal and I can’t bank on him staying
down for too long. I reckon I might have as little as an hour or two before he stirs and calls for help. Maybe less if Kinslow or one of his other mutants comes to check on him. Time, as they say,
is of the essence.

The trouble is, the shape I’m in at the moment, I’d struggle to win a race with a snail. Although Mr Dowling repaired the worst of the damage, I hadn’t fully recovered from Dan-Dan’s mauling by the time of my wedding. The babies reopened lots of old wounds when they attacked me, and inflicted plenty of new ones.

Every step is agony. The recently restored flesh of my stomach has been clawed away. Most of my replacement ribs have been snapped off. Bones are broken. I’m bleeding all over, thick,
gloopy blood slowly oozing from my injuries. I didn’t think there was that much of the crimson stuff left – Dan-Dan drained off lots of it while he was torturing me – but there
must have been hidden reserves.

I’ll have to do something about the blood. The loss won’t really harm me, but if I don’t stop it, I’ll leave a trail that even a blind mutant will be able to follow.
Still, I can’t worry about that until I locate the vial of Schlesinger-10. If Mr Dowling recovers sooner than I anticipate, he’ll know exactly where I’m going and he’ll set
the mutants on me. No point wasting time. My priority has to be to lay my hands on the vial. Only then can I start planning my next move.

I stagger along, picking my way from room to room through the maze which Mr Dowling and his assistants have built over the years. If this wasn’t the day of my wedding, there’d be
mutants relaxing, working and patrolling the corridors, even this far from the centre of the complex. But the celebrations must still be going strong, because I encounter no one. They’re all
toasting my health in the wedding chamber, unaware that their master is lying on his honeymoon bed unconscious, while their newly crowned mistress is plotting their downfall.