ZOM-B 11 (9 page)

He draws to a halt, taking in my wounds, my sliced-to-ribbons face, my ruined torso, the crown of nails hammered into my head, the endless array of cuts, gouges and scars, the bloodsoaked
bandages. I’ve gone through all sorts of torments since the doc last saw me. He shakes his head, horrified.

‘Oh, B,’ he whispers. ‘What have they done to you?’

I stare at him blankly and say nothing.

‘Was this the work of Dan-Dan or Mr Dowling?’ Dr Oystein thunders. ‘I know that Daniel Wood is dead, so there is nothing I can do about that foul specimen, but if the clown did
this to you, I will make him pay. Who hurt you, B?’

I stare at him blankly and say nothing.

Dr Oystein waits for me to respond. When I don’t, he licks his lips and glances at the zombies in the room with us, making sure they don’t pose a threat. Then he croaks, ‘The vial . . . Mr Dowling’s sample of Schlesinger-10 . . . is it too much to hope that you might have . . .
?’

I stare at him blankly and say nothing.

Dr Oystein grimaces. ‘I’m sorry. That can wait. It was insensitive of me to ask. Maybe the thought never even crossed your mind. We must tend to your injuries. I brought many of your
fellow Angels with me. They are waiting outside. We will transport you to our new base as carefully as we can. You’ll need to rest in a Groove Tube for a long time. Then I will stitch you
together and find replacements for the pieces that have been cut away. I won’t lie — you’ll never be quite the same again. But I can do more for you than you might
imagine.’

I stare at him blankly and say nothing.

‘But first . . .’ the doc says brightly and produces a syringe. ‘This is a concentrated solution of the liquid that we use in the Groove Tubes. It will act like a shot of
adrenalin, restore some of your strength and ease the worst of the pain.’

As numb as I am, I know I need that pick-me-up, so I break my silence and mumble, ‘That sounds good.’

Dr Oystein crouches next to me and takes my right arm. I observe mutely as he tenderly sticks the tip of the needle into a vein and softly pushes down on the plunger. After pumping maybe a fifth
of the liquid into my arm, he removes the needle and inserts it into my left arm, then my legs, one after the other.

‘Our blood does not flow swiftly,’ he says as he works. ‘With others, I would inject it into their heart, and it would be slowly pumped around the body, but obviously that is
not an option in your case.’ He smiles briefly, then injects the last of the mixture into my neck. ‘You should start to notice the effects in a matter of minutes, as your body begins to
absorb the solution. You will enjoy only a few hours of relief before your energy ebbs again, but that should be more than enough time for our purposes. I have brought another couple of syringes,
just in case, but I do not think we will need them.’

Dr Oystein takes hold of my hand with both of his and squeezes gingerly. ‘I’ve been so worried about you, B. I was distraught when I learnt that you had sneaked out, that Rage had
betrayed us, that you had been taken prisoner. If I could have done anything to rescue you, believe me, I would have. But my hands were tied. I had to simply wait and hope and pray.’

I stare at the
good doctor
and fight the urge to curl my upper lip. I tell myself again that I shouldn’t jump to conclusions, that there could be more to this than what the folders
imply. I have to give him a chance to defend himself. I don’t want to accuse him, only to look like an ungrateful fool when he blows the accusations out of the water.

As my flesh tingles and vitality returns to my limbs, I try to think of a subtle way to broach the taboo topic. I don’t find one, but I do recall my initial meeting with the doc, and
that provides me with my opening line.

‘You said that Oystein was your first name.’

His eyes crinkle. ‘Pardon?’

‘That first day we met, when you were showing me round County Hall, you jokingly said that you’d almost forgotten what your surname was.’

Dr Oystein chuckles. ‘You have a good memory. ’

‘You never did tell me,’ I press.

‘It’s not important,’ he says lightly.

‘I think it is,’ I contradict him. ‘Let’s play a game.’

‘What sort of a game?’ he asks, letting go of my hand and staring at me with a quizzical expression, half-smiling, half-concerned, not sure where I’m going with this.

‘Let’s call it the Rumpelstiltskin game.’ I grin humourlessly. ‘That was one of my favourite stories when I was a kid, especially the bit where the girl has three chances
to guess his name.’

‘We do not have time for this, B,’ he mutters, and I can tell by the way his expression changes that he knows I’ve rumbled him. The dark, spiteful look that flashes across his
face is all the confirmation I need that the folders are telling the terrible truth. But I carry on anyway, not wanting to believe the worst until I hear him admit it.

‘Oh, there’s always time for a good game,’ I say grimly. ‘Let me think . . . is your name . . . Oystein Smith?’

When Dr Oystein is silent, I pull a long face and answer for him. ‘No. So is it . . . Oystein Jones?’

Again he’s silent, and again I answer on his behalf. ‘No. Last chance. Could it possibly be Oystein . . .’ I start to make a drawn-out D sound, but he cuts me short.

‘. . .
Dowling
,’ he says quietly. ‘Yes, B, you are correct. I am Oystein Dowling, and Albrecht is my estranged brother.’

I moan wretchedly. I didn’t think it would be this easy, that he’d admit his guilt so swiftly. In a way I wish it had been harder. If he’d tried to deny the accusation, I could
have gone on believing for a while that it might not be true.

Dr Oystein lowers his gaze. I expect him to attack me or to start offering up excuses, but he only looks around sadly at the folders, taking note of them for the first time.

‘I assume you found out through these,’ he says with a sigh. ‘Nobody was meant to keep a record of what we were doing. I often stressed the need to leave no paper trail. But
people cannot escape their nature. I guessed that some would disobey my orders, in case they needed the documents to blackmail me or point the finger of blame solely in my direction. Humans are so
predictable.’

He picks up one of the folders and studies the pages, tutting softly. ‘I suppose Billy Burke tracked these down. That explains why he tried to kill me. I couldn’t be sure, the day he
came after me. I hoped that my brother had put him up to it, but Billy didn’t strike me as a madman when he stormed into County Hall, just somebody who was very angry. I should have retraced
his steps and destroyed the incriminating evidence, but I would have had to investigate by myself — it was not a task I could have set one of my Angels. If I was wrong, and he
had
fallen foul of Albrecht, I didn’t want to walk into a trap and end up in my brother’s clutches. So I turned a blind eye to the event and hoped it would not come back to haunt me. That was a foolish mistake. I have not made many of those over
the decades.’

‘Is it true?’ I hiss. ‘Did you do . . .
this
?’ I wave a hand at the folders.

Dr Oystein nods slowly. ‘Yes.’

I want to hit him with my most barbed insult, but there isn’t a curse strong enough to convey what I’m feeling. And if I scream, the Angels outside will rush to his rescue. So I
don’t bother with words. Instead I hurl myself at the century-old zombie and haul him to the ground.

We roll across the floor and I scrape his face. A couple of fingerbones dig deeply into his left cheek, scarring him.

He doesn’t react.

I land on top of the doc and punch wildly, pummelling his stomach, his chest, his face.

He doesn’t react.

I grab his head and bang it down hard on the floor. If I had all my strength, I’d smash his skull open and end this clash immediately, but, as things stand, I can only hope to scramble his brains inside their protective covering.

He doesn’t react.

I wrap my hands round his throat and throttle him, knowing I can’t kill him that way, but wanting to hurt him, to make him cry out, to see pain and fear in his eyes.

He only stares at me miserably.

‘Say something, you bastard,’ I groan, shaking his shoulders.

He spits blood from his lips and croaks, ‘I cannot.’

‘Tell me why you did it.’

‘Not here,’ he says. ‘Not now.’

‘I’ll kill you,’ I growl.

‘No one will blame you if you do,’ he replies calmly. ‘Not once you show them the evidence against me. They will probably hail you as a hero.’

‘You destroyed the world,’ I cry.

‘Yes,’ he says and his face crumples. I don’t see any of the things in his expression that I expected, such as joy, pride, malice. Only misery and grief.

I let go of the defenceless doctor and push myself away.

‘B . . .’ he says, sitting up.

Before he can say anything else, I put all of my returning energy into my right foot and kick the side of his head as hard as I can. He slumps sideways, not unconscious, but stunned. It will
take him a few minutes to recover.

I bend over the gasping doctor and rifle through his pockets. I find the pair of syringes that he mentioned and relieve him of them. I think about stabbing them through his eyes, one for
each eyeball. If I stuck them through the sockets and deep into his brain, I could finish him off.

But how can I kill this man who has done so much for me? He rescued me when I was at my lowest. He took me in and showered me with love. He was like my father, only better. I owe so much to Dr
Oystein, more than I ever owed to anyone. He guided me, taught me how to put my darker ways behind me, helped me become who I am. If I’m furious and contemptuous now, it’s only
because he told me to expect more of people. I hate him so savagely only because I love him so dearly.

It’s not for the likes of me to pass judgement on a man like Oystein Dowling. So I take the only option open to a desperate creature in my bewildering predicament. I leave the doc moaning
and writhing on the floor. I hurry to the stairs, clutching the syringes tightly. And I run.

I wouldn’t have made it to the top of the first set of stairs several minutes ago, but juiced up with Dr Oystein’s concoction, the steps no longer present a major problem. I lurch up
them, growing in strength all the time. I’m still in bad shape, and I sting and ache all over, but coming off the back of my recent lows, I feel like I’ve been given bionic
implants.

I make it to the roof and pause to assess my options. I can hear the Angels out front, murmuring softly, calmly, with no idea yet what has happened inside.

I race along the roof and climb down a drainpipe into the yard at the rear of the building. I hurry across, let myself out of the yard and jog down a long road, then start zigzagging my way
south-east, hoping to lose myself in the maze of streets.

I didn’t think I’d be fleeing for my life again this soon, or that I’d be running from Dr Oystein and his Angels. Amazing how the world can turn on its head so suddenly.

I silently curse myself as I run, for not killing Dr Oystein. It was crazy, letting him live. But I know I’d do the same thing if the chance presented itself again. I love him too much to
take his life, even after hearing his most heinous confession.

There’s also the crazy hope that there was a good reason for what he did. If I’d heard him out, maybe he could have explained it in a way that made sense.

At the same time, that possibility was why I ran. I was afraid he’d convince me that the slaughter of billions could be justified. I know in my (missing) heart of hearts that there
can be no excuse for unleashing the zombie virus, but I think he could have provided one regardless. If he had, and I’d bought his story, I might have forgiven him and carried on working with him.

That would have made me as guilty as he is, and I don’t want such a stain on my conscience. Some things in this world should be unacceptable no matter what. Sometimes
you shouldn’t allow people to grey your vision, to make you stop seeing an atrocity in simple black and white terms.

I remember discussing the Holocaust once with Vinyl and a few of my other mates. I told them my dad had said that the number of victims had been vastly exaggerated, that certain groups wanted to
make it seem worse than it was, in order to squeeze extra sympathy out of people worldwide. According to him, only a few hundred thousand Jews had been killed, and in concentration camps, not death
camps.

Vinyl stood up at that point and snarled at me. He said he had a simple policy when it came to Holocaust deniers. As soon as they started spouting crap, no matter how reasonable it might sound,
he walked away, because some things were never worth listening to. And off he stormed. The rest of the gang followed him or went home, heads low and unusually silent, leaving me to glower at the pavement by myself.

I felt very small that day, angry at Vinyl for humiliating me, but also angry at myself for being willing to believe my dad’s distortions of the truth. I knew Vinyl was right, and I
know he’d act the same way today if he was still here. He’s not, but I can at least do his memory justice. It’s not much of a comfort, but I’m sure my old friend would be
proud of me if he could see the way I cut Dr Oystein off before he could start spinning his seductive lies.