Angel Crawford #2: Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues (30 page)

I came out of the observation room and saw Dr. Charish by the door at the end of the hallway, urging two guards loaded down with computer equipment to hurry the hell up. She turned and saw me, then gave a little
shriek of horror as she dove through the doorway and put her shoulder to the door to get it closed. I dug in hard, running faster than I’d ever run in my life, but it clanged shut just seconds before I reached it. I slammed hard into it in the hopes of forcing it open again, but only managed to do something unpleasant to my shoulder as a heavy click told me the door had latched and locked.

Scowling, I rotated my shoulder while I assessed the door and the surrounding frame. I briefly thought about trying to shoot out the lock, but then grudgingly admitted that shooting the lock probably wouldn’t work at all the way it did in the movies. Besides, I’d seen something through that heavy door before it closed. It was all clean and white and new paint where I was, but outside that door was another story entirely—rust and grime and broken windows.

And I knew exactly where I was.

I could hear voices beyond the door, so I leaned close and listened.

“She won’t get through that,” Dr. Charish said. She was breathing hard, but she sounded calmer. Apparently she was pretty confident that I was stuck. “It doesn’t matter now. We intended for this facility to be temporary. That’s why we built it out in this shithole. We have Philip. It’s time to move on to the next phase.”

The government dude responded, but they were moving off, and I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying. Unfortunately, my busy little parasite was fixing up my shoulder instead of keeping me in super zombie mode. Damn it.

I wasn’t getting through that door or the walls, I knew that. But there was another way out that these assholes
probably hadn’t counted on. At least I sure as hell hoped they hadn’t.

I ran back to the observation room and yanked at the edge of the carpet. I didn’t know a lot about computers, but even I knew that a super secret government lab wasn’t going to advertise its presence or risk being hacked with a wireless network. And, perhaps they’d even use the conduits that were already in place.

I grinned as I saw the floor panels beneath the carpeting. As I’d suspected and hoped, the cabling for the computers and cameras and stuff had been strung through the service tunnels beneath the floor. And they’d even been nice enough to not screw the floor panels back down again. I was sure they’d never imagined that their prisoner would know about those tunnels.

Damn good thing I’m a skinny little bitch
, I thought as I shimmied through the narrow tunnel. And also a damn good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic. Or afraid of the dark, since it was black as utter pitch in the tunnel. I continued to listen hard as I slid myself along while doing my best to ignore the dirt, dead bugs—and live bugs—and occasional dead rat. After a few minutes I was pretty sure I was beyond the section where I’d been held and which was now locked down. Now I simply had to keep going until I could find a way out.

Gradually I began to hear voices, and I slowed, not wanting to give away my position.
Give away my position
, I thought with a silly grin.
Heh.
Boy, didn’t I sound like a secret agent?

“We’re not going to simply leave her to rot,” the suited dude was saying. For an instant I thought that maybe he was having a moment of compassion, then he
continued. “Too much risk of someone coming here and finding her. We’re all set to…” Then he moved off, and I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation.

Oh well. So much for compassion.

I saw light ahead and breathed a sigh of relief. They’d never bothered to replace the section of flooring that had been removed to get the dead copper thief out. I edged ever so cautiously to the opening and peeked out. Dr. Charish was there along with Suited Government Dude. Four guards were quickly packing computers and boxes into the back of a familiar white van. Two other guards were lying crumpled on the ground, yet everyone seemed to be ignoring them. Had they tried to rebel or something and been killed?

After a few seconds of scanning, I located Philip sitting on the steps to the foreman’s office, and in almost the exact spot Marianne had been the last time I was here. I slid back into the tunnel and pulled the phone out. I had a signal now. But who to call? Ed didn’t have a phone, and I couldn’t remember Marcus’s number…But I
did
remember Pietro’s since it was so similar to Randy’s.

And, man, did I ever have some things to say to that motherfucker. I scooched further back into the tunnel and dialed Pietro. I was about to leave him one fucking hell of a voicemail.

“Yes? Hello?” Pietro said.

He said he doesn’t answer if it’s an unfamiliar number
, I remembered.
Which means…

“McKinney?” Pietro said, sounding annoyed. “What the hell is going on? Why are you calling me?”

I pushed aside my brief shock. “Hello, Uncle Pietro,”
I said speaking low and cupping my hand around the phone. “You probably figured you were well rid of me, right? Guess I’m not so easy to kill, even for a zombie.”

I heard his intake of breath. “Angel? Where are you? Marcus has been going crazy with worry.”

“Oh, really? And did you tell him how you threw me under the bus and told Dr. Charish that I was fair game for her experiments? Did you know she’s screwing you over too and working with the government to make zombie soldiers?” My voice shook with anger, and I had to fight to keep speaking quietly.

“Angel, I…wait,
what?
What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”

The shock in his voice was genuine, and I would have laughed if I wasn’t still so pissed. “Me? Oh, no, you’re not putting that shit on me. You started this, pal, when you unleashed your pet, Charish, on me. But now you have bigger problems than free-market fake brains. Why don’t you come to the old Ford factory on the Kreeger River and see for yourself. Then we can have a nice long talk, ’kay?”

“Wait, Angel,” he sounded truly frantic. “You don’t understand. I never—”

I disconnected, quite pleased with how upset he sounded. Good. He deserved that much and more, the fucker.

I dialed 911 next. “Oh my god, please help!” I babbled in a hoarse whisper as soon as the dispatcher answered. “I’m in some big warehouse thing by the Kreeger River. There’s a huge drug deal going down, and I think a gang war is about to start. They already killed two guys. There are guns everywhere. Please help!” There, that should be enough to get a few units sent.

“Ma’am,
please remain calm,” a woman responded. “Can you be more specific as to your location? Your phone has its GPS disabled.”

“I heard someone say something about Ford?” I said, trying to sound panicked. “Does that sound right?”

“Yes, ma’am. I know where you are. I’m dispatching units to you right now.” I heard the click of a keyboard. “How many suspects are there?”

“Twenty…maybe thirty?” I lied. “I don’t know. They kidnapped me but I got away, and I’m hiding right now.”

“It’s going to be all right,” the woman said in a calm voice, though I could detect an edge of excitement. It wasn’t everyday that the St. Edwards Parish sheriff’s office had an excuse to call out their SWAT team. “I need you to tell me everything you can about what’s going on. What’s your name? Are there any other hostages?”

“I’m, um, Charmaine, and I think there are some others,” I said, warming to my story. “I saw a—” I let out a squawk of alarm and dropped the phone as the floor above me gave a massive shudder.

“Ma’am?” I heard the dispatcher say. “Charmaine? Is everything all right? Talk to me.”

Light flooded over me, and I looked up to see Philip pulling the entire section of flooring away. One of his eyes was clouded over and his right ear hung oddly on the side of his head. His cracked lips peeled back in a grotesque smile.

“Hello, Mother.”

I let out an unholy scream—totally for the benefit of the dispatcher, of course—then braced myself since I knew what was coming next. Sure thing, Philip grabbed me by the front of my shirt, yanked me out and held me up with one hand. I screamed again, but this time purely for my own sake as Philip turned and tossed me a good dozen feet. I landed hard in a sprawling slide that managed to scrape several layers of skin from my hip and shoulder and sent a sharp jab of pain through my chest. One of these days I probably needed to learn how to tuck and roll and all that crap.

But I had to deal with a pissed off zombie-baby right now. I staggered to my feet and yanked the gun out of the holster. Philip paused in his approach, then let out a dry, rasping laugh. “That can’t kill me. You should know that.”

“I know, but I need you to listen to me for just a few
seconds.” Holy shit, I sure as hell didn’t want to try to actually fight this guy. I’d burned through most of my excess brains and, judging by my growing hunger, I’d suffered more injury than just a few scrapes from being thrown. Plus, Philip actually
knew
how to fight.

“Look, there’s something wrong,” I said urgently. “You shouldn’t be rotting so quickly. It’s the fake brains that Doc gave you. They…” I trailed off, only now seeing the two guards that I’d thought were dead. They were slowly getting to their feet, and had gaping bites on their neck and shoulders. And the look in their eyes…

“Oh, that’s not good,” I breathed.

“Forget her!” Dr. Charish yelled from the van as she brandished something in her hand that looked like a protein bar. The two new zombies turned and began loping toward her. “Let’s go, Sergeant! We’re about to blow this place. There’s no way she’ll get clear in time.” She grinned nastily. “Now get your ass in the van!”

Ah, shit. Now I saw the little tan chunks placed around the factory next to barrels that probably had something flammable in them, especially around the section I’d just managed to break out of. I’d watched enough
Mythbusters
to know what C-4 looked like. I heard sirens in the distance, and I knew there was no time left. There was no way these assholes were going to leave any evidence lying around.

I didn’t wait to see what Philip was going to do. I turned and started sprinting, but not in the direction of the door like she probably expected. I had no doubt they’d shoot me if I tried to get past them, and I figured I had at least a minute until they could all pile into the van and get clear. There was no way I could run fast
enough to make it out before they did, but if I could just remember correctly…

There. Just past the foreman’s office was a bank of windows that overlooked the river. Many of them were broken, but most weren’t. I risked a glance back and saw that the van had cleared the broad doors and was accelerating fast.

Any second now…

I wasn’t stupid enough to try and dive through the windows since I wasn’t sure I had enough mass behind my scrawny ass to actually break through. Instead I snatched up an abandoned chair mid-stride, then swung around in a big arc like one of those hammer-throwing dudes in the Olympics, and let it fly at the windows.

It smashed through with satisfying ease and a few seconds later I heard a muted splash. But I was already moving. I sort of expected the place to blow up right as I was diving through the hole that the chair had made in the glass—because that would have been insanely awesome and dramatic. But instead I simply hit the water in an awkward splash with no explosion to propel me.

The water was cold enough to make me gasp for breath—which sucked ass since I was still underwater at the time. I wasn’t the best swimmer in the world by any stretch, but I finally managed to get my head above water, cough out the nasty river water, and start doggie-paddling away from the edge of the building with everything I had.

The place blew not even five seconds later, and the force of the blast shoved me underwater again. Instinct screamed at me to get my head above the surface, but I fought back and stayed underwater, even doing what I
could to get deeper. As I expected, debris began to rain down into the water almost immediately. I barely missed getting clipped by a large section of a brick wall, but I did get smacked hard in the shoulder by a twisted hunk of metal. It bore me down several feet before I could wriggle myself free, all while I hovered right at the edge of full-blown panic. I didn’t want to think what could happen to me if I somehow got trapped at the bottom of the river.

My lungs were bursting by the time I started paddling my way back up. A brick or something equally hard and heavy whacked me on the head right before I surfaced, and I had to tread water for a moment while I fought the dizziness and gulped air.
C’mon, little parasite
, I numbly urged.
I know I’ve been asking a lot of you lately. I promise I’ll give you a nice big brain as soon as we get out of this.

I heard more sirens now, and lots of people shouting. I started paddling again, nice and slow, toward the far end of the building in the hopes that I could get out of the water over there without anyone seeing me. ’Cause I had
no
idea how the hell I could explain why I was there and what had happened.

I couldn’t feel the cold anymore—couldn’t feel much of anything, which I knew was a damn good thing and a bad thing all at once. But my arms and legs kept moving and the combination of the current and my sloppy paddling finally got me down to the rocks that formed the bank on the south end of the factory.

It took me several tries to clamber up out of the water and onto the rocks. Everything was so numb that I couldn’t get a decent grip and I slipped several times. The
hunger was getting damn serious, but at this point I could only hope to maintain enough control not to attack anyone. I didn’t really have a choice. If I stayed in the water it would only make it worse.

Breathing through clenched teeth, I eased my head up over the edge of the bank and peered at the activity. The outer walls of the factory still stood—but smoke poured from what was left of the roof, and flames licked out of the gaping holes that had once held windows. At least half-a-dozen police cars were there, but they’d clearly shifted their mission to keeping everyone clear of the scene until firefighters could get there—which wouldn’t be long to judge from the sound of more sirens and the honks of approaching fire engines.