White Trash Zombie Apocalypse (30 page)

“Sure thing.” He glanced my way as he pulled to a stop. “Look, you guys are welcome to come stay at my place tonight if you want. It’s not big but may be better than here.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “I dunno. Do you have roving bands of roaches patrolling the halls? I’m kinda used to those now.”

His face twisted into a mock grimace. “Unfortunately, I can’t offer roach guards. But I do have a disdainful cat. Will that work?”

“Thanks, partner. I’ll ask my dad what he wants to do,” I said with a grateful smile. “I have your number if we decide to take you up on it.”

“You’re welcome, Angel,” he said. “Give me a call later, or you’ll get more texts than you know what to do with.”

“I will!” I promised, laughing. I leaned over and gave him a hug, then slipped out of the car and headed inside.

There was no sign of my dad in the gym, and the plastic bag with his clothes and jacket was gone. My heart hammered as I jumped to the worst conclusion: Kidnapped by Saberton. Alarm rose as I swept my gaze around the room again, as if doing so would magically reveal that he’d been hiding. I took a breath and tried to convince myself that, with my dad, it could just as easily be that he left on his own through sheer bullheadedness.

The tool-stealing teenage refugee was flaked out on the floor in front of the TV.

“Hey, do you know where my dad is?” I asked.

His eyes flicked to me and then right back to the screen. “He left with someone.”

My scowl deepened at the lack of useful information, and I moved between him and the TV. “What kind of someone?” I snarled.

He jerked his gaze up to mine, an outraged response on his lips, but it died when his eyes met mine. I was
fairly well tanked up and oh-so-very-much not in the mood for bullshit, especially when it came to my dad.

His throat bobbed as he gulped. “A man. About thirty, I think. Short dark hair, on crutches. Your dad knew him.”

Marcus. I bet he
loved
faking an injury. The tension drained out of me. “Oh, cool. Thanks!” Okay, so the thought of my dad and Marcus having guy-time together wasn’t exactly comforting but it was better than the other theories I’d concocted. I yanked my phone from my pocket to call Marcus then scowled at the flashing battery symbol. Crap. Obviously five minutes on the car charger wasn’t worth a whole lot.

“Angel!”

I spun to see the woman who’d given me the ride to the Coroner’s Office striding toward me. “Your boyfriend was just here,” she announced with a smile, and I had to bite down on the automatic denial that Marcus was my boyfriend. “I told him I didn’t know when you’d be back,” she continued, “but he wanted to go ahead and get your dad settled. He left a note for you.” She thrust a folded piece of paper at me.

“Thanks,” I said, taking it. She gave me another bright smile and then hurried off. I unfolded the paper and read.

Angel—

Your dad’s safe with me. Please call when you get this note. You can both stay at my place as long as you want
.

Marcus

I peered at a stray mark before his name. It looked as if he’d started to write an “L” and thought better of it. Love? Exhaling, I refolded the paper and stuffed it into a pocket.
Stay with Marcus
. It wasn’t an ideal solution, especially considering our last conversation, but it was a lot better than remaining in the shelter. And I liked Derrel too much to inflict my dad’s permanent company upon him. My mouth twitched in wry amusement. At least Marcus was already used to the ornery bastard.

As concern for my dad evaporated, worry for Philip flooded in. Now that I had a clue as to his real situation, I wanted to see for myself that Pietro’s people got him out okay, and if they hadn’t yet, to get some brains to him. I could call Marcus as soon as I did so. Pietro had said Philip was working on the movie, so now I just needed to figure out how to sneak into where they were filming.

Hurrying to the door, I almost ran smack into Jane Pennington as she came in, and it was only a quick maneuver by one of her staffers that kept us from all falling in a heap.

“Angel!” Her eyes widened in surprise as she recovered her balance and steadied herself on her cane. “I didn’t know you were here,” she said, genuine concern in her voice. “Pietro told me he got you out, so I thought you’d be somewhere besides in the shelter.” Brow furrowed, she swept her gaze around the gym with its cots and motley inhabitants.

I winced. “Yeah, it’s been pretty crazy,” I said. “We spent last night here, but I think we’re gonna be staying with Marcus. For a couple of days, at least.” I could unpack my feelings about all of that later.

“I hope everything works out,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your losses.” She looked like she was going to say more, but one of her aides, a middle-aged man with sharp features and a serious expression touched her arm.

“I’m sorry, Jane,” he said, “but they’re about to start filming the crowd scene. We can come back here to speak to the refugees afterward.”

Indecision swept over her face. It was clear she cared deeply about my situation, but it was also obvious that she
really
wanted to see the movie zombies. It was such a totally human and awesome and non-congresswomanly display that I had to choke back a laugh, and I sure as hell liked her even more for it.

“Hey, is it okay if I tag along?” I said, making the decision moot for her. Besides, this would get me behind the barricades so I could make sure Philip was being taken care of. And if Pietro’s people hadn’t yet reached him, I had two chunks of frostbite on my thighs—or rather, two pockets full of thawing brains—that might be of use.

Jane grinned. “Absolutely!”

We left the gym and headed toward the barricades across the gaps in the chain-link fence surrounding the football field. Beyond them, the movie crew positioned lighting and numerous cameras while a whole horde of zombies chilled out, waiting for the start of the filming. As I’d hoped, I had no trouble getting onto the set by following in Jane’s wake. No questions asked.

The extras clustered around Jane in a strange meet-and-greet zombie fest. At first I wondered why they were so enthusiastic, then I remembered she’d been instrumental in assuring that laid off factory workers were given the jobs. The unaffected grin on her face told me she was in utter heaven as she peered at makeup and laughed at outrageous shambling. I sure as hell hoped Pietro was dating her because he actually liked her and not for some ulterior purpose.

The pace of activity increased as the crew members readied for filming. Makeup people touched up zombie rot and prosthetic gore, and other crew circulated through the crowd with water bottles and some of the white-wrapped bars. Apparently shambling was hard work, I thought with amusement.

A sudden shiver of unease ran through me for no reason that I could name, even as an odd noise like soft moaning rippled through the crowd of extras. Mildly weirded out, I surreptitiously palmed a handful of brains from a baggie in my side pocket and got it into my mouth without anyone seeing. At least I hoped not.

The
something’s-wrong
feeling increased as I scanned
the area. Though filming hadn’t started, extras began to stagger or flail their arms or sway in place. Definitely not normal. I downed another handful of brains as I slipped through the crowd, again glad that I was skinny enough to do so with ease.

However, I was less than thrilled by my lack of height since I couldn’t see a damn thing. I went still and lifted my head, scenting the air and not caring how strange it looked. Hell, I was surrounded by a bunch of people pretending to be undead. I was the normal one in this crowd.

Yet my sniffing only confused me more. I caught hints of the distinctive zombie-rot odor, but it came from multiple sources. Not good.

Another weird ripple of unease passed through me, once again accompanied by a bizarre shift in behavior of the extras. Unnerving groans came from all around me, and a fake zombie nearby staggered and sank to the ground, hands clawing at her face and throat. My frown deepened as the latex peeled away, revealing a square stick-on patch on the side of her neck surrounded by faintly grey skin that didn’t look made up. Baffled, I swung my gaze around, caught a glimpse of one of the makeup people holding a cardboard box in her hand with what looked like more of the strange patches in it along with some of the snack bars that had been handed out earlier.

I steadied my gaze on the makeup artist, and my heart skipped a beat. It was the petite black woman who’d stolen my blood at the boat launch.
A makeup artist who draws blood?

Realization slammed in.

The subjects
. Philip was undercover with Saberton, and he’d said he needed to stay close to the subjects. I stared around in shock and no small amount of horror as bits and pieces began to fall into place. The extras were being used as test subjects by the Saberton Corporation.

And now bits of the conversation with Dr. Nikas lit up.

Fake brains are the holy grail
.

Dangerous to test them on zombies since it risks changing the parasite—like what ruined Philip
.

A way to make temporary zombies…

Oh my god. The stick-on patches. The too-real looking grey skin. The snack bars. Some sort of research patch on a temporary zombie being fed fake brains? It made a horrible and sick sense. Saberton was temporarily zombifying the extras in order to test fake brains on them. No one would blink twice at zombie extras actually looking a little like zombies for a while.

Righteous anger flared—not only at the Saberton associates but at Pietro’s team as well. Instead of putting a stop to it and trying to protect these people, they’d had Philip remain undercover so that he could steal whatever findings Saberton came up with and pass them over to Dr. Nikas to use in his own research. People didn’t matter.

My gut tightened. Brenda Barnes, the cardiomyopathy victim, most likely died from this testing. The adhesive on her neck. It fit.

An extra staggered in circles nearby, confusion in his eyes turning sharp and feral. Something was going wrong with the temporary zombies, causing bizarre actions and actual zombie-like behavior. Then I felt it. With no obvious cause, a weird, twitchy unease touched with hunger permeated me.
Philip
. Call it a zombie-mama’s intuition, but I had a bad feeling Philip was the source of the problem with the extras. He was somewhere in this crowd, going nuts and throwing off some sort of weird feeding frenzy pheromone.
Damn
.

Turning, I pushed through the crowd of temp zombies around Jane, elbowed one sharply out of the way as it reached for her. “Jane! You need to get out of here.”

Her brow furrowed as she looked around for some obvious source of danger. “What? Why?”

Crap. She probably thought the extras were still simply being in character, giving her a little demo.
Yeah, well she’s gonna get one hell of a demo if she doesn’t get out of here!
But what the hell was I supposed to tell her?

“Um, there’s a labor dispute, and I think there’s about to be a riot!” I blurted, then fought back a cringe. Holy crap, but that was without a doubt the dumbest thing I’d ever said. “Look, you need to get off the set,” I insisted.

A small frown of doubt touched her mouth as she took in the increasingly erratic behavior of the extras. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

I shot a look to her aide. “Get her out of here or…or I’ll tell Pietro you didn’t get her out of here!” Too late I realized the threat was pointless if he didn’t know how much power Pietro held.

Fortunately he at least seemed to understand that the crowd was growing unruly for no discernible reason. He nodded and slipped an arm around Jane’s waist on the opposite side from her cane. “I’ve got her,” he told me, then looked to Jane. “Let’s get you to the car, Dr. Pennington.” He shepherded her toward the barricades, and I stayed long enough to make absolutely sure she was really getting out of the crowd before I turned back to the mess.

Crew members and staff sought to regain order but were losing the battle as the bizarre rowdiness increased. Distantly I heard someone yell to get the cameras running.
What the hell?
I thought in outrage, though a sensible part of me totally understood that any director worth a shit would want to film a crowd of zombies going nuts. Besides, the director probably had
no
idea what the real deal was.

I fought my way free from the thick of the crowd, continuing to scan and scent. My gaze passed over a black-haired woman, then went right back to her. She stood
tall, scanning the crowd, and didn’t seem at all disturbed by the craziness around her.

I shoved a stumbling extra out of my way as I got closer to her. “Heather?” I asked in disbelief as I peered at her, noting on closer inspection that she was wearing a dark wig over her blonde hair.

Her attention rested on me, and a smile touched her mouth. “Hey, Angel,” she murmured, then went back to scanning the crowd. “I’m
in
with Mr. Ivanov. Can’t thank you enough.” She looked calm and oh-so-very ready for action.

“That’s awesome,” I said. I figured her minimal disguise was to help keep her off the Saberton radar. “You’re looking for Philip too?” I mentally prayed for her to tell me they’d already found and extracted him, but she merely gave a sharp nod.

“Yep. Me and Kyle—my trainer—were nearby when the call came in,” she told me. “Others are on their way.”

Crap. Philip hadn’t been extracted yet, adding confirmation to my gut feeling that he was the source of the problem with the berserk extras.

I felt his influence—a growing unnatural hunger accompanied by waves of unease, like insects crawling in my skull and sending twitches through my muscles. Unlike the poor extras who didn’t have a clue what they were experiencing, I didn’t have much trouble controlling the compulsion to feed, especially since I was fairly tanked. Yet along with the undesirable urge came something else—a strong sense of Philip, as though I
knew
where he was without knowing.