Diana Rowland - How the White Trash Zombie Got Her Groove Back

“Package?” I gave him a puzzled look.

He tapped his chest and gave me a knowing look. Oh. Gentry’s body. The original Gentry, the one now missing a brain.

I hauled Andrew up to his feet. “You promised to let me go,” he said with an accusing glare at Pierce.

“You promised to see this through, and last thing I remember is you bolting,” Pierce said. “Now would be a bad time to get me thinking about altering the terms of our agreement.”

Andrew fell silent and didn’t resist as I hustled him after Pierce. As soon as we were past the security door, Pierce and I both breathed a sigh of relief. Even though we still had a long way to go, being pinned in the Torture Zone would’ve been the worst case scenario.

A bank of overly bright fluorescent lights lit the concrete-walled area beyond the door. It was as if they’d tried—and failed miserably—to create a sense of sunlight underground. I turned a quick circle to get my bearings and found no noteworthy features other than an elevator and four doors: the one we’d come through, one marked Maintenance, one marked Electrical Room, and the stairwell.

Pierce called the elevator then blocked the doors open with the bin when it arrived. I sat Andrew down in front of the bin and gave him a Don’t you fucking dare move look.

“Stairwell door,” I said, “Need to block it too.”

Pierce frowned. “I’ll dismantle the lock on this side. That should slow them down a few minutes, at least.” He dug a big screwdriver out of the bin and proceeded to destroy the lock control panel, then leaned into the elevator as if listening.

“Got any change?” I asked as I scowled at the stairwell door. “Coins, I mean.”

He looked at me blankly, then nodded in understanding. He quickly rifled through Andrew’s pockets, and came up with enough coins for me to penny the door. A couple of stacks of coins wedged high and low between the door and frame would jam it shut. In theory at least. It was a long shot, but it had sure as hell worked on Sissy Collard’s bathroom door during a junior high prank involving a big ass spider in the sink and a rubber snake by the toilet.

“Good thinking, Angel,” Pierce said with an approving nod as I prepped the coins. “I’ll get the package.” He lifted the lid of the mini-dumpster, reached in, and pulled out the body bag, then headed toward the door marked Maintenance. “Back in a minute.”

“Got it,” I said, and by the time the coins were wedged in place Pierce was back, with the loaded bag slung over his shoulder.

Andrew stared. “Who the fuck is that?”

I ignored him and peered into the bin. “Hey guys, got a body coming in. Sorry.” Kyle shifted to sit up and gave me a weak nod. He’d made an effort to pull the blanket over his crotch, but his hands were still too weak to untangle the blanket from the tools and bodies. Keeping my expression even and clinical, I reached in and tugged the blanket up for him. I couldn’t do much else for him, but I could at least give him a little fucking dignity. Marcus groaned, stacked on top of the still-tranqed Brian. Worried, I stroked a hand over his hair, then helped Pierce get everyone rearranged, with the corpse at the bottom beneath Kyle.

“We only have one way out,” I said to Pierce after we closed the dumpster lid. My heart pounded as the weight of the situation hit me. “We lost Brian, and we can’t just walk out with Andrew now.”

“They still don’t know what they’re dealing with.” He turned intense, calm eyes on me. “For now, we wait. A team will be on the way to check out why no one’s responding. They’ll run into a stuck elevator and blocked stairwell and realize shit’s fucked up. Based on how they respond, we make our plan. They’re fucked if they try one at a time through the elevator hatch. Stairwell is a better option, but ambush outside the elevator upstairs is what I’d do.”

Oh, great. Ambush. That made me feel SO much better.

A dull thud and muffled voices came from the stairwell door. I spun to face it, tense, and twitched at another thud.

“It’s holding for now,” Pierce said from behind me.

A face appeared in the little window in the door, then the man’s eyes widened, and he ducked down. More muffled voices.

I glanced back to see Pierce lowering the gun he’d pointed at the window. “ Now they know what they’re dealing with,” he said as he pulled out his phone. How the hell could he be so calm? “We have a few minutes while they scramble,” he continued. “I’ll call Dr. Nikas to give a sit rep.”

I gave him a blank look. “A what?”

“Situation report,” he clarified. “Dr. Nikas and Reinhardt need to know our status and might have some new info.”

“Oh, right, gotcha.” I moved over to the sullen-faced Andrew and crouched just inside his personal space. “Did you see what they did to Kyle?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he gave me a slight nod. He didn’t look away, though a faint flush of what I sure fucking hoped was shame crept up his neck. Behind me I caught bits and pieces of Pierce’s conversation with Dr. Nikas.

“ No, he’s out. Tranqed . . . No antidote that I could find . . . Right. Got it . . . Marcus is barely under control, and I think they gave him something as well. Weaker than he should be . . . No, Brian never got to use it . . . Right. All three syringes should still be on him . . . Yes, of course . . . No, it would take too long for him to get here . . . Griffin . . . Griffin’s in very bad shape.”

I kept my gaze locked on Andrew. “You’re okay with that sort of thing?”

His flush continued to rise, but along with it came that damn defensive wall I’d seen before. He lifted his chin arrogantly. “It was a foolish move, given the circumstances.”

“A foolish move,” I repeated, almost as disgusted by his need to be superior as by his choice of words. Behind him I saw the lid of the bin lift and an arm snake out, a red line around the wrist that had yet to fully heal. The fingers moved in jerks, still not fully functional, but they worked well enough to grip Andrew’s hair.

I kept my face impassive as Andrew let out a strangled cry of horror and tried to scramble to his feet.

“Fooooolish,” Kyle rasped, using his hold on Andrew as leverage to haul himself up and partially out of the bin. Andrew twisted, squealing like a kid in a carnival haunted house, but with his hands secured behind him he couldn’t pull free. I stood and shifted back a couple of feet to avoid getting kicked by Andrew’s scrabbling feet, and bit my tongue to keep from laughing.

“Foooolish,” Kyle breathed, wet and burbly, and pulled his face close to Andrew’s. His stench rolled over me as blood and ichor dripped from his mouth and onto Andrew’s neck. “I . . . am feeling . . . foolish.” He shifted closer, and Andrew screamed. I almost felt sorry for Andrew, since this had to seem like a scene from a horror movie. Almost sorry. Okay, not really.

Then again, in the next instant, I saw he had a real reason to scream. Kyle had his teeth clamped on Andrew’s ear and probably the only reason he hadn’t bitten it off yet was the weakness of his jaw.

“Kyle, he’s Naomi’s brother,” I said mildly. “Take it easy, for her sake.”

Kyle loosened the bite, and I noted that the top half of Andrew’s ear already hung oddly and dribbled blood. “No promises,” he growled, but he released Andrew with a shove before flopping back into the bin.

Pierce hung up behind me. If he’d noticed the altercation, he’d seen no reason to intervene. “I’ll get the mod syringes off Brian.” As he spoke he pulled a second phone from his pocket. “Mine,” he said as he handed it to me, and I realized he meant Gentry’s. “Try calling Saber. Stall her or make a deal for him .” He gestured toward Andrew without looking at him. “Do what you can.”