Undead with Benefits (32 page)

“I'm . . .” I thought about Cass, waiting for me at Truncheon's auto shop. “I can't.”

Reggie grimaced. “Still wanna do the whole human thing, huh?”

I shrugged and looked down at my soot-covered sneakers. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do anymore. I liked Reggie, but I didn't like Lord Wesley, and the two seemed pretty inseparable. It'd been fun getting sucked into an undead approximation of my old life. But those brief reprieves into normalcy were counterbalanced by some seriously out-of-control misanthropy. I didn't want to wear a leather vest, stage gladiator fights, or blow up helicopters. All of that would've seemed totally badass and amazing to me when I'd spent most of my time getting stoned and gaming in my basement, but something in me had changed during my time on the road with Amanda. I guess I'd grown up. Or something.

“I've gotta find my friend,” I told him. “She's waiting for me out west. Off the interstate.”

Reggie nodded and jerked his thumb left, around the corner. It was the opposite direction of all the destruction. “You want to go that way.”

I squinted at him. “What about you?”

Reggie pointed in the other direction, toward the destroyed hotel.

“I'm gonna see if anyone's still alive,” he said, seeming to come to this decision just now. “Maybe blow some shit up, in the spirit of the day. Then I'll head west too. Right behind you.”

“All right,” I said awkwardly.

“All right.”

We slapped hands.

“Don't get killed,” I told him.

“You either,” he replied. “And I hope if I see you out there, I don't have to eat you.”

I smirked. “Ditto.”

And then the zombie warlord and I ran in opposite directions, both of us in pursuit of something we couldn't quite figure out, trying to escape this city before it crumbled for a second time.

 

I'd made it to a less-bombed part of Des Moines when destiny reared up before me in the shape of Kope Brothers Pharmaceuticals. I stopped the steady jog I'd kept up since leaving Reggie and stared up at the monolithic structure, this monument to corporate greed or capitalist neglect or free-market amorality or whatever the politics were. I didn't care about all that.

There were people inside that building. I'd felt hella lousy when I found out they were going to be zombie food and even worse now that it seemed like they'd eventually be buried alive by missile fire.

“Aww,” I scolded myself. “No, Jake. Stupid idea.”

I tried to just breeze on by, but I couldn't. Hadn't I come to Des Moines with vague aspirations about heroic deeds and saving the world from a zombie plague? And yeah, it'd since boiled down to some bad decisions, horrific reality, and a small amount of chilling. Even so, wasn't I, like, morally responsible to save a bunch of people from certain death if it was within my power to do so? I mean, it seemed to me it was people shirking their responsibilities to one another that got us in this mess to begin with. That and unprotected sex.

I thought about Amanda and Cass. When we first got to Iowa, Amanda had almost gotten us killed because she disagreed with Truncheon's whole human-bartering plan. And Cass, she'd told a government agency to go screw because she didn't agree with their ethics. Maybe they were more alike than they realized.

I thought about my parents and sister. My dead friends. I tried to imagine anyone who wasn't a zombie despot yelling at me,
No, dude, don't run into that not-yet-but-probably-soon-to-be burning building
.

And I couldn't. So in I went.

Cass would understand if I was a little late getting out to Truncheon's garage.

The machine-gun-toting guards who'd greeted Reggie and me the day before had abandoned their posts, probably around the time the sky started falling. I ran across the lobby and then danced from foot to foot while waiting for the elevator, all keyed up with altruistic energy. Once inside, I punched in the key code to the subbasement I'd spied Reggie enter with my mad peeking skills.

Into the sterilized subbasement I went. I retraced my steps from last night—down a couple corridors, through a heavy-duty door—and quickly arrived in front of the cells packed with the dispirited people of Iowa.

They hardly noticed me. With the soundproofing down here, I doubted they even knew there were air strikes happening above us. I glanced over the panels of bulletproof glass that trapped them, looking for levers or switches or a
PRESS HERE FOR FREEDOM
button.

I didn't see any way to open the cells, so I knocked on the glass of the nearest one. The people trapped inside—mom, dad, and daughter by the way they shielded her—all fearfully shrank toward the cell's back wall.

“Uh, hey,” I yelled through the little breathing holes in the glass. “Do you guys know how to open this thing?”

They stared at me.

“Oh, I'm not going to eat you,” I clarified. “It's cool.”

The parents exchanged a look. Shakily, the mother pointed down the hall.

I ran down the hallway in the direction she'd pointed. People were starting to gather at the front of their cells, sensing something was up. I tried to flash them reassuring smiles as I raced by, but then baring my teeth was probably ill advised.

I stopped in front of a door labeled
CONTROL ROOM
. Ah yeah, that made sense. Maybe I should've looked for that before scaring all those people.

Inside the control room was a bank of monitors, its cameras cycling through the dozens of cells, each feed ominously labeled with a number and
CLINICAL TRIAL
. Beneath the monitors were a whole shitload of buttons as well as a microphone for an intercom.

Without really thinking about it, I flipped the intercom's switch onto
BROADCAST
and pressed down the button.

“Um, hi, Iowans,” I said, hearing my voice echo out in the hallway behind me. “So, I'm about to let you guys all go once I figure out which button to hit but, uh, it's pretty hairy outside, so fair warning. You might be in danger. Probably better than dying down here, though, huh? Although maybe you'll want to stay down here until they stop all the bombing? Anyway, the point is, you'll have the freedom to choose. Okay, here goes nothing. Oh, and if I, like, hit the sleeping-gas button or something by accident, which is totally possible considering my luck lately, uh, sorry in adva—”

I smelled cooked meat. That's the only thing that saved my hand from being chopped off because a second after I smelled him and spun around, Red Bear brought his tomahawk down on the intercom. Sparks flew out and a piercing shriek broadcast through the halls.

“Whoa!” I yelled, backing up along the control panel.

“What the fuck are you doing down here?” he snarled.

“What are
you
doing down here?” I countered.

He looked terrible. I mean, worse than usual. Red Bear had gotten scorched at some point. The burns on his shoulders and arms looked like the surface of a tar pit, pus bubbles oozing and cracking to expose mortified flesh. He had fresh blood around his snagglemouth, like he'd just eaten, but it still looked like he was just barely holding on from going full zombie.

“Safest place in the city,” Red Bear said, waving his hatchet at the monitors. “And plenty of food.”

Discreetly, I hit some random buttons on the control panel behind me. Nothing happened.

“Reggie down here with you?” Red Bear asked woozily, creeping closer to me.

“He left.”

“Figures.” He pounded the heel of his hand against his ear, like it was water-clogged. “Cheyenne's dead.”

“Oh,” I replied.

“I think she is anyhow,” he continued, glaring at me. “You think we die when we get all blown apart? Or does the head just keep biting forever? Should I go find her head?”

“Uh. If you want. Yes. Go.”

He ground the handle of his hatchet into the corner of his eye. “I loved her, man.”

So, we'd both lost our ladies in the last twenty-four hours. I felt a sudden surge of sympathy for Red Bear. Stupid, yeah. But I unzipped my backpack and opened it for him.

“Taco mouse?” I offered.

Red Bear stared at me for a second. Then, he snatched the backpack away from me and whipped it against the wall. I heard something shatter.

“Dude, wha—ooof!”

He punched me hard in the stomach, right where the bulletproof vest stopped. As I doubled over, he brought his knee up hard into my forehead. I flopped onto my back, clutching my face.

He'd smashed the cure. I knew he'd smashed the cure.

“Why did
you
get to go upstairs?” Red Bear ranted. “I'd been running with him for a year and he never invited
me
up. I always had to use the fire escape. That shit hurt my feelings.”

“Ugh,” I groaned. I rolled over and crawled toward my backpack. My face hurt and I felt a distant bubbling in my stomach. Not good.

“You show up and ruin everyhurrrgghh—!” Red Bear convulsed behind me, the zombie in him shifting the balance against the raving sociopath.

I managed to reach my backpack and dig around inside. The bundle with the cure seemed to be intact. It was the Sinatra record that'd absorbed the impact, broken pieces shaking loose from the dust jacket.

I looked back at Red Bear. He was hunched over the control panel, gulping down deep, calming breaths. He caught me staring at him and kicked a desk chair over on top of me.

“I feel like killing you,” he said, lisping through a buildup of saliva. “But I've got to eat first.”

Red Bear hit a green button on the control panel—one button in a row of similar buttons—and, on the monitors, I saw one of the cells open up. The people inside looked too scared to leave, even after my totally chill announcement. Red Bear pushed off from the control panel and staggered toward the door.

“Hey,
Gene
,” I said, getting his attention. I felt like if I could just distract him for a minute or two, he'd go full zombie and I could barricade him in an empty office without him trying to scalp me.

He spun toward me. “Red Bear. Not fu-fu-fu—not
Gene
.”

“Were you always this nuts?” I asked him. “Or is it, like, a recent development? Did you dress up as an Indian for Halloween one year and the whole thing just stuck?”

Of course, my plan didn't account for any immediate scalping attempts.

With a feral scream, Red Bear dove on me. I managed to get my knees up and he landed on top of them, his hatchet scraping the ground next to my head. I grabbed his hatchet wrist and struggled to keep it from recoiling—he was strong, though, stronger than me. His foul-smelling spit dripped down through the open section of his cheek and onto my face.

“Kill you—!” he seethed, barely human.

With my free hand, I reached into my backpack, grabbed one of the broken record shards, and jammed it pointy end first into Red Bear's eye. He shrieked and rolled off me, grasping at his face.

“The way you look tonight, bitch!” I yelled, because one-liners.

Both of us got back to our feet at the same time. I was breathing heavily and Red Bear wasn't breathing at all. The triangle of record sticking out of his face was totally forgotten. He wasn't interested in me anymore, only in eating. He groaned and staggered toward the doorway.

Quickly, I ran my hand across the green door-open buttons like I was showing off on the piano. I could hear the cells outside hissing open simultaneously.

I managed to grab Red Bear around the waist just outside the control room. Down the hall, people had begun to nervously poke their heads out of cells. Seeing the fresh meat, Red Bear surged toward them, trying to shuck me off. I planted my feet and dug in, but he was a fighter.

“Run!” I yelled down the hall. “Run for your lives!”

From behind, powerful hands grabbed the scruff of my neck and the seat of my pants, pulling me loose from Red Bear and tossing me easily aside. I hit the wall hard with my shoulder and slid down it.

“Oh shit,” I said, staring up at Jamison, bandaged all up and down his arms and looking seriously cheesed off. When I'd released everyone down here, I'd kind of forgotten one of them was a hardened zombie slayer who bore a personal grudge against me. Oops.

For the moment, Jamison ignored me. He grabbed Red Bear by the back of his head. Red Bear flailed and twisted, trying to bite Jamison, but couldn't. With a grunt, Jamison slammed Red Bear face-first into the wall, driving the shard of vinyl the rest of the way through his eye and into his brain. Red Bear crumpled to the floor. For-real dead.

Jamison let loose a satisfied sigh. Then he turned to look down at me, the recognition plain on his face.

“You,” he growled.

CASS

“HOW'D YOU FIND ME?”

Tom and I sat side by side on the sun-faded plastic chaise. If the day got just a little hotter, the rickety beach chair would start sticking to any exposed skin. For now, it was an altogether pleasant late morning here at the end of civilization, which I was enjoying from the roof of Truncheon's garage with the man who used to be my only friend in the world. I'd been properly awake for about fifteen minutes.

“I've been looking since last week,” Tom replied, his tone mildly scolding. “Thanks for knocking me out, by the way. That was a fun experience.”

“Sorry.”

“Mhm,” Tom said, fussing with his shirt cuff. Somehow, he made a voyage into the Deadzone look fashionable; he wore a sleeveless quilted jacket over a plaid shirt that looked expensively rugged, perfectly broken-in blue jeans, and spotless hiking boots. I struggled to work a knot out of my tangled mop of long-unwashed hair.

From an army-issue rucksack, Tom produced a thermos and a pair of paper cups.

“You want?” he asked.

I nodded and Tom set about pouring us each a cup of coffee.