“Erm, okay,” I said. Did he know how ridiculous this all sounded? Then again, the simple fact that we’re zombies is pretty damn ridiculous, I reminded myself. Why not have some sort of spy vs. spy intrigue between the various zombie mafias? “This stuff sounds so interesting,” I said, trying another tack. “I’d love to come see how this all works with you making fake brains.”
She looked briefly panicked and shook her head in a sharp motion. “No, that’s really not possible,” she insisted. “So many of the areas are strictly controlled that it’s not as if I can bring someone in, even for a tour. And I’m not about to make any sort of waves that could draw attention to myself. The lab director, Dr. Charish, has already been wondering why I’ve been pulling so many late nights.” She visibly gulped. “I’m not supposed to be working on fake brains for zombies, for reasons I’m sure you can understand. If anyone ever took a hard look at what I was doing, I could get in a lot of trouble for misuse of resources, even if they didn’t know exactly what the goal of my research was.”
I frowned, pondering. “What if Zeke wasn’t after your research? What if someone else there is doing something similar? Don’t you think it would be worthwhile to look around and see if that’s the case?”
“Don’t even think about it, Angel,” Marcus said, a warning tone in his voice.
“What?”
“Sneaking in,” he said, giving me a dark glower. “If you were to get caught trespassing it would violate your probation.”
Shit. He knew the right buttons to push on me. Going back to jail would suck enough as a regular human, but going in as a zombie would suck a lot harder—especially for anyone in my vicinity when I got really hungry.
“I won’t sneak in,” I promised.
“Besides,” Sofia said, “the security has been tightened up considerably.” She frowned and bit her lip. “But Angel has a good point. It’s possible that this whole thing had nothing to do with my projects. Under normal circumstances I couldn’t imagine that anyone would believe my lab was a target for industrial espionage, but there are plenty of other projects going on that would be worth a great deal of money to any of our competitors.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I would love to believe that this man was after the work on lipid supplementation or some such thing.”
“And you’re sure no one else at this lab is doing any sort of zombie research?” I asked her.
She gave a dry laugh. “I suppose anything is possible,” she said. “But I think it’s highly improbable that there could be two people at this one lab who are separately working on zombie-related research, especially when almost no one knows about zombies in the first place.”
“Right,” I replied. “Makes sense.” Yet there was still a lot about this whole thing that didn’t make sense. Something was bugging the hell out of me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it just yet.
Sofia let out a sigh and stood. “I should be going. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”
Marcus moved to her and gave her a hug. “Call me if you need anything or if you see anything suspicious.”
She replied with a weak smile and a nod. “Absolutely.” Sofia looked to me. “It was lovely seeing you again, Angel.”
Lovely? Um, okay. “Likewise,” I said.
After she left I flopped back onto the couch. Marcus settled in beside me and let out a low sigh. “The drama never seems to end, does it?”
“Something weird is going on, Marcus,” I said. “That dude’s head was chopped off. Can a zombie survive that?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “I never would have thought so, but…” He grimaced, shook his head. “I don’t know. And I’m too tired to think about it right now.” He leaned over and nuzzled my neck. “But not too tired for other things.”
I grinned despite my stress. “I guess that means you have a fresh batch of pudding?”
He laughed. “You know me so well.” He stood and headed to the kitchen. I turned and watched him go. He was damn good-looking for a zombie. Hell, for a normal human, too. His jeans hugged his ass without being tight, and his shirts were tailored to show the nice v-taper of his lats…
I blinked. “His uniform didn’t fit,” I murmured.
Marcus turned and gave me a questioning look. “Did you say something?”
I stood up. “Marcus, if you were going to go to the trouble of infiltrating a research lab that had fairly decent security, wouldn’t you at least make sure you had a uniform that fit properly?”
He returned and set the bowl of pudding on the coffee table. “I suppose, but—”
“Don’t you see?” I said, suddenly excited. “He wasn’t trying to break in. He was trying to escape! They’re doing something at that lab with zombies! Maybe that’s how he grew a new body!”
Of all the possible reactions I expected—interest, doubt, delight—I sure as hell didn’t expect annoyance.
“Angel, this is getting ridiculous,” he said, scowling. I stared at him in surprise as he continued, “You’ve got it into your head that this lab is the center of some great zombie conspiracy, and it just doesn’t make any sense! Is this about Sofia? Are you jealous of her?”
I actually spluttered for several seconds. “Wait. What? Is that what you think this is? Why the hell would I be jealous of her?” Then I narrowed my eyes. “No, really, tell me why I should be jealous of her. Is something going on?”
“No, damn it! Nothing’s going on. But you seem really intent on painting her as some sort of bad guy or evil genius.”
“That’s not what I said!” I stared at him, hurt. “I said something weird was going on at the lab. I never said it was her. And why the hell won’t you believe me? Why the hell won’t you trust me or believe me about anything?” I may have been shouting by that last word.
“I believe you about stuff that’s believable, Angel! Stop being such a child!”
“A…a child?” I stared at him. “You didn’t believe me about the dead guy being a zombie. You didn’t believe me about the holdup—and I think maybe you still don’t.” I stood and grabbed my bag. “Fuck you, Marcus,” I said as I headed toward the door. “I hope you and your mobster uncle live happily ever after together. After all, you believe everything he tells you, and you sure as hell do everything he tells you to do!”
I slammed the door behind me. I had no idea if he was trying to follow me, but I didn’t look back to see. I climbed into my car and sped away, surprised to find that even though I was upset I didn’t feel any desire to cry. Is that my parasite protecting me? I wondered. Or am I simply becoming less and less human?
Chapter 12
I might not have felt like crying, but I sure wasn’t a happy, cheerful camper either. Plus I wanted chocolate, which told me that at least one part of my human side was still working perfectly fine.
Back before my zombification I’d have most likely headed to any one of the many bars that I frequented, downed a painkiller or three, and chased it with some sort of alcohol with maybe a joint as dessert. But apparently my little parasite got unhappy when I did shit like that and made it use up prions or whatever to clean all that junk out of my system. Even though I was only just now learning the why of it, it hadn’t taken me long after becoming a zombie to figure out that when I did stuff that was bad for me, I rotted a lot faster.
So instead I headed to Double D’s Diner, where I ordered a bacon cheeseburger, fries, a chocolate milkshake, and a chocolate mousse pie for dessert.
The waitress grinned as she jotted down the order. “Now that’s an I don’t give a crap meal if I’ve ever seen one!”
I managed a smile. “Yeah, that pretty much nails it.”