Eat, Brains, Love (22 page)

JAKE

H-U-N-G-R-Y

Keep it together, Jake. Keep it together harder than you've ever kept it together before.

I booked it through the wheat field, the stalks tickling the bruises on my face and the holes in my neck. It was like a commercial for healthy cereal out here, amber waves of grain and all that shit. New, from General Mills, Honey-Coated Fleeing Zombie with Shotgun Marshmallows.

That's good. Keep thinking, even if it's about stupid made-up cereals. Breathe deep, just like Summer said. Don't think about—

EATING.

One of my eyes was swollen shut. The view out of the other one wasn't looking so good, tinged red around the edges. The zombie in me was banging the dinner bell. So much tasty human meat back there, just begging to be EATEN.

Rip them out of their little suits and crack them open and suck out their guts and smash open their faces and chew on their brains.

Stop.

The zombie in me had really terrible impulse control. I knew that if I lost my grip, I'd go racing back toward the farmhouse and try to snack on those heavily armed government dudes. The zombie in me only saw meat, not guns, not the freaking high-velocity nets, not my inevitable capture or killing. Practical thinking wasn't really a strong suit of the undead.

Shit, I couldn't believe I'd left Amanda back there. I mean, she'd yelled at me to run with the net pinning her down, but it wasn't really heroic of me to actually listen, was it? We were supposed to be a team. Running away while she was trapped with government assassins was in strict violation of the buddy system.

I should go back for her. Get all Zombie–Jason Bourne on these government jerk-offs.

I SHOULD GO BACK AND EAT.

I didn't have to go back. They were coming for me.

I could hear him crashing through the field behind me. I knew who it was without turning around—the big dude that I'd tangled with twice now. The only reason he hadn't caved in my skull back at the farmhouse was because Amanda had distracted him. He had that sort of grim and steely look about him that all the antihero types in comics had, the ones like Batman and The Punisher who are just bordering on criminally freaking insane.

EATMAN AND THE YUMISHER.

I knew this dude wasn't going to quit chasing me. Not this time.

But he was alone. The rest of his squad hadn't followed him.

I could eat him. Just him. Then I'd be able to think straight again, maybe put together a plan to go save Amanda.

My stomach rumbled. It liked this plan.

Before I could skid to a stop and face my pursuer, I heard the
chick-chick
of a shotgun cocking.

Uh-oh.

Boom.

My legs exploded like a couple of pins struck by a bowling ball, splaying and twisting in different directions as I flew through the air.

I landed on my back. He'd shot my legs out from under me. They were still attached, but felt longer somehow, probably because they were just hanging on to the rest of me by strips of skin and muscle. It hurt like crazy for a second, but then the red around the edges of my eyes soaked through my entire vision and I could hear myself snarling, feel my teeth gnashing.

EAT NOW.

I struggled to hold on. Knew he would kill me for sure if I didn't. But I couldn't get up and run. Legs not working and all. I needed to drag myself away from him. Hide in the wheat field somehow.

But instead, I dragged myself toward him, snapping at his ankles. Drool and slime dripping from my face.

I heard the shotgun cock again.

“This is for Harlene,” he said. I looked into the barrel of his shotgun.

I snarled. Then everything went red.

 

I didn't die.

Instead, I came to with my arms around a severed piece of half-chewed leg, cradling it like a teddy bear.

The red had cleared from my vision. I felt full, content, maybe a little bloated. I wasn't sure how long I'd lost control for; it felt like I'd just woken up from a dream. Not one of those full REM sleep dreams, though. One of those starter dreams, when you're first drifting off to sleep and then suddenly jump back awake because, in your dream, you tripped and fell or went over the handlebars of your bike. Somehow, I knew I hadn't been out for long.

Just long enough to eat somebody.

My jeans were all torn up from where the guy with the shotgun had blasted me, but my legs felt fine. The holes in my neck had closed up too.

I tried to think back to the chase through the wheat field, to remember what happened. Mostly, I remembered snarling and biting. Everything else was fractured pieces, snatches of memory. I remembered the shotgun's muzzle exploding. I felt the air from the shell hot against the side of my face.

Somehow, the big guy had missed.

Something had knocked his point-blank kill shot off course.

Dark shapes had emerged from the wheat field, converging on the big dude with the shotgun. He fired at them, but they overwhelmed him.

Two of the shadows detached from the others and stood looking down at me.

“What do we do with him?” asked a male voice I didn't recognize. “He's not one of ours.”

The shadowy corn-people reached down and grabbed me by the wrists. I couldn't remember much more, but one weird detail stuck out to me.

I didn't want to eat them.

I lay still as I tried to piece together my memory. I wasn't sure if I was still in danger and didn't want to make any sudden movements. I slowly swung my head around.

There was Captain Twelve Gauge. He was sitting right behind me, about five yards away. He'd been stripped down to his boxers, that crazy armor of his gone. One side of his face was covered in blood from a serious gash on top of his head. His feet were bound together with those plastic zip-tie things and, although I couldn't see his hands on account of them being behind his back, I assumed those were tied too.

Seated in a line next to the big guy were five other agents, all of them tied up. Except for hard-ass Roadblock, they all looked scared out of their wits. One of them retched into the dirt in front of him.

“What the hell happened out there?” the big dude whispered gruffly to the agent sitting next to him.

“We were watching the back,” said the agent, sounding increasingly terrified. “They came out of nowhere, Jamison. There were only supposed to be two of them. Command said there'd only be two!”

“Calm down,” hissed the big guy, Jamison.

He looked over at me and our eyes met. It was awkward.

I sat up, shoving the severed leg aside. There were still tattered pieces of jumpsuit sticking to it. I guess it was a pretty safe bet that I'd just eaten one of their coworkers right in front of them. I felt suddenly ashamed.

“I didn't know him very well,” Jamison said to me, his voice measured, “but the man you just ate was named Nick Thomas. He was in his late twenties. From down south somewhere. I think he was engaged, or maybe married.” Jamison stared me down, his gaze hard and full of hatred. I don't think I've ever had anyone look at me like that before. I had to look away.

“I wasn't the one chasing
you guys
,” I said quietly.

“Uh-huh,” replied Jamison, not interested in my excuses. “Untie me and let's finish this up.”

Hey, here was a good question: Who had tied all these government agents up in the first place?

I stood up unsteadily and looked around. I was in a clearing near the wheat field. I couldn't be that far from the farmhouse, although I wasn't totally sure which direction to head in. Was there a way to use the moon as a compass?
Don't worry, Amanda, I'm coming to save you just as soon as I figure out how to navigate by the stars.

“Hey, jerk,” said a voice from behind me. “You owe us for that guy you ate.”

There were about twenty of them watching me when I turned back around. They weren't ghosts, or soldiers, or some local militia come to sort out who'd been screwing with their wheat field. Maybe it was the fact that some of them had skin that swampy gray color, or maybe it was the bloodstains they proudly wore, or maybe because the guy addressing me was wearing a belt lined with human scalps, but I knew right away what they were.

Zombies. An army of zombies.

They looked like something out of Mad Max. Lots of leather, piercings, and creative hair choices. They were all youngish, most of them probably around my age or just a little older, and they were all seriously thin, which is maybe just a side effect of being undead that I hadn't yet discovered.

Behind them was a line of cars, mostly old junkers but also a huge conversion van and one of those black SUVs that the government guys loved to roar around in. All the cars had been transformed in some way to look like something a zombie road gang would drive; the SUV had what looked like an antelope skull tied across its hood, a large upside-down American flag mounted on its roof. A beat-up El Camino with a spray-painted skull on its hood had its headlights on and aimed at me and the prisoners.

And then there was the guy addressing me. He was tall, lean, and in case you couldn't tell by the vulture-feather headdress and tomahawk on his belt, very Native American. But not like a real Native American—more like the kind you'd see in an old Western movie. Except a zombie. (I don't know.)

He'd done something crazy to his mouth; cut the skin up one side of his cheek and inserted rows of little wooden picks to keep the incision from closing up, so you could always see to his back row of teeth.

“Uh, hey,” was pretty much all I could manage while taking this in.

“Uh, hey,” mimicked the leader in a high-pitched voice. “Seriously, buddy, if we wanted these guys eaten, we would've done it ourselves. And as if sampling our provisions wasn't uncool enough, you didn't even offer to share any of what's-his-name.”

He looked past me, eyeballing Jamison.

“What'd you say his name was, big boy? Your now digesting compadre?”

“Fu—”

Before Big Shotgun could really start whatever colorful insult he had queued up, the zombie swung one of those stun guns from over his shoulder and blasted him with a bolt of electricity. Jamison fell backward, convulsing.

“WOO!” shouted the zombie, some of his friends laughing and clapping. “Ride the lightning, bitch!”

I started to inch my way toward the wheat field, this being the kind of situation that I felt it'd probably be good to extricate myself from. Seeing me move, the lead zombie aimed the stun gun in my direction. Why was it that every new zombie I met had to point a weapon at me?

“Whoa there, partner,” he said. “We're still not done talking about you raiding our food stores. Lots of hungry bellies back in Des Moines, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah. Uh, sorry?” I stammered, glancing at the severed leg. “My bad?”

“My bad?” echoed the zombie.

“Jesus, Red Bear,” interrupted one of the other zombies, a bored-looking girl with dreadlocks. “Didn't you learn anything from Plymouth Rock? Share the bounty and shut up already.”

“Relax. I was just having some fun,” sneered Red Bear, although he looked penitent and immediately lowered the stun gun. “We've met our quota for Lord Wesley with these prisoners. He'll be pleased.”

“Lord Wesley?” I interrupted, thinking of that weird message board post from the so-called Lord of Des Moines.

Red Bear looked at me. “Our leader. He'll be excited to meet you. Any enemy of the NCD is a friend of ours.”

“NCD?”

“Necrotic Control Division,” Red Bear explained, wiggling his fingers sarcastically. He looked over at the cowering agents. “Do we look like some controllable mother fuckers to you?”

I shook my head and glanced back to the wheat field, to where the farmhouse waited. “I've gotta go back. They've got my, uh, girlfriend.”

Red Bear seemed to consider this. “There's more of them, huh?”

Another zombie spoke up. “We've got our prisoners. That means the rest of the humans are fair game. That means we can
eat.”

The rest of the zombies roared, “Eat! Eat! Eat!”

Clearly, they were getting antsy.

That was all it took for Red Bear to make up his mind. “Who's ready to storm the gates?!” Red Bear howled. Then they were all howling. I might have too. It seemed like a good idea to try fitting in.

Seconds later, I was running with a pack of zombies through a wheat field, feeling more alone and confused than I'd felt all week, hoping like hell that I'd find Amanda alive.

CASS

AT SOME POINT, TOM STOPPED RADIOING FOR THE medical team. He'd been desperate at first, shouting at them to move their asses, that we had a squad leader down. Eventually, he'd stopped. There was no point.

Harlene was gone.

They moved her body inside the farmhouse, put her on top of the blanket that Amanda and Jake left behind. I sat with her there, holding her hand as it slowly cooled.

This could've been just another day at the office. The inside of the farmhouse could have been any of the NCD crime scenes I'd been assigned to over the last year and a half.

Just another dead body, right?

But of course, it wasn't.

I could still sense Harlene's psychic residue, even if it was fading fast. If I wanted to, I could slip into the dead synapses of her mind, fire them up again, and relive her last moments. If this really was a crime scene that's exactly what I would do, and pretty soon I'd have a bead on the zombie that killed her.

Except I didn't need to play psychic detective because the zombie that killed Harlene was in the room with me.

Amanda Blake lay on her side next to the fireplace where one of the NCD agents had dumped her. They'd snapped some heavy-duty shackles around her wrists and ankles, thick steel things that probably weighed twenty pounds each. Even with a rush of hungry zombie adrenaline, Amanda wasn't breaking out of those cuffs. They'd also strapped a muzzle across her face, pretty much exactly like what they made Hannibal Lecter wear when they transported him in
Silence of the Lambs
.

She was all trussed up, ready to be taken to Washington and have a hole drilled in her pretty head, so she could live the rest of her life in a perpetual state of zombieness, bonded by blood to an NCD agent so that she could be dragged around on a metal chain and used as a human weapon until someone finally killed her for good.

I didn't support the whole zombie-enslavement initiative. I think it's fair to say that it grossed me out on ethical and physical grounds. But at that moment, I couldn't think of anyone I'd rather see at the end of a leash than Amanda Blake.

Was that harsh? Cruel? I didn't care. I wasn't really in a mood for introspection. I wanted someone else to hurt.

I caught Amanda watching me. I felt embarrassed that she was allowed to see me like this, kneeling next to Harlene's body and holding her hand. She shouldn't have been in here with us. This should've been private.

“What are you looking at?” I snapped.

Amanda flicked her eyes away like she didn't want any trouble, but her gaze gradually drifted back in my direction, like she couldn't resist.

“How did you know that stuff about me?” she asked, her words muffled by the muzzle.

“Don't talk to her,” snapped Tom. I wasn't sure which one of us he meant, but both Amanda and I shut up. I'd never heard Tom's voice so authoritative, although I'd also never seen him so on edge.

Tom stood at the window, watching the activity around the farmhouse. Some of the remaining NCD agents had formed a perimeter out front. The rest had gone into the wheat field, looking for Jamison and the other agents who were supposed to be guarding the back of the farmhouse and had disappeared out there. Tom shook his head, looking freaked.

“This isn't safe,” he announced, and turned to me. “We're getting out of here. As your guardian, I insist we do so immediately.”

“What about Harlene?” I asked, still holding her hand.

“Cass,” Tom said, softening a bit, “nothing bad can happen to her anymore. You and I, on the other hand, need to be getting away from this shit-show posthaste.”

“The mission isn't over, Thomas.”

Alastaire strode through the front door. Actually, he strode
over
it, Chazz having knocked it off the hinge and onto the ground during his grand entrance earlier. Chazz trailed along after him, looking worn out even for a mostly decomposed zombie. His knuckles almost dragged on the floor as he shuffled after Alastaire, back hunched, arms limp.

Amanda struggled into a sitting position when they entered. Her eyes widened with confusion as she saw that Alastaire had Chazz on a leash.

“Chazz?” she asked quietly. “What did they do to you?”

Her ex-boyfriend's only response was to loll his head back and forth on his shoulders. Even if Chazz had the mental capacity to answer, he wouldn't have found it easy with his jaw laying discarded a few feet away. I'd been pretending not to notice that thing ever since we came in here. It looked like a piece of sparerib that a dog had chewed on.

Alastaire glanced at Amanda, annoyed, and then looked over at Tom, who hadn't budged from his spot by the window.

“Why didn't we gag her?” asked Alastaire.

Tom ignored his question. “This mission
is
over,” insisted Tom.

“I only see one prisoner,” said Alastaire, waving at Amanda. “I assume you can count as high as two?”

“And how many dead agents do you count?” Tom seethed.

Alastaire looked at Harlene's body for what I thought was the first time. He frowned.

“Yes, that's . . . unfortunate.” He paused, seeing something. “Oh, hello, here's this.”

Alastaire bent down and picked up the bottom part of Chazz's jaw. He snapped his fingers in Chazz's eyes until the zombie straightened up and looked at him. Then, like an artist sizing up a sculpture, Alastaire steadied Chazz's head by grabbing his hair and shoved the jawbone back onto his face. There was the grinding of bone on bone and when Alastaire took his hands away, Chazz's jaw hung half-open and crooked.

“Well, it's a start,” muttered Alastaire.

“This is so fucked,” declared Amanda.

I'm not sure I can put into words how much I hated Alastaire at that moment. He was more interested in putting his pet back together than he was in Harlene. I would've never mistaken Alastaire for a good guy, but now I was convinced there wasn't even a shred of human decency in him. He was as much a monster as Amanda or Chazz.

“I'm sorry to leave you here,” I whispered to Harlene. “You were so kind and wonderful.”

No one heard me say my good-bye because Amanda had started trying to get Chazz's attention.

“Help me, Chazz,” she said. “I don't know what they've done to you, but we can fix it.” Chazz snarled and began to strain at his leash.

Alastaire just wiggled his finger. “No, no, Chazz.” Chazz looked into his eyes and gurgled happily. Amanda's eyes widened, but she kept right on going.

“You aren't just going to let them take me, are you, Chazz?” Amanda pleaded. Her dumb ex-boyfriend was her only hope. “Help me get out of here!”

I'd had enough. I set Harlene's hand down gently on her stomach and stood up, looking at Tom.

“Okay,” I said. “I'm ready to go.”

“Good,” said Tom, pointedly ignoring Alastaire. “Race you to the SUV.”

Tom and I started for the door. Behind us, I heard Alastaire mutter something, followed by the metallic click of his leash disconnecting.

Before we could go another step, Chazz had positioned himself between us and the door. He watched us, eyes wide and hungry, more attentive now than before.

“Fight them, Chazz,” Amanda kept on. “Please, fight them!”

I intended to march right through Chazz, to call Alastaire's bluff. Tom put a hand on my shoulder, though, stopping me before I got too close. We turned to face Alastaire together.

“You can't do this,” said Tom, but Alastaire waved him off.

“Thomas, your insubordination has been noted. You can expect a transfer after this mission.” He looked at me, smiling patiently. “As for you, just tell us where to find the boy and you can head back to Washington. Spend some quality time thinking about how to improve your performance for the next mission.”

“No,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I'm done.”

Alastaire's smile was unflappable. His thoughts, however, hissed across my brain with the heat and force of steam bursting out of a boiling teakettle.

I'm losing patience with you, child. Tell me where the boy is or I'll just rip it out of your little brain.

My body shook with the force of his thought, but I tried not to let it show.

I don't think you're actually stronger than me,
I thought back.
You're just a coward that hides behind soldiers and zombies. You know I'm stronger than you. If I weren't, you wouldn't need me. You wouldn't have needed me to bring you here. I'm stronger than all of you, and that's why you're so obsessed with me, you sick freak.

Alastaire straightened his bow tie. A nanosecond later, it felt like my brain had been locked in a spike-covered vise.

Really misjudged that one, Cass.

The pressure was sudden and sharp: behind my eyes, in my ears, down through my sinuses. I felt my nose turn on like a faucet, blood pouring out, but that was a distant thing. More present were the claws in my brain—Alastaire rummaging through my thoughts, my memories, every part of me.

My body must have wobbled because I felt Tom's hand on my arm, heard him shouting for Alastaire to stop whatever he was doing.

Alastaire broke into the place where I'd hidden away the memory of that afternoon's meeting with Harlene when she granted me my release from NCD. I could feel his psychic laughter.

It was so trivial to him, so amusing.

Do you honestly believe I'd ever let you go?
One day, you'll appreciate what I've done for you.

I felt trampled by the force of his mind. I'd never so completely lost control of my being before. I was like a passenger or, worse still, a prisoner inside my own body. I couldn't think, unless he allowed it. Every memory I had, every secret, was at his psychic fingertips.

Only seconds had passed outside my body since Tom and I first went for the door. Distantly, I could hear Amanda still trying to convince Chazz to be her knight in shining armor.

“We can find Jake, he's cooler than you think,” was Amanda's latest pitch. “We're going to Iowa, Chazz. You can come with us. They say there's a cure there.”

And just like that, my mind was once again my own. I felt violated and weakened and disgusted, but he was out. Something had distracted him.

Alastaire rounded on Amanda.

“What did you just say?” Alastaire barked.

Whatever she'd said—something about Iowa and a cure—it had gotten Alastaire's attention. That usual façade of condescending politeness was cracked. She'd freaked him out.

Amanda just stared at Alastaire, eyes narrowed above her muzzle.

“What did you say about a cure?” he practically shouted.

I wobbled in place. Tom put his arm around my shoulders to steady me. Chazz groaned plaintively from behind us, his jaw clicking as he snapped at the air, testing it. Apparently, the zombie could bite again.

I wish I could say that I thought about all the disturbing things Alastaire had done since I met him. The severed hand in NCD training, kidnapping Jake's sister, his complete apathy toward Harlene. The way he just forced himself on me, forced his way into my mind to prove a point.

I wish I thought about all those things, but I didn't. Alastaire was distracted, so I acted. That's all there is to it.

I forced my way into Chazz's mind, not bothering to be gentle. I'd been there before. The cold and alien feeling of a zombie mind wasn't so bad after having Alastaire shove himself into my brain.

I sent Chazz a mental picture, hoping that his low-functioning zombie mind combined with the NCD tech enhancements that made him so susceptible to suggestion wouldn't know the difference between my psychic nudge and a real order.

The mental picture was of Alastaire.

In the mental picture, Alastaire said, “Eat me.”

With a guttural moan that sounded almost grateful, Chazz shoved past Tom and me. Alastaire turned away from Amanda just in time to see his pet zombie bound forward.

Alastaire threw an arm up to defend himself, but Chazz bit down on him right at the elbow, hard, and twisted his head back and forth like you see those attack dogs do when they get their teeth in the big foam man pretending to be a burglar.

Alastaire fell backward and Chazz fell with him, biting through tendons and bone. Alastaire was screaming for Chazz to stop, and Amanda was screaming for Chazz to keep going, convinced she'd made this happen through her desperate wheedling.

I just stood there, not saying anything. Not looking away.

Tom, very calmly, pulled his gun, took two steps forward, aimed, and shot Chazz in the back of the head.

Now Amanda flipped out. She tried to lunge at Tom, but her shackles got in the way and she ended up just falling on her face. Tom sidestepped her, moving quickly back to me, looking shocked at his own man-of-action routine.

“Why'd you stop him?” I asked Tom quietly, ignoring Amanda's shouted threats.

Tom studied my face, must have read in it what I'd just done. He shook his head, disapproval mixing with resignation.

“Oh god, Cass. Did you make him attack?”

Before I could answer, there was a shout outside followed by a volley of stun-gun fire. That wasn't right. Come to think of it, it was kind of strange that no agents had come running when Tom fired his pistol.

What was going on out there?

Tom pushed me toward the back of the room and walked, gun still drawn, to the farmhouse window.

“What the he—?” was all Tom managed to say before a pair of zombie hands reached in the window and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. His legs banged painfully against the window frame as a leather-clad zombie dragged him through the window.

I heard gunshots. Tom screamed.

“Tom!” I shouted and tried to run toward the door, but I was too dizzy and weak from telepathically pushing Chazz. I fell onto my knees.