My Life as a White Trash Zombie (33 page)

“I was saying how Ed can put away an entire pizza on his own,” she said with a laugh. “I always have to order a large one for him and a small one for me!”

Cold shock rippled over me. “Your dog, Kudzu, does it, um, stay in a pen or a kennel?”

Marianne gave me a perplexed look. “Huh? No, she has free run of the house. She’s very well-trained. She’s practically my baby. Why?”

“Pizza Plaza, right?”

The confusion on her face increased.

“When you order pizza, do you ever order from Pizza Plaza?” I asked as I threw the papers into a rough pile. I knew I sounded impatient and a little demanding but I suddenly didn’t have time for niceties.

“Yes.” Marianne narrowed her eyes. “Angel, what the heck is going on?”

I shoved the keys toward her. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to go.” I dropped a five dollar bill on the table to cover my coffee, grabbed the pile of papers, and dashed for the door.

I knew exactly what had happened that night. I knew who’d made me a zombie. And I knew who the zombie killer was.

Herbert Singleton wasn’t a zombie—just an asshole who could only get laid if the girl was too wasted to say no. That piece of shit had slipped me some date rape drugs and taken me for a drive so he could score some one-sided action. I could be charitable and say that he hadn’t planned on dumping me out in the middle of nowhere after raping me—probably in some hotel room, or maybe some local parking lot. But when he saw I was starting to seize or have trouble breathing, he panicked and headed to someplace remote where he could dump my body.

The picture showed a fuckload of blood in the car. Yet the report said the driver had been ejected.

In other words, the report was wrong.

When Herbert lost it on that curve, neither of us were thrown from the car. Maybe Herbert was killed in the accident, but I was still alive—though pretty badly fucked up.

But there’d been someone else out there who’d either seen the accident or come upon it before I managed to finish dying. Someone who knew me. Someone who thought that maybe I could use a second chance. Someone who made up a story about having to change his shirt so that he could get me away from the accident scene.

I drove like a bat out of hell with one hand on the steering wheel and the other working my cell phone. The dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Office refused to give me any of Marcus’s contact info at first. I finally told her I worked for the Coroner’s Office and lied and said I needed to get his cell phone number for a report. She reluctantly gave it to me but only after putting me on hold for an interminable length of time, during which I was pretty sure she called the Coroner’s Office to be sure I actually worked there and wasn’t some sort of psycho stalker chick who had a major crush on Marcus and was doing a really sloppy job of stalking him.

Okay, I probably did have a crush on him, but if I was going to stalk him I’d be a lot better at it than this.

I called Marcus, cursing when it went straight to voice mail. I left a message asking him to call me as soon as possible, stressing that it was
really
important. But I had a feeling I was wasting my breath. Somehow I suspected that Ed wasn’t going to give anyone the chance to warn Marcus that he was in danger. Ed—who somehow knew about zombies and who realized the pizza delivery guy was one when Marianne’s dog indicated that he was a corpse.

He’d seen the blood in the picture from the accident scene and realized that I
had
been in the car. He knew there was an explanation for how I’d survived, realized that Marianne’s dog had indicated on me because I
was
a corpse—not because I handled corpses. And that wasn’t the first time he’d found a zombie that way. He’d probably been part of that search team on Sweet Bayou Road when that teenager went missing, and Adam Campbell had been so hospitable to the search teams. At some point Ed saw Kudzu indicate on Adam.

Ed had also realized that there was only one person with the motive and opportunity to turn me into a zombie—one person who obviously also had the means to do so. And who had a relative with the connections and influence to get me the job I needed.

That explains the grief
, I thought, sick with worry.
He realized that Marcus—his best friend—is a zombie. And for some reason he feels compelled to kill zombies.
I didn’t know why, but I knew I was right. But would Ed really be able to bring himself to kill his best friend?

That wasn’t something I was willing to gamble on.

Unfortunately, right now I was dead in the water. I didn’t know where the hell I was going. I had no idea where Marcus lived, and I was damn positive there was no way I’d be able to squeeze that info out of the dispatcher. I even called information, but I wasn’t very surprised to find he was unlisted and unpublished. There weren’t many cops who made it easy for people to find them. I could understand that, but right now it was pissing me the fuck off. Shit, at this point I wished I
was
a psycho stalker who followed him home from work and that sort of thing. At least then I’d know where he lived.

Wait.
I was being stupid. I needed to slow down and think this through logically.

Marcus was off-duty. He was going to be off for the next couple of days. He and Ed were supposed to go hunting. Ed wasn’t going to chop his head off at his house. No, Ed would want to do it someplace remote, where he could find a way to make it look like an accident, or dispose of the body.

I drove to the library as fast as I could get away with. I’d learned a trick or two from working with Derrel, and the one that was most useful to me now was the trick about how to find information. I still wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to computers, but I was hoping I didn’t need to be.

There were several empty terminals in the library computer room which saved me the trouble of physically tossing someone off of one.The computer was slow as molasses, and I jiggled my foot impatiently as the website loaded, but thankfully the parish website had been designed with idiots like me in mind, and the link for the property tax search was clearly marked on a nice big button.

Pecking out the letters as quickly as I could, I typed I-V-A-N-O-V, praying that the uncle who owned the land they always went hunting on was on Marcus’s father’s side. If he had a name other than Ivanov, I was out of luck. And so was Marcus.

My luck held. There was a listing for an “Ivanov, Marcus.” But more importantly, there was also an “Ivanov, Pietro,” for a large chunk of property at the north end of the parish.

Fingers shaking, I pulled up Google Maps, stuck in the address of Uncle Pietro’s property, printed out the resulting map, and got the hell out of there.

 

I knew there was still a very real chance I was completely wrong, and Ed wouldn’t bother going all the way to the north end of the parish. It was quite possible that he was currently in the process of taking Marcus out to some nearby back road for some head-lopping. But if that was the case, I had no chance of finding them in time anyway. So I might as well commit to stopping him where I think he might be.

Yeah, I know, my logic left a lot to be desired. But my intuition screamed that I was on the right track. I knew the murder of a cop would be taken a hell of a lot more seriously than that of a pizza delivery guy, or a mortuary worker. It wasn’t fair, but it was the truth and Ed knew it, which meant that he needed to find some way to make it look like an accident. Like, say, on a hunting trip. In the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.

Before hitting the road I’d quickly made up two bottles of brain “slush.” Those were now filling the cup holders in the console, plus I had the cooler full of “brain food” in the back seat. Even though I was already pretty full up on brains, I went ahead and sucked down one of the slushies while I drove like a madwoman and prayed that there weren’t any state troopers on the back highways. I’d never gone this far overboard on brains before. It would have been an insane waste under normal circumstances, but right now I didn’t give a fuck about conserving my stash. I only wanted to be sure I was fully tanked up, but as soon as I tossed the empty bottle aside I discovered something amazingly cool. Suddenly my senses were sharper than they’d ever been in my life, and my reflexes could have given Dale Earnhardt a run for his money.

I grinned and increased my speed. Zombie super powers could come in handy at times.

It was a good thing I had those heightened reflexes and senses. If not for them, I’d have totally missed the twisted sign by the little dirt road. Slamming on the brakes, I somehow managed to wrench the car around in time to make the turn without going into the ditch.

I could see fresh tracks in the mud which relieved my worry that I might be headed in the wrong direction, but my poor little Honda shimmied and gave out some ominous noises as I forced it over the ruts and through puddles. This road was meant to be navigated by a truck with much higher clearance, and certainly not at the speeds I was attempting. I was barely a mile down the road when the car gave a sudden lurch into a rut, and I came up hard against the seat belt.

“No! Shit!” I jammed it into reverse, but I could hear the tires spinning. I was stuck, and good.

Shutting the engine off, I quickly thought through my options and plans. Hell, I didn’t have a plan other than “warn Marcus.” He was the one with the gun and the training and all that stuff.

But all of that would be useless unless I could actually
warn
him. There was no way he’d be expecting an attack from his best friend.

My eyes fell on the second bottle of brain slush. I twisted around to look at the cooler in the back seat.

I smiled my best bad-bitch smile. Oh, yeah. I was about to burn me some brains.

I’ve never been anything remotely resembling “athletic.” I’m pretty sure the very few times in my life when I actually made myself run were only after much threatening from gym teachers—back when I still went to school and suffered such fates.

But if running had ever felt like
this
I don’t think I’d have ever stopped. I raced down the road like the mutant lovechild of a gazelle and a cheetah—far faster than I’d have been able to drive it, thanks to that second bottle of brains. Now I figured I had maybe ten more minutes at the pace I was going before I crashed and started to rot.

Luckily it was only about a minute later that I reached the large clearing at the end of the road. A couple of hundred yards away Marcus and Ed were busy loading gear onto two four-wheelers.
Saving the day with brains to spare!
I thought in euphoric glee.

They turned in unison at the sound of my running footsteps. Marcus’s eyes widened in surprise. “Angel! What on earth are you doing here?”

Ed looked surprised as well, but his expression quickly turned wary and for good reason. I was still running all out and had no intention of stopping until I’d knocked Ed on his ass. “Marcus!” I yelled as I charged toward them. “I know you’re a zombie and you made me! Ed does too and he’s—”

A loud bang slammed through the clearing, cutting off my words as I went crashing to the ground in an awkward flailing sprawl. Pain jabbed hard and deep, and I gasped raggedly as I struggled to get back to my feet. For some reason I couldn’t get a deep breath. The clearing swam around me as I scrabbled upright. I needed to warn Marcus and stop Ed. I needed to breathe. Why couldn’t I breathe?

I heard a second bang and something hit me hard in the chest. There was a sense of pain but it felt strangely removed. I coughed and blood bubbled out of my mouth, copper-metallic taste fading almost as soon as it hit my tongue.

Oh. That’s why I can’t breathe.
I could only stare at the pistol in Ed’s hand as I sagged first to my knees, then onto my side on the ground. Color and sensation faded with the speed of a whirlwind. I made one more try to get enough breath to yell a warning to Marcus, but it wasn’t happening.

Marcus wasn’t stupid. The simple fact that Ed had shot me was warning enough. He lunged for the rifle on the four-wheeler with amazing speed, especially considering he had to be wondering what the fuck was going on.

But Ed already had his gun in his hand. I could see indecision sweep across his face, but in the next instant it was gone, replaced by rabid determination. He swung his arm around as Marcus’s hand closed on the rifle. Another shot slammed through the clearing, and for a split-second I thought Marcus had won and gotten his shot off first.

Then he crumpled to the ground with a hole in his forehead while Ed slowly lowered his gun.

I wanted to scream in horror, but I still couldn’t make much sound—just a couple of gurgles of blood, and not too much of that, either. I couldn’t feel my heart beating at all anymore. I was pretty far into being dead at this point. Those extra nine minutes worth of brains had been chewed through in seconds.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Marcus’s still form. Had I been wrong about him being a zombie? And, if he was, could a bullet to the head kill him? He wasn’t moving at all.

Ed let out a shaky breath. “God damn it.” Pain flashed over his face. “Damn it. It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”

I wanted to scream in rage.
Oh, gee, sorry I fucked up your intentions of killing him all nice and neatly.

He shifted his gaze to where I was lying then wiped a trembling hand over his face. “I know you’re not really dead. I only slowed you down.” A shudder crawled over him. “Ah, god . . . I liked you,” he said, voice rough. “You seemed so normal. Why’d you have to turn out to be a
goddamn monster!
” He let out an inarticulate scream of rage that seemed to be directed more at the heavens than at me, then he sagged and swiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. “Fucking zombies,” he muttered. “You motherfuckers take everything, don’t you. If I love it, you fucking take it.” He took a ragged breath and seemed to focus on me again. “Angel died in that wreck. I know you think you’re Angel, but she died.”