The Zombie Whisperer (Living With the Dead) (5 page)

“Wow, so many f-bombs, babe,” I said. “Nice. And Dave is right. How can military be okay?”

“They were here when we got here,” The Kid explained. “But they weren’t affiliated with anything anymore. The government abandoned them. They’re just survivors like us.”

I eyed the men, who were watching us now with interest. Yeah, they were survivors, but we’d encountered plenty of survivors with ulterior motives before. Cults, separatists, Nicole
and
Robbie, at different points… the list went on and on. So I wasn’t ready to just run up and start handing out the hugs.

“You sold us out before,” I said, looking from one of them to the other. “
Both
of you sold us out for various reasons. So how do I know we’re not going to go in there and find General Asshole waiting to take David away?”

Nicole’s gaze got all hurt, but Robbie seemed less emotional about the whole thing. “Selling you out was so six months ago,” he said with a shrug. “Live in the now.”

Dave rolled his eyes. “Encouraging.”

Nicole sighed. “If we’re selling you out, you’re already screwed, aren’t you?” she asked. “I mean, you’re stuck within the perimeter of the campus, behind a fence that’s patrolled by soldiers. You could run, but you wouldn’t get away.”

“This is not inspiring my trust, Nicole,” I said as my breath became short with just the images she was creating.

“I told you, we’re on your side, we’re not selling you out, we’re not working as part of some government conspiracy,” she continued. “And since you don’t exactly have a lot of other options, why don’t you just come inside and let me prove it to you?”

I shot Dave a look and for a minute we held eyes. All this awesome unspoken communication went between us and finally he shrugged. The shrug told me everything.

“Okay, why not?” I said, reaching out to thread my hand through the crook of his elbow.

We followed Nicole and The Kid up to the door. The two military guys didn’t make any moves. One actually smiled at us as we went through the door. A good sign, but I didn’t put my guard down.

The building still smelled like school. That dusty, sort of wet scent that filled lots of older Seattle buildings mixed with dust from chalk boards and musty books. Nicole led us through the hallways and down a flight of stairs to a big, heavy door. There was a desk beside it and a series of electrical locks next to it that had been busted out.

“Nice security system,” Dave muttered.

“Once upon a time, it was,” The Kid said as he pulled the door open and motioned us inside. “But it didn’t really matter, did it? They still all got slaughtered and zombie-fied before it was done.”

“Thanks, that’s great,” I said, sarcasm my refuge from the massive freak-out I was trying to hold in.

He laughed as he took us down another hallway, but this one was lit.

“Generators?” Dave asked.

The Kid nodded. “Yeah, they run all day, we shut them down at night except for a couple that run refrigerated units. To conserve resources, we have a shower schedule for the people on our team. We’ll put you guys on it, too.”

I frowned. In Montana, we’d never had to schedule showers. We had a great system for heating water, we could eat and shit and
whatever
when we felt like it without having to raise our hands and ask for permission.

This felt like camp life all over again. Only with machine gun-wielding soldiers. Of course, they hadn’t taken our guns away… yet. So that was something.

“Are you living in the university dorms?” I asked.

“No, they’re pretty far flung from this part of campus and it seems like a risk, so we converted the classrooms above with salvaged dorm furniture. The shower was an emergency unit here in the lab. We like to keep everyone close for the safety of our group.”

“Or for monitoring?” I asked, still not completely sure if I could trust anyone in the room but Dave.

The Kid smiled. “Sarah, you never change.”

He opened the door at the end of the hallway and revealed a huge laboratory. As he stepped in, his grin doubled. “And this is it.”

“This is what?” Dave asked, staring at the brightly lit room, the back labs we could see through huge windows, the bustling people who looked up as we entered, almost in awe of us.

“Well, it’s my lab,” The Kid explained. “But it’s also where it all began. This is the lab where they invented the virus. Seems only fair that it’s the lab where we wipe it out.”

I staggered as the blood rushed to my head.
This
was the very lab where the outbreak had started?

“Hey, you okay?” Dave asked as he grabbed for a chair from one of the desks in the lab. He pushed me into it gently. “Put your head between your knees and breathe until you don’t feel woozy anymore.”

I probably would have argued, except for that wanting to puke and pass out thing. After a few moments, both feelings passed and I sat up straighter.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “It’s just a lot to digest.”

It was more than that, but that was the easiest explanation at the moment. Dave patted my arm gently and looked around.

“So everyone is staring at us,” he said, loud enough that the lab could hear. “I guess… hi?”

I looked up and he was right, there were at least ten people in the lab and they were all staring. I slowly stood up, ready to fight if I had to.

“Yes, sorry, let me introduce you to some of our key players,” The Kid said, motioning us to follow him. “You’ll meet everyone eventually, but I think there are a few people you’ll especially want to see.”

We weaved our way through the lab toward a back room. When Robbie opened the door, my eyes went wide.

“Oh my God, Josh and Drea?” I burst out as I hurried toward our old friends from Phoenix. Drea enveloped me in a hug first as Josh shook hands with Dave.

When Drea let me go, she turned to The Kid with a smile and a very motherly hug that he responded to with no hesitation. “Great work, buddy. You said you’d get them and you did.”

“So you guys are all still together?” I said, rather stupidly, since it was pretty obvious.

“You said to watch out for The Kid and we did,” Josh said, ruffling the boy’s hair as a greeting. “When the opportunity came to head up to this lab and keep working on cure elements, we couldn’t say no.”

Josh had been a chemist in a previous life and I could see a spark in his eyes that said how excited he was about the work they were doing. Drea put her arm around him and for a moment my fears were assuaged. The two of them had always been good people. I couldn’t imagine they’d throw us under the bus without at least looking sheepish about it.

“So you guys feel like this is legit?” Dave asked.

Josh nodded. “It is. Robbie and I oversee the production of the different elements and the mixture. We have a lot of terrific, smart people working out there, people who have risked a lot to help us. I hope you two will join us.”

“What happens if we don’t?” Dave asked, wariness in his tone.

“Then you don’t…” Drea said with a sigh. “But it will hurt our cause.”

“I just don’t know,” I said under my breath, confusion mobbing me.

“Oh Sarah, always so jaded for someone with such spectacular breasts,” said a voice with a thick British accent behind us.

I staggered around to find our old rock and roll friend McCray standing in the doorway. He was still wearing leather and he still looked like a rock god, but his eyes were clear and he had a few extra pounds on him that told me he’d lost his supply of heroin at some point.

“McCray!” I cried as I hugged him. “Nicole didn’t say you were here.”

He glanced at our reporter friend with a wink. “No? How you wound me, love.”

She blushed and I stepped back in surprise. Ah… so the two of them were an…
item
. Interesting since Nicole had hardly been able to stand him when we traveled together not that long ago.

“Look, it’s a lot to take in, I know,” Nicole said, waving McCray off like she’d deal with him later. “And you’ve had a long flight, plus Sarah I know you’re not feeling so great. Why don’t we show you your rooms? You can rest tonight, meet a few more people, and talk about things. Tomorrow morning, when we have a full day to get started on our work, I think your minds will be clearer.”

Dave looked at me and I shrugged. “It can’t hurt.”

“Sure,” Dave agreed. “Let us absorb everything and we’ll start fresh tomorrow.”

McCray laughed as he draped an arm around Dave’s shoulders. “Excellent. Then come along, my little zombie friend. We’ll show you to your humble abode above stairs.”

Dave and I laughed as we let him lead us through the lab and up a couple flights of stairs to the old classrooms above, but there were still lingering doubts in my mind. Doubts I wasn’t sure would ever be erased.

#

Dave smoothed the sheets over the old dorm bed we’d been given and patted the flat surface for me to climb in. Instead, I sat down next to him to rest my head on his shoulder and for a moment we were quiet, even though I was pretty sure he had as many thoughts racing around in his head as I did mine.

“It’s like reunion central here, isn’t it?” he asked.

I sighed, lifting my head from his shoulder and lying down on the narrow mattress.

“Yeah, there is that. Doesn’t it seem weird that there are so many people we used to know, hang out with, fight next to in this one place?”

“While you were brushing your teeth, McCray was talking about that. He called us catalyst people. He said we’re the kind of couple who change the people we touch, so it makes sense that a lot of people we’ve met would all sort of find each other to work toward a goal.”

“Shit, that makes us sound like cult leaders,” I muttered as I flopped back on the pillow.

“Naw, we have experience with cult leaders, we’re much more awesome than that,” Dave teased. “Look, I’m willing to give them all the benefit of the doubt, at least for now, that what they’re selling us is really what they want. To cure zombieism. To use my…
thing
to make the world a better place.”

“Yeah, and like Nicole said, it isn’t like we have a ton of alternative choices. If they want to fuck us over, we’re a little bit trapped now.”

He rubbed his chin as he stared down at me. “So are you okay?”

I wrinkled my brow. “Um, yeah. Why?”

“You’ve just been a little more quiet than usual. Not my normal snarky Sarah. McCray has been lining up shots you would normally take all day long.”

I shifted. Here was an opening to tell him what was really bothering me. I opened my mouth to do it and… I just couldn’t. Not right now when everything else was so heavy and confusing and distracting.

“Do you really think we should be doing this?”

“Doing what? Staying in this room together?” he teased. “We
are
married Sarah. And when a man and a woman love each other very much-”

I swatted his arm gently. “You know what I mean, ass-hat. Should we be here in Seattle, working on something so dangerous,
whatever
the motives of our friends turn out to be?”

He stared at me and the teasing in his eyes faded. “Since when are you afraid of danger, Supergirl?”

“You already almost died
and
got kidnapped playing a part in this whole find-the-cure pyramid scheme we’ve got going here. I don’t know if I’d call it fear, I just don’t want to risk losing everything again. You haven’t had that happen to you yet, you don’t know what a number it plays on you.”

“
Everything
is you and me,” he said as he ignored the other bed and took a spot on the narrow mattress beside me. “Just you and me, right? For better or worse. We’re not going to lose that, I can promise you.”

“But you can’t promise it, Dave,” I said softly. “You can promise we’re going to love each other and I believe it. But you can’t promise you’re going to be okay anymore.”

He touched my chin. “I promise you all that. And I keep my promises.”

He smiled and then he closed his eyes, not even waiting for my response. I lay there for a while, listening to his breath going only out not in, and only once every so often. Zombie Breath, I called it.

“David?” I whispered.

But he was already asleep.

Chapter Five

Go with the flow. There’s a lot you won’t see coming when it comes to zombies.

Morning came just as early as always, even though our world had changed, once again. I guess we should have been used to it, but I wasn’t really. I felt discombobulated, sick, and for the first time in a long time, like I just wanted to wake up and have things feel normal again. Only I wasn’t sure what normal was anymore.

Dave, on the other hand, seemed to thrive on the new reality. He’d been up before the alarm went off and downstairs in the lab while I was still muttering and swearing in bed. Morning people were even worse when they had a touch of zombie in them.

I pushed through the doors into the main lab area. A few people lifted their heads, there were some nervous smiles (I guess people did that to the wife of the Big Zombie), but then it was business as usual.

Dave poked his head out from one of the back rooms and grinned. “Hey, there you are!”