He flexed his hands, looking down at them. They were whole again. He looked almost normal. Disheveled and dirty, but now he simply looked like a bum, not the walking dead. “I’m hungry now,” he said in a snarl, then his gaze snapped to me, both eyes whole and clear. And blue. He probably wasn’t bad looking at all when he was whole.
“What are you?” I had to force the question out. I didn’t want to hear the answer. I didn’t want to know it was true.
His eyes narrowed. “Zombie,” he said, then gave a dry laugh that sounded like tearing paper. “You’re new.”
I gave him a shaky nod, nausea roiling in my gut. I was still lying on top of the stretcher, clinging tightly with the one hand. I didn’t trust him to not snatch for the bag again.
“I remember when I was new.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him. “Starving all the time. Like this.” Desperation glittered in his eyes. “You won’t share.”
“I will! I swear!” Panic surged as he reached for the bag again. “But not if you take the body.” I was babbling, struggling to get the words out to make him understand. “If I lose my job I won’t be able to help you.” And I’d be screwed too, but I knew he didn’t care about that.
A flicker of light in the distance seized my attention. “There’s a car coming,” I told him. “Please, go. Run! Come to the morgue and I swear, I’ll give you more.” I was crying now. “Please.” I didn’t know what else to say.
He jerked his head around, lip curling at the sight of headlights far down the highway. He let out a low hiss, and I could see the two survival instincts battling within him—his current, desperate need versus the fear of discovery.
Fear won, and a second later he spun and loped off into the swamp.
I wanted to sag in relief and curl up into a ball, but I wasn’t in the clear yet. I was a mess and I needed to do something about it. Being out of work because I was injured would be as bad as losing my job.
I pushed myself up to my knees and began frantically shoving body bags and other crap aside. My broken arm screamed in pain even through the dulling of my senses, but my panic was a lot louder. There’d been two bottles in the lunchbox. The other one had to be somewhere around here.
The approaching vehicle was close enough for me to hear the engine by the time I finally spied the second bottle wedged behind the driver’s seat. I grabbed it and repeated the trick of opening it with my teeth, chugged it back as fast as I could, shaking it to get the thick chunks at the bottom.
I sagged against the wall of the van and closed my eyes. A lovely warmth spread through me, coupled with the eerie sensation of my bones sliding back into place and the skin of my arm and forehead knitting back together. Then the sensation faded and a jab of hunger spiked through me.
I opened my eyes and let out a low sigh of relief. The bone wasn’t sticking out of my arm anymore, and I could sense that it was pretty much back together though not fully healed by a long stretch. And when I lifted my hand to my forehead, I could feel my skull through the break in the skin, but at least now it was only a gap of a few centimeters instead of several inches. I’d probably been hurt worse than I’d realized. One bottle wasn’t enough to deal with it all.
Might be better this way, I tried to convince myself. It would be pretty damn weird to be covered in blood if there wasn’t a scratch on me. I simply had to hope to god that I wouldn’t be forced into taking time off for medical leave. If I still had a job at all.
My stomach twisted again as I crawled over the body bag toward the back door. I almost laughed as the scent of the body inside it hit me, and I pushed back the brief urge to rip open the bag and take care of the deep craving. Yeah, that would be my usual method, doing the right thing and then screwing it all up anyway.
I made it out of the van just as the approaching pickup screeched to a stop. Two middle-aged men leaped out and came toward me at a run—the driver already on his cell phone, calling for help. I tried to stand, but my legs weren’t having any of it, and I ended up sitting on the ground by the van.
Glass and shards of broken mirror littered the pavement, echoing the night sky. I kept my eyes on the two men and didn’t look down. If I saw my reflection right now, I knew I’d see the same hunger I’d seen in the zombie.
The other zombie.
Chapter 11
“Angel. Angel? How many fingers am I holding up?”
Blue and red lights flickered across my vision, bouncing off the broken glass littering the highway and casting bizarre shadows as highway workers pulled the tree out of the road. The crackle of radios mixed with the buzz of conversation in an excited white noise that made it tough to concentrate on any one thing. The metal of the van was warm on my back, and I found myself pressing against it in a vain attempt to keep the slight chill in the air from seeping into me. Mist was beginning to form in the swamp, slowly creeping out onto the road to give the entire scene a surreal and far-too-spooky feel. I was just attacked by a zombie, I thought sourly. I don’t need the horror movie special effects, thank you very much.
I dragged my gaze away from the swamp and back to the paramedic crouched in front of me. “Three,” I replied. I was tempted to make a smartass remark but managed to resist. Even if I’d had a concussion right after the accident, I was fairly positive I didn’t have one now. And the last thing I needed was to be kept out of work for any longer than necessary.
The paramedic made a low noise in his throat and proceeded to shine an annoying light into my eyes. He looked familiar and a glance at his nametag confirmed it. Quinn. Oh, right. Ed Quinn. The paramedic who’d worked on me when I overdosed.
“We need to stop meeting like this,” I said, making myself give him a wry smile. I didn’t feel much like smiling, wryly or otherwise, but I figured I’d make as good a show as possible of being all right. “At least I have clothing on this time,” I added. Yeah, much better to make a joke out of that last horrible time. Not that I remembered any of it. Then again, that made it easier to laugh it off.
His eyes crinkled as he smiled. “I could say something really inappropriate here, but I’ll be good.” He peered at my forehead. “That cut doesn’t look very big, and it’s not bleeding anymore. If you’re worried about a scar they can probably throw a few stitches onto that in the ER.”
I already knew I didn’t need to worry about scars, but I gave him a small nod anyway.
He patted me lightly on the shoulder. “Looks like you got out of this one with only a couple of cuts. Good thing you were wearing your seatbelt.”
“Damn straight,” I said, and I didn’t have to fake the note of fervor in my voice. Maybe I wouldn’t have died, but I probably would have been too messed up to fight the zombie off.
Zombie. Holy shit. I managed to hold in the shudder of horror until Ed turned away. I didn’t need him thinking I was going into shock or anything like that. Though in a way I kinda felt like I was. Is that what I have to look forward to?