“I wonder how that happened,” Kristi said as if she wasn’t wondering at all. “Come on, Angel. Hop to it. We have testing to do.”
Chapter 27
“There are twenty-one patients,” Kristi told me as she headed toward cot one, where Fritz waited with her briefcase. “Each will receive a packet.” She lowered her voice. “Six packets contain a proprietary blend of ProSwoleGel and brains. One is pure brains. And the rest, unadulterated ProSwoleGel. You will administer them, because you can’t get infected.”
She was only testing the brain-food on a few of the patients, yet feeding all of them, not only to have a control group, but also to muddy the waters if anything odd happened with the test subjects. Since they all supposedly received the same food, any bad outcome would be considered an isolated incident, and certainly not the fault of a well-known nutritional supplement.
At patient one’s cot, I tugged on gloves for the sake of appearance. “How did you choose who gets what?”
Kristi retrieved her tablet from the briefcase Fritz held. “All you need to do is feed the patients the packets I give you. Let me worry about the rest.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “It’s not a complicated question, and I’m not feeding anyone anything until you give me a satisfactory answer.”
“No need to make a scene.” She glanced around as if afraid someone would notice my grievous insubordination. “I selected two males, two females, one of the twins, and the youngest. Satisfied?”
I shrugged. “It’ll do.” For now.
Kristi consulted her tablet. “Cot one gets packet eight.”
Fritz dug around in the briefcase then passed me a packet of ProSwoleGel with “8” written on it in permanent marker.
As far as I could tell, it was the standard commercial ProSwoleGel packaging, similar to squeeze yogurt. I tore off the top, and the aroma of peaches with a hint of vanilla floated up, but not a whiff of brains.
Patient one was a thirty-something woman wearing a face shield, her once-manicured nails ragged and broken to the quick. As I crouched beside the cot, she yanked against the restraints and growled low. I murmured softly, telling her it was going to be okay and we were working to find a cure. The words themselves probably didn’t help, but I hoped my tone might.
Gingerly, I lifted off the face shield, ready to pull back if she snapped. But she simply bared her teeth, cloudy eyes fixed on me.
“Braaaains.”
“Well, I have some reeeeally nice protein gel for you.” I held the packet close to her mouth, gave it a quick squeeze when she bit at it. A good dollop of the goopy gel landed on her tongue, and she noisily smacked and swallowed it down.
“Braaaains!”
It took only three more squeezes to get the rest of it into her, though it didn’t seem to satisfy her hunger at all. Not surprising since I suspected she really wanted actual brains, and I knew all too well how sucktastic brain hunger was.
While Kristi made notes on the tablet, I replaced the face shield, then we moved on to the next cot. Patients two, three, and four were also picked to receive plain old protein gel, judging by the scent. Two and three were moaning “hungry” and downed their whole packet, but four didn’t say anything and wouldn’t take the protein gel. Connor hadn’t ever said “hungry,” either. Maybe if he had, he’d have taken brains? But it wouldn’t have made any difference. Not with a deadly tranq in his ear.
Though patients lunged and snapped at the medical workers, not a single one of them showed the slightest aggression toward me. Odd, yet . . . not. With every cot, my drive, my need to find a cure increased, as if these were people I’d known my entire life. People who needed my protection and were deeply important to me.
A chorus of Braaaains Braaaaaaaaains Braains followed me to patient five: Rucker Twin One from the bowling alley. He lay on an extra-wide, extra-long cot, yanking non-stop against his restraints.
“Armell Rucker,” I said in a soothing voice. “It’s gonna be all right.” He wasn’t wearing a face shield, which allowed me to see his rictus grin relax as I spoke. In my periphery, I saw Kyle watching from several cots away.
“Packet one,” Kristi said.
This time, when I ripped off the top, the lovely scent of pure brains filled my nose. Not as tempting as fresh, warm brains straight out of a skull, but delectable nonetheless.
Armell’s eyes stretched wide. “Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaains.”
“Yep, some good old protein gel for you.” I jerked back as he snapped at the packet. “Easy there, darlin’. This is some good stuff, but you have to take it slow.”
Or not. When he opened his mouth to let out a phlegmy growl, I seized the opportunity and squirted the whole packet in. Tongue working, he swallowed the brains down with a gulp, growl fading to a low moan that sounded way too much like pleasure. Eyes already clearer, his head lolled as he breathed out, “Braaaaaaains,” in a long sigh, with an expression of pure shambler bliss on his face.
Pleased, I moved on to Armell’s twin, Arkell Rucker. He took regular protein gel in the same no fuss, non-bitey manner as the first three, though with less satisfaction, to judge by his piteous moans.
Cots seven and eight were empty, so we proceeded to the next row for patient nine, who looked enough like Dr. Leblanc to make my heart lurch uncomfortably before I realized it wasn’t him. When I opened his packet, I had no doubt it was the gel-brain blend. The concoction smelled of proteiny vanilla brains along with a subtle pungent quality, like dirty socks in a laundry basket. Not very appetizing, but then again I’d made some godawful mixtures in the past. Like the time I tried to make brain sushi. Or the disastrous guacamole incident.
Nine ate the mixture just fine, but then kept sticking his tongue out, as if he was trying to get rid of the taste. Different. I sniffed the packet and was about to take a tiny lick when Kristi snatched it from my hand.