“Why did you want to know where the hunter was found?” Allen asked, watching me closely. “Do you have a theory about why this guy shambled?”
I hesitated, torn about how much to share. Screw it. They needed to know. They were allies, right? “More like a hypothesis. Y’all remember Judd Siler?”
“His face was all over the news right after Mardi Gras,” Nick said. “Wanted for murder and kidnapping. Big manhunt, but he’s still at large.”
“Well, they ain’t gonna find him,” I said, “’cause he’s dead. Twice. He tried to kill me out by Lock Three, and I bit him—just a regular old bite on his arm. The next day, west of Mudsucker Swamp, he attacked me and ended up getting shot dead. Not by me,” I hurried to add. “I, uh, needed the fuel, so I busted his skull and ate his cerebrum. But later that night he came after me as a shambler—even though he was missing the top of his head. I had to rip out his cerebellum and medulla to kill him for real.”
Nick’s throat worked. “That’s how you knew to attack the medulla.”
“It made the most sense.” I grimaced and rubbed the back of my neck. “Thing is, I left Judd’s body deep in the swamp. So if an alligator or three snacked on him . . . I dunno, maybe they turned zombie, too, and a couple of them chomped our guy here.”
Allen stared at me. “That’s ludicrous.”
I threw up my hands. “The whole thing is insane! But what if there are zombie gators out in the swamp? What if there are more shambly-zombies out there? Here I am, trying to work out how my zombies can safely come out of hiding and go public, but if a whole bunch of . . . of shamblers start showing up, that’s going to fuck over the real zombies!”
Nick and Allen exchanged an oddly significant glance.
My eyes narrowed in a glare. “What?”
“Allen and my dad and I have been talking about this going public stuff,” Nick said. “We agreed that you can’t let the world know zombies are real. Even if there wasn’t a shambler complication.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “We are not going to stay in hiding forever.”
“Not forever. You just can’t reveal yourselves anytime soon. There are serious drawbacks to coming out.”
“I know. We’ll have all sorts of people deciding to become zombie hunters, and—”
“No,” Nick interrupted. “I mean, yes, you’ll have amateur zombie hunters. Maybe even military. But more importantly, your legitimate brain sources will dry up.”
“I know,” I said then smiled. “And I was about to say that. Trust me, I had a lot of down time to think about it. It’s not like we need blood, where people can donate some and still live. To donate a brain to my dinner, that person pretty much has to be dead. And since no one wants to worry that Uncle Tommy might get eaten, the instant the news hits that brain-eaters are real, every morgue and funeral home will start keeping an eagle eye on each brain that comes through their door.”
Nick’s forehead puckered. “Exactly. So how can you still be thinking of going public?”
“Because of you guys. And Marcus.”
Allen and Nick took on identical looks of confusion.
“What did we do?” Allen asked cautiously.
“You’re human,” I said, “and you don’t think all zombies are monsters that need to be destroyed. Human allies will make a huge difference. Like how Nick and his dad helped me keep zombies from being exposed, and how you skimmed brains for me and told Dr. Nikas about the goule gris salve.” Allen had stumbled upon the secret world of zombies during a medical aid rotation in the Central African Republic. His disclosure of the components for a zombie-only wound salve had triggered new developments in Dr. Nikas’s research. “We still need to figure out more ways to reduce our need for real brains, but it’s a humongous start.”
“All right,” Allen said. “What did Marcus do?”
“He inherited a chain of funeral homes,” I said. “Okay, so they were already zombie-owned, but my point is we can safeguard some of those brain sources. Maybe get more allies in the morgues.” I wrinkled my nose. “But it’ll take time, and we need to safeguard those sources before the general public gets freaked out by a shambling zombie horde.”
“Let’s deal with the problems we know of,” Allen said. “What samples does Dr. Nikas need? Better get them now while we can.”
“I’ll text you the—” I stopped as Allen’s phone buzzed.
He heaved a sigh as he read the message. “Crappy timing. Body up in Bideau. Possible heart attack. Texting the address to you both now. Don’t worry, Angel. I’ll take care of getting the samples.”
I thanked him fervently and forwarded the list to him. It would take a lot longer for Allen to do it on his own, but he didn’t seem at all put out.
Because he knows how important this is, I realized as I followed Nick out to the parking lot. Allen was an ally. Maybe even a friend?
Nick peeled off toward the Durango and I climbed into the van, snickering to myself. Never thought I’d see the day I was friendly with Allen Prejean, much less consider him a possible friend. What next? A rain of puppies? Dr. Angel Crawford?
With a snort for the ridiculous mental images, I plugged the address into my GPS and left to get a corpse.