Sure enough, there were new files saved there.
She tapped the screen to open the first file and began reading. Tomorrow would arrive soon enough, and if she intended to venture outdoors to warn others about the breach, she needed to be as mentally prepared as possible.
The official reports confirmed what Max had already told her about the creatures but also gave her new insight into their capabilities and behaviors.
Continued inability to climb, swim, or use tools. Extremely limited, guttural speech, one official wrote.French, for reasons yet to be determined.
She hadn’t hallucinated that! Hooray!
Maybe a handler or scientist in close contact with them had hailed from France? She supposed she’d never know. All the compound’s employees had died long, long ago.
Subjects can go without sleep for several days at a time. Don’t seem to age past peak physical fitness. When injured, don’t appear to feel pain and barely bleed. All nonfatal wounds eventually heal, and creatures fight until moment of death. Only known ways to kill the subjects remain: (1) removing heart, (2) removing head, or (3) drowning. Suffocation alone is insufficient; water must be involved, and creatures must remain underwater for an extended time.
Hunt prey as a pack. Will not battle or consume creatures of their own generation, but will kill and consumethe brains of all others, including members of previous cohorts and their own offspring.
For Edie, that was by far the worst revelation. The zombies were intended to be a sustainable military resource, as the documents indicated, which meant scientists had designed them to reproduce and replace any brethren killed in battle. After that last, fatal tinkering with their DNA, though, reproduction no longer served to swell their ranks. Instead, in the absence of other food sources, it sated their hunger.
They had a very short gestation period, and they fed on the brains of their own zombie progeny. Edie was trying very, very hard not to picture that.
The most recent report ended crisply and coldly:
If the creature bites hard enough to draw blood but is interrupted before killing its victim—a rare occurrence—said victim begins exhibiting symptoms of transformation within ten minutes. No available cure. Victim must be put down for public safety.
A chill racked her body, and she shivered despite the blanket she’d tugged over her bare legs. Gods, she couldn’t even imagine the horror of being savaged by such a creature and miraculously surviving the experience—only to be euthanized like a rabid dog minutes later.
“Do you require more blankets?” At some point, Max had silently returned to the kitchen, where he was studying her with one hip resting against the island. “Humans have such an inferior range of acceptable temperatures.”
“No. Thank you,” she said. “I just…”
Just feel very scared and alone.
“I just need to get some sleep.” She tried to smile at him. “I’m fine.”
He watched her closely, and she shivered again, for an entirely different reason.
“Don’t watch the footage if you haven’t already,” he told her abruptly.
“What?”
He folded his arms over his chest, biceps stretching the sleeves of his Henley. “You have firsthand knowledge of how they move and attack, and the written reports will supply any other details you need to know.”
“I was saving the videos for last.” Putting off their eventual viewing, to be honest. Anxious that the filmed sequences would dredge up more memories from two decades ago, memories that were already far too close to the surface tonight. “You don’t think I need to watch them?”
“No.”
It was a firm, unequivocal answer, and she decided to accept it. With a couple of swipes, she closed the documents, then found herself returning his stare.
Her heart skittered under that heavy-lidded scrutiny, her skin blooming with heat, and she wondered if he could sense her involuntary reaction. Maybe even hear the increasingly rapid rush of blood in her veins.
Now that she knew he wasn’t in his early twenties and astoundingly obtuse, the mental barrier that had stopped her from ogling her neighbor seemed to have crumbled.
In the dimly lit distance, his eyes were obsidian newly forgedfrom molten earth, his hair a swirl of shadows and glinting gold, and her eyes traced the path her fingers wanted to follow. Through that thick hair, over that high cheekbone, along that stubble-shadowed jaw, down that strong neck, and over—
What was the weird shadow below the shoulder seam of his shirt?
“Come here,” she told him.
He exhaled heavily, nostrils flaring, but crossed the concrete expanse between them with slow, deliberate steps, only to halt inches from her knees. She reached out an arm and gently tapped just above the stain, which was now unmistakable in color.
