Page 90 of Grave Danger

“Dad?” Agatha said, having spotted the man within the cube as well. She started toward the back of the room. “Daddy?”

Within the cube, the man looked up. A Black man in his late fifties, he was clean shaven and had silver threads through his neatly trimmed hair. The scowl on his long face shifted to surprise when he realized people had entered the lab, and Demetrius recognized him as Agatha’s father, Llewelyn Tisdale, former director of GRUNT.

“Aggie?” Llewelyn got to his feet. He paused a moment, bracing himself on the desktop with his fingertips as he swayed slightly. When he had his balance, he moved up to the clear wall of the cube and pressed his hands against it as Agatha rushed up opposite him.

“What are you doing here?” Llewelyn asked. His voice came through speakers in the ceiling, allowing them all to hear him very clearly.

“We were at the cemetery and followed the creek,” Agatha said. “And we were followed by a bunch of zombies. Cody got bit!”

Agatha waved toward the examination table. Llewelyn jerked his head up to look in their direction with an anguished expression. He took them in for a few seconds, then returned his attention to Agatha and pressed closer against the clear wall. “Were you bit? Or scratched?”

“No. I’m fine. But my boyfriend got scratched, and a deputy was bit really bad. They’re at the hospital.” Agatha crossed her arms and gave him a hard look. “You did this, didn’t you? You caused all of this.”

Llewelyn pressed his forehead against the wall of the cube and closed his eyes. “Oh, Aggie. I’m so sorry.”

“I knew it! You’re back in this same damn lab, and you’re playing God again. And now look what you’ve done. The dead are getting up and walking around and attacking people. And people are dying again. Just like last time.”

Llewelyn’s expression crumpled and he squeezed his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry’s not enough!” Agatha shouted, then flung her hand out toward Cody. “Years ago you lied to me about Deloris, telling me she’d had to be put down when what you were really doing was using her as a guinea pig for your new drug. And now you’ve started some kind of insane zombie uprising. What are you going to do to help Cody? And Jugs? And the rest of the people in town?”

“I gave him the first injection,” Sam called.

Llewelyn opened his eyes and nodded to Sam, then looked at Agatha. A smile trembled on his lips a brief moment. “There’s a cure. Well, we’re pretty sure we have a cure. Sam has given Cody the first of ten doses.”

“Ten?” Demetrius said, but everyone ignored him as Llewelyn continued to speak.

“We’ve worked for days on this antidote. Things are looking good in our tests with it so far.”

“Is that why you’ve locked yourself inside that cube?” Agatha asked. “To keep yourself protected so you can work on fixing your fuck-up while the rest of us stay out here fighting for our lives?”

Llewelyn flinched as if she’d physically struck him, and lowered his chin to his chest.

Sam spoke up, raising his voice to carry across the room. “Actually, he locked himself in there to protect the rest of us.”

“Protect you?” Agatha frowned at Sam, then looked back at her father. “What’s that mean?”

“I was infected,” Llewelyn said. “One of the first in here. I was fortunate, though, because it didn’t act as quickly on me. So, I locked myself in here as a precaution, and I was able to continue my work. I didn’t realize just how quickly things would escalate. And, as it turns out, others inside the building had become infected without our knowledge. The situation was soon out of control. I’ve remained in here so we’d have a safe space inside this lab. I tested the antidote on myself, and so far, it’s working.” He let out a shaky breath and smiled at her. “I’m hopeful we can stop this before it gets much worse.”

“Too late,” Oliver said, and Dave elbowed him, causing Oliver to look up and shrug. “What? It is.”

“What’s that?” Llewelyn asked, looking between their group and Agatha. “I know you said some people had been infected, but I didn’t think it had escalated that much.”

“Yeah, Dad, it has,” Agatha said quietly. “There are a lot of zombies out. There. A lot. Maybe hundreds of them.”

“Hundreds?” Llewelyn took a few steps back from the wall. “Hundreds?” He looked over at Sam. “Is that right?”

“It’s spreading faster than we’d anticipated,” Sam said, then looked at Agatha. “And just so you know, your father’s not in charge of GRUNT any longer. None of this is your dad’s fault. He actually tried to warn people and prevent it from happening.”

“What exactly did happen?” Oliver asked.

“Some of the drug got into the drainage system by mistake and went out to the creek,” Sam said. “From there, it went downstream where it was absorbed into the soil and affected the bodies in the cemetery.”

“That’s why you were in that grave out at Buford Heights,” Demetrius said. “You were taking soil samples.”

Sam nodded. “And I was doing the same at Eternal Rest when you saw me again. When I got those samples back to the lab, I found the drug inside the groundwater, drawn up from the creek. But there was no trace of it out at Buford Heights because it’s on the other side of town from the creek.”

“That’s why the mayor and that old woman were the first ones,” Oliver said. “Their graves were closer to the creek.”