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I didn’t respond and he didn’t wait for one. He left with the guards, leaving me standing naked and shaking in the middle of the white room.
Chapter 25
I finally forced myself to shower and change into the t-shirt and sweat pants that had been left for me, knowing that if I didn’t, McKinney would come back and do it for me, in as horrible and humiliating a way as possible. After that I slept for awhile—no idea how long—and woke up at the sound of the door opening. I didn’t move except to open my eyes and see a guard step in and set a tray down on the floor. I stayed where I was on the bed until he left and closed the door, and only then kicked the blanket off to see what had been left for me.
The tray was a plastic cafeteria tray that looked like it had been purchased at a public school garage sale. For that matter the food looked like it as well—rubbery pizza, lukewarm chocolate milk, and green beans swimming in an oily liquid dotted with something that was probably supposed to be bacon or ham. And—to my utter shock—brains as well. Two neat slices, like a couple of pieces of pound cake. I gave them a dubious sniff, but as far as I could tell they were the real thing.
I attended to some necessary bodily functions, then picked up the tray and brought it over to the narrow bed since I didn’t feel like sitting on the floor to eat.
I ate everything, including the nasty green beans, since I figured my parasite needed to save its efforts for other stuff instead of having to give me a boost because I was malnourished.
The door opened as soon as I took my last bite, confirming my suspicion that I was under constant surveillance. McKinney stood in the doorway with two other guards behind him. I couldn’t tell if they were the same ones who’d watched me get strip-searched earlier. They all looked the same to me. I need to pay attention to this stuff though, I told myself. If I ever got the chance to make a break for it, knowing the number of people I was up against would prove pretty darn useful.
“Let’s go,” he snapped.
I stood up, silently followed him out. I got a good hard look at the guards and did my best to memorize details about them. One had acne scars and a sharp cleft in his chin. The other had oddly perfect eyebrows, and I suspected that he had them shaped.
I wasn’t at NuQuesCor. That much I could figure out. Even with the smell of new paint, it was tough to disguise the fact that this was an old building. It also didn’t feel like it was very big. The hallway ended at a heavy door about thirty feet to my right, dead-ended at about the same distance to my left, and I thought I counted eight doors along its length. Not that I had much time to count, since we were only going across the hall.
McKinney gestured me in to the open door across from mine. I entered to see…a completely empty room. White walls and tile floors, with the same faint new paint smell over old grime. And only one coat of paint to judge by the thinner patches where nebulous patterns of graffiti peeked through. Another bathroom, this time with outlines of urinals on the wall—which reinforced my suspicion that this had once been a public place. There was no toilet, shower, or bed in here. Instead, one wall was almost completely filled with a big-ass window. They weren’t even bothering with two-way mirrors or any shit like that. Nope, apparently these people couldn’t care less that I knew they were watching. I glanced around, unsurprised to see surveillance cameras in every corner of the room. Whatever was about to happen, they intended to record it thoroughly.
Behind the window was a small room—a former office, perhaps?—with two long tables covered in computer equipment. Two men in guard outfits sat at one table, eyes shifting between their monitors and me. Behind the other stood two people. I didn’t recognize the first one, a stocky middle-aged man wearing a dark blue suit and a dubious expression.
But I recognized the other, even though we’d never officially met.
“Hi, Doctor Charish,” I said, giving her a tight smile as I fought to hold onto my ragged composure. “Did you kill Sofia?” Sure, McKinney might have been able to go straight from the failed ambush to Sofia’s house, but it made more sense that he had someone else working with him that night.
Dr. Charish leaned forward and touched a button in front of her. “Why, yes. Yes, I did.” Her voice came from a speaker above the window, yet I could also hear it, muffled, through the glass. That glass was thick, but it wasn’t bulletproof-thick. Was it thick enough to keep out a pissed-off zombie? I sure as hell wanted to find out.
“Why? Because she was playing both sides and working with Kang?” I shook my head, baffled. That didn’t make any sense.
The woman smiled. “No. Although, yes, she was indeed briefly involved in a rather pathetic series of talks with Kang regarding her pseudo-brain formulation. She always was too altruistic for her own good. But that, of course, ended when Kang died.”
Sudden understanding swept through me. Now Sofia’s reactions over at Marcus’s house made sense. Sofia had no intention of giving Pietro a monopoly on the fake brains, so she approached Kang to let him know he wouldn’t be cut out. But then Kang was killed, and not long after that it looked as if Zeke—a zombie—had tried to sneak into the lab. No wonder she was freaking out, thinking she was at the heart of some sort of conflict between zombie factions. I was beginning to wonder whether there really were any zombie “factions” at all, at least not in the way that Pietro made it out to be. Perhaps Kang had been the de facto “leader” of the zombies who bought brains from him, but there was no way he had as much influence and power as Pietro.
“So why kill her?” I asked.
“Sofia suspected that I had a pet project of my own.” She made a sweeping gesture around her. “And I knew that once she heard you’d been attacked, she’d go tattling to Pietro.” She nodded toward McKinney. “That being said, we need to get started.”
Still baffled and off-balance, I turned as another man walked in. The two guards left, leaving just me, McKinney, and this new guy in the room. The exiting guards pulled the door closed, and a shiver ran over me as I heard it lock from the outside.
The newcomer looked like he was in his late twenties, blond and blue-eyed, with a short haircut and muscular build to match the other guards here. He had on a simple white t-shirt and grey sweat pants like mine—though obviously much bigger—and he held himself so stiffly that I had a feeling he was holding down fear by the sheer force of his will. Fear of me? What the hell was going on?
I jerked as a beep sounded in the room. “Now recording contagion series one point one,” Dr. Charish said.
“Angel, this is Philip,” McKinney said. “He volunteered for this study.
Baffled and wary, I gave Philip an awkward wave. “Um, hey, Philip.”
He gave me a tight smile and short nod in response.
“And now, Angel, if you would be so kind,” McKinney said, “please turn Philip here into a zombie.”
I could only blink at him stupidly for several seconds. “Wait, what?” I said once I found my voice. “I can’t do that! I’ve never done that before!”
“I suggest you figure out how,” McKinney said, tone mild.
I looked in horror to Philip. “You volunteered for this? To become a zombie?”
