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First, I found out how Ed came to be there with Marcus and Pietro. It was simple, really. After Ed got my dad to his little safe house in the woods, he went straight to Pietro and said, “You fucking owe me.” And, yes, he used those exact words. To his credit, Pietro did agree that yes, he did fucking owe Ed.
I held back on saying the same damn thing to Pietro. I could tell by the way he looked and acted around me that he was fully aware of that fact. It simply remained to be seen how much he’d truly known about, and what he intended to do about it. And what I intended to do about it, for that matter.
I told them what had happened to me, how I’d been forced to turn Philip into a zombie and how the sweet-faced Aaron had died. Told them how Ed’s plan had paid off, and how I’d escaped. Also told them what I’d seen—Philip rotting far faster than he should have, and the two guards who’d appeared to be turned by just a couple of bites. And, finally, told them that Kristi and her pet pseudo-zombies had escaped and were now dust in the wind.
No one looked happy about any of that.
As for the rest, Pietro explained that Dr. Charish had been good friends with the Quinns as well as being Dr. Quinn’s partner in their neurology practice. After the pair had died, Kristi Charish had taken possession of all of Dr. Quinn’s notes and research, some of which dealt with theories of how a “zombie” parasite could operate. Curious as to why on earth Dr. Quinn would have been pursuing such a subject, she broke into the Quinn’s residence before their possessions could be packed up, and stole or copied as many notes and papers as she could find. Among the stolen papers was a notebook of rambling entries written by Ed’s dad, and under any other circumstance, Dr. Charish would have likely dismissed it as a rather amateurish attempt at writing fiction. But paired with everything else she found, as well as the circumstances of their death…
Pietro gave a heavy sigh. “Kristi is not a stupid woman. She initiated a romance with me, and eventually ‘discovered’ that the zombies were real.”
“Which she’d suspected the whole time,” Marcus said, frowning. “That was merely a way for her to confirm and get the inside scoop.”
“Precisely,” Pietro said, mouth turned down in a grave curve. “And even when the romance fizzled, she made sure to remain close to me. We were friends, or so I foolishly believed.”
“Why didn’t you have Dr. Charish do the fake brain research?” I asked him. “Why Sofia?”
A sardonic smile touched his mouth. “I did. But none of Kristi’s attempts worked, and I eventually banned any further experimentation on any of the zombies within our faction.”
“And this was before I came along,” I said, super sweetly, “so you didn’t have a convenient zombie you wanted to get rid of to throw her way.”
He flushed, shoulders slumping. “I swear to you, I thought the worst that might happen would be that you’d feel sick.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said. I didn’t buy that for a second, because otherwise why not allow any of his other zombies to be guinea pigs? But I wasn’t going to pursue it right now. I had other shit to take care of first. “Please, go on,” I told him.
He didn’t look at me, which was probably a very good idea on his part. “Sofia was a brilliant girl,” he continued, “and came up with a protocol that would allow her to test her formulations without risking any ‘living’ zombies. About six months ago, she told me she was close to a breakthrough. I’m confident that, given a bit more time, she would have perfected it. She was meticulous. Did not wish to cut any corners or take undue risks.”
“Six months ago was when I started getting mystery packages in the mail,” Ed said, expression bleak.
“Exactly,” I said. “I think that the darling Dr. Kristi Charish has had plans for the zombies for quite some time. But it all depended on being able to develop a dependable and plentiful food source.”
“You mean making super soldiers?” Ed asked. “She’d worked on enough government grants to know who to go to with her idea. But, of course, first she had to prove she wasn’t totally full of shit.”
I leaned forward, tapped the table. “I bet she told them she had something that worked. She jumped the gun, and then got impatient when Sofia was taking her sweet time. So she copied Sofia’s research, got Ed to grab some zombie heads for her to experiment on, and told the government dweebs she was good to go.”
It was Ed’s turn to flush in shame, but I reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Dude. She’s a world-class manipulator.”
“I know,” he said in a low voice. “But I’ll never forget how close I came to killing the two of you.”
“Just means you have to buy my beer until the end of time,” Marcus said with a grin.
Ed laughed weakly. “Sounds more than fair.”
“But why did she want only the heads and not the whole zombie?” I asked.
“She didn’t have the funding, support, or facility to house captive zombies,” Pietro stated. “To store heads, all she needed was a cooler. And, at the time, the heads—and brains—were all she required for her research.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “Makes sense.” I cocked my head. “But we can’t forget that the darling Doctor Charish is on the loose now and god-only-knows where with live zombies of her own.”
“I have many connections,” Pietro stated. “She will not slip my net.”
“Oh, really?” I retorted. “She worked under your nose for how long? Pardon me if I don’t trust your ‘net.’”
Pietro grimaced and didn’t respond. Ha! Point to Angel.
“Okay,” I said. “So she got the heads and regrew at least one zombie that we know of using the fake brains.” I looked at Marcus. “By the way, dude, I think it’s insanely cool that it’s possible to do that.”
“I never knew it was,” he admitted. “It’s probably never been tried before because of the huge amount of brains it no doubt takes.”
