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“What? Brussel sprouts? In the freezer? Why the hell do we got brussel sprouts? I hate those things.”
“Yesh. Thassa point. Put bahg . . . on pash.”
“Put bag where? Angel, what the fuck’s going on?”
“Porsh.” Just a few more
miles left to go, but only if I could get him to understand me. “Bahg on porsh.” I focused everything I had on each word. “Lohck . . . door. Lohck me . . . awt.”
A beat of silence. “Shit. Brussel sprouts on the porch, and lock the door ’til you’re yourself again.”
I’d have wept if I had any tears. “Yesh.”
A rustling came through the line, then the closing of a door. “Okay, it’s done. Now get your ass home.”
A motorcycle whizzed past as I ended the call. Brains. Before I even realized I was moving, I opened my door and stuck one foot out, then froze as I fought the instinct that urged me to chase down my prey on foot. Shaking, I pulled my foot in, closed the door and locked it.
Maybe going home was a bad idea? But what choice did I have? My other options would take too long. If I didn’t do something about the hunger real damn soon, I was going to go full monster.
No.
My fingers felt like clumsy lumps of cold dough as I drew up a syringe of V12. I hesitated, breath wet and raspy. Two doses less than fifteen minutes apart. I’d never taken so much so quickly. I don’t have a choice. I’m not going to make it without a second dose. I stabbed the needle in, jammed the plunger. Within seconds, the hunger settled, and my breath eased. Okay, I got this.
For added insurance, I dug a Bayou Burger napkin out of the console, tore it in half, twisted the pieces and stuck them in my nostrils. A zombie won’t eat what a zombie can’t smell, right?
I tensed as headlights approached and prayed I was right about the nose plugs. The car whizzed past, and I relaxed as the chase instinct didn’t trigger. Paper boogies for the win.
Weird heat like an alcohol rush abruptly surged through me. Pain faded, and the black night outside lightened to eerie late twilight. Whirs and chirps of insects mixed with the distant huff of an eighteen-wheeler’s air brakes. A laugh built in my throat. I knew what this was. Zombie super-powers, high on overdrive. Aw, yeah. I can do anything. I gripped the steering wheel and gave it an experimental torqueing tug. It creaked, and I had no doubt I could break it if I wanted to. Yeah, baby. Grinning, I pulled back onto the highway.
Five miles down the road, the overdrive kicked me out of the airplane without a parachute. I swerved and barely managed to stay out of the ditch as pain returned with crushing force along with a bone-deep exhaustion.
Wonderful. Half a dozen minutes of kick all the ass, followed by the zombie hangover from hell.
My world narrowed to keeping it together enough to make it home. Eyes on the road, obey the speed limit, ignore passing cars. Try and distract myself by naming all the functions of organelles. Nucleus, chloroplast, ribosome, lysosome . . .
Home.
Home and Dad. Just a few more miles to go. Or light years. Felt like I’d been driving forever. Cars whizzed by, but I barely noticed them, thanks to the V12 and napkin-nose-plugs.
A couple dozen antique and classic cars filled the parking lot of Chicory Chick Coffee and Wings, along with twice that many people. Holding my breath, I punched through the thick cloud of brain scent. Didn’t fool the hunger. It sensed the drifting molecules and burst out of its restraints, surging up like an alligator gar ambushing a tasty duck. I let out an anguished scream and hit the gas. Home. Feed at home.
Home. I parked and ripped the napkin from my nose. Stumbled out of the car and sniffed the air, took in the scent. Brains. Hunger vibrated through me and dug sharp nails into every cell. Brains, in the house. A twitch of movement in the window. Prey. Mine. I lurched toward the house, snarled as the prey moved away. Up the steps and onto the porch. Brains. Cold brains. But in the house was a fresh brain. Yes. Want fresh. A door, closed. I hammered my fists on it, clawed and yowled. I smelled the fear of my prey, but the door stayed closed. Feed. Needed to feed. I turned back to the cold brains, ripped at the bag. Feed.
The frost raked my mouth, froze my gullet as I chewed and swallowed. Yes. Oh god, yes, that’s it.
The hunger settled down, content as a kitten full of milk. A shiver racked me as I sat on the porch and scraped out the last pieces of my emergency-only brain stash. Too close. That had been way too close.
“You better, baby?” Dad shouted through the door. Blood streaked the wood, as if rotting fingers had clawed at it.
“Yeah,” I called back. My voice still held a raspy edge, but my hands looked whole enough. “I’ll finish off the burrito in my fridge, and I’ll be good as new.” Well, except for my pointy body modification.
Dad opened the door with the chain on and met my eyes through the gap. “Y’look grey as a concrete slab.”
I sighed. “The bad part’s over. I promise.”
Apparently he believed me. He closed the door and took off the chain, then pulled it open long enough to drag me inside. His eyes widened at the sight of the crossbow bolt. “Jesus fucking Christ, Angel.” He gulped. “Sit. Goddamn. You need to sit. I’ll get the burrito. Holy fuck.”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said with a weak smile, but I went ahead and sat gingerly on the couch.
