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I returned to Jacques only to learn that Dr. Nikas had finished with the samples Rachel delivered but was now absorbed in analyzing the stuff I’d brought.
“Fine,” I said, not bothering to hide my frustration. “I’ll be in the media room.”
“I’ll let him know,” Jacques replied, unruffled as always.
Grumpy and frustrated, I retrieved my school backpack from my car then made my way to the media room. Personally, I thought it should be called the living room since it looked and felt like one, with comfy sofas, recliners, an arm chair, and a gigantic flat screen TV.
Reg, Dr. Nikas’s other lab tech, snoozed in a recliner that looked a size too small for his long and lean frame. A half-full glass of brain smoothie sat on the table beside him, and a sheaf of lab printouts rested on his chest. His head was cocked toward one shoulder at a painful angle. I had a feeling he hadn’t meant to fall asleep.
“Hey, Reg?” I said softly.
He startled awake, sending papers sailing. “Angel. Damn.”
I dropped my backpack on the sofa and hurried to gather the printouts. “Sorry. I thought maybe you’d want a nudge awake.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Reg shoved the recliner footrest closed and sat up. “I have puh-lenty of work to do. My boss is a real hardass, y’know?”
I rolled my eyes and shoved the gathered papers into his hands. “Uh huh. Riiiight. Dr. Nikas is a certified meanie pants.”
Reg chuckled and ran his fingers through unruly red curls in a futile attempt to tame them. A few months back, he’d decided a buzz cut wasn’t his thing anymore and opted for more of a “shaggy poodle” style. I’d never tell him in a million years, but I preferred the curls simply because he was so tall and skinny the buzz cut had made him look a bit too much like a matchstick.
He downed the smoothie, stood, and stretched. “You know what we need around here? Cats.”
“Um.”
“Sure! We have a dog in the lab now. Would be cool to have a couple of cats to make things homey.”
“I’ve never had a cat.” I shrugged. “Or any pet, for that matter.”
“Oh man, Angel. You’re missing out! Nothing like kicking back with a good book and a cat on your lap.” A whisper of nostalgia touched his voice, but then he winked. “And one chewing on your hair. And one knocking breakables onto the floor just to watch them fall.”
I gave him a dubious look. “Hair chewing and property destruction. Sounds great. I’ve really been missing out.”
“Animals are the best.” He then whinnied, quacked, and croaked, all very convincingly.
When I stopped laughing, I said, “Why stop with a cat? Might as well bring in a bunny rabbit and a pony while we’re at it. Maybe an iguana.”
“Why the hell not?” he said with a mischievous sparkle in his eye then sauntered out, whistling “Old MacDonald.”
What a goofball. Sharp and dedicated and nice as hell, but still a goofball.
“Never change, Reg,” I murmured then settled on one of the sofas and pulled a composition notebook from my backpack. The required reading for my English Comp class was a pain in the butt, even with the mod Dr. Nikas gave me to help with my dyslexia. But the true bane of my existence—and a quarter of my grade—was the personal journal. We were supposed to write daily entries about the events of the day and how we felt about them, our personal struggles, hopes, dreams, accomplishments, fears, worries, blah blah blah. Everyone in the class agreed it was a dumb waste of time, but I was fairly certain no one else was forced to make up most of their journal entries. The professor was nice and all, but I knew damn well if I turned in a journal entry of, “Dear Diary, today I finally finished regrowing my body after my legs and arms fell off,” I would earn a swift F.
After a moment’s consideration, I started an entry about changing an old lady’s tire. Seriously heart-warming shit, and way more plausible than tending heads in crock pots, or fighting the mindless dead.
“Angel.” Dr. Nikas stood in the doorway, a German Shepherd by his side—Marla, a cadaver dog who’d been used to track zombies.
My heart dropped to my toes at Dr. Nikas’s troubled expression. “I caused it, didn’t I. The shambling zombie.”
He sat in the chair near me. Marla settled at his feet and rested her head atop his shoes. “You frame it as if you made a deliberate choice.” He lifted a hand to stop my protest. “I beg you not to give me some pap about how you chose to take the drugs that damaged your parasite. It happened. It’s past. That line of thinking is of benefit to no one.” A smile brushed across his face as I closed my mouth. “Analysis of the tissue samples you collected show Douglas Horton and Judd Siler had remarkably similar, ah, we’ll say ‘infections’ for lack of a better word, with the pathogen being an aberration of the normal zombie parasite. And, considering Mr. Horton was found in the same swamp where Mr. Siler met his end, it is safe to hypothesize that the disease transferred from Judd Siler’s remains to Mr. Horton by some means. And that you are, indeed, the source of the mutation.”
“I bit Judd once. How could that—” I straightened. “Wait. When I was a prisoner in Kristi Charish’s lab, after I turned Philip, and after she screwed him up with bad fake brains, he bit those two guards. And then they turned into screwed up zombies—fast—from just one bite. They weren’t shamblers, but they were unstable. Bitey.”
Dr. Nikas nodded. “His bite caused a rapid turning. Your bite on Judd Siler took over a day to make him turn. But you and Philip both had very damaged parasites at the times of those incidents. I have been seeking the mechanism for the aberration and accelerated effect of the mutation.” Frustration and weariness shadowed his eyes. “I continue to search for answers.”
He didn’t have to add without the benefit of another researcher. I found my voice. “Are Philip and me still dangerous that way?”
“No,” he said, firm and reassuring. “Your parasite has recovered to a significant degree, as has Philip’s. Every test I’ve conducted on you two indicates nothing out of the ordinary for one of our kind.”
