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I ducked his swipe and lunged at the tray of autopsy tools. My hand closed on a pair of scissors right before he smacked the tray and sent the contents flying.
Thunk.
Douglas staggered. Behind him, Allen stood with the fire extinguisher, poised to deliver another blow. Douglas pivoted with a wet growl and flung his arm up. Allen danced away barely in time. The back of Douglas’s head had a dent like the cabinet’s, but clearly it wasn’t enough to slow him down.
Like Judd. My mouth went dry. Judd Siler had turned into something horribly similar to this—and that was after I’d removed most of his brain for a desperately needed snack. But I’d left behind the medulla and most of the cerebellum—the parts that made everything work.
And then I’d defeated him by destroying those essential bits.
With a fierce shriek, I leaped onto Douglas’s back, wrapped an arm around his neck and my legs around his waist. Fist tight on the scissors, I wedged the point into the base of the dent in his skull. Jammed them in and down, hard. Douglas howled and arched his back, but I shoved the scissors deeper and sawed them in messy circles, as if mixing a really thick milkshake.
Douglas went slack, then crumpled, face down. Breathing hard, I released my death grip on him and clambered to my feet. Nick stood a couple of yards away, shoulders heaving and fire axe in hand.
Still brandishing the canister, Allen eyed the prone man warily. “Is he . . . neutralized?”
“God, I hope so,” I said. “But he will be for sure once we get the brain out. All of it.” I clenched and unclenched my hands, fighting the worry that threatened to swallow me. “Where was this guy found? Which swamp?”
“Upper Mudsucker Swamp,” Allen replied. “Northeast end, near Pauvre Bayou.” Questions crowded his eyes, but Nick spoke before he could voice them.
“What the hell do we do with him now?”
All three of us looked down at the caved-in skull with the scissors sticking out of the dent. We couldn’t simply get rid of the body. Not when he was supposed to be autopsied then sent to the funeral home.
“Maybe Dr. Leblanc will believe the damage happened in the swamp?” I offered weakly. “Post-mortem injuries?”
Nick sucked in a sharp breath. “Dr. Leblanc. He’s due back from court any minute now.”
Allen cursed and yanked the scissors free. “Do the pics. Fast. We’ll get him opened up. Angel, you need to get that brain out ASAP.”
Together, we wrestled Douglas onto the table. Nick grabbed the camera and took pictures as fast as humanly possible. The instant he finished, Allen started the Y-incision on the chest while I sliced through the scalp and peeled it away from the skull. Nick stowed the camera then hurried to get the room cleaned up so it wasn’t quite so obvious we’d battled a zombie.
Definitely a zombie. Except it wasn’t “my” kind of zombie. A shambler like Judd, I thought with a shiver and added “panic about the implications” at the top of my to-do list.
I took the bone saw to the skull, forcing myself to focus on the task at hand and not look at the clock. Or at Nick as he frantically cleaned up blood, shit, and scattered instruments.
“Samples,” I breathed. “Allen, I need samples. For Dr. Nikas.”
Dr. Ariston Nikas was the Tribe’s research scientist and the go-to person for all things weird. The ideal scenario would be to deliver the entire body to him so that he could use the resources in the zombie research lab to figure out what the hell had caused Douglas to shamble. But the family no doubt wanted to do the whole funeral thing and would probably notice the lack of a body, so tissue and blood samples would have to do.
Allen gave a curt nod. “Understood.”
A distant sound of a door cut through the air. “Hallway,” I croaked. We had less than a minute, even if Dr. Leblanc took his sweet time down the long corridor from the front of the building. I pulled the top of the skull off and tossed it onto the table then slipped a scalpel between brain and skull to slice through the brainstem. As I tipped the brain out into my hands, my gut dropped at the sight of the mangled cerebellum and medulla. No way would Dr. Leblanc believe a blow to the head had caused that damage.
Allen glanced at the brain as footsteps approached. “We’re fucked,” he muttered.
Behind me, the door opened. “Good afternoon,” Dr. Leblanc said.
Go big or go home, Angel. Faking a startle, I fumbled the brain and deliberately let it slip through my grasp to splat on the floor like a balloon full of Jell-O.
I whirled, wearing the best horrified expression I could pull off. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry, Dr. Leblanc!”
A grimace flitted across his face, but in the next instant it was replaced by his usual kind smile. “It’s all right, Angel. It’s not as if the cause of death is a mystery.” Before I knew it, he’d crossed to me and pulled me into his arms to give me an utterly lovely and heart-melting squeeze, clearly not caring about my gore-covered gloves. “Welcome back. You have no idea how happy I am to see you doing so well.”
Guilt tugged at me, but I mentally kicked it aside and let myself wallow in the wonderful embrace—as much as I could while holding my yucky hands away from him. Dr. Leblanc’s hug was as comforting as a warm cozy blanket on a cold day.
I gave him a smile as he released me. “Yep, I’m all better.”
“To my eternal delight,” he said. “Mono can be tough to recover from. Kudos for being young and healthy.”
