CHAPTER SIX

 

 

SHE AWOKE TO find hair obscuring her eyes. Reflexively she tried to brush the strands away from her face, and discovered that her hands were bound. Absently she wondered if she was restrained with her own cuffs, but then a low moan sounded nearby, and inquisitiveness was replaced by cold fear.

She had to shake her head to try and clear the hair, and was rewarded by a sharp pain between her eyes and a spasm of nausea. She managed to not throw up. The pain faded, leaving a dull ache.

If nothing else, at least her gums seemed to have stopped throbbing.

This was cold comfort as she stared across the room at the dead woman stood against the far wall. As if on cue the scar on her left forearm began to itch. Even after seven years Helen remembered what it felt like to have human teeth bite into your flesh.

She’d been on an elective in A&E that day, so she’d been at the forefront when the outbreak started, when the wounded began to come in. At first, there’d been rumours of animal bites. As a precaution, some bright spark started rummaging around for the hospital’s stocks of the rabies vaccine. When the news began filtering through about what was really happening nobody believed it, until the most badly wounded began to die... and then began to come back.

Helen had been part of a team working to save the life of a ten-year-old boy. He’d lost too much blood, though, and the registrar called it, told them all to take a few seconds to get their heads together, but that they had more injured to treat.

During those moments of contemplation the boy had sat bolt upright and screamed.

That was the worst thing about being bitten; he was just a bloody kid. That was the genesis of her decision to change careers. She decided she’d rather be carrying a gun than a stethoscope after that.

Helen had seen dead bodies—EMU was a university hospital after all—but a dead body that walked was something very different.

The woman was naked and made no attempt to cover herself. There was still debate in some circles as to whether a zombie was actually dead or not. Helen had no doubt. The woman’s skin was blue, mottled purple in places; most especially on the legs, where blood had pooled. Not all, though, because some plasma still circulated, though fuck knew how. It was hard to determine her age; somewhere in her twenties, Helen guessed. She’d been pretty once. She had blonde hair that cascaded lankly over bare shoulders, and wide, pale eyes.

Eyes that were staring straight at Helen.

Helen began to tremble. She could have told herself it was shock, and maybe to some extent it was.

She was pretty sure the dead woman couldn’t actually see her. The process of resurrection damaged the parietal lobe, which made it hard to focus on anything that stayed still, though no matter how eloquently the trainers put their argument, the notion that the best thing to do was stand still rather than run felt counterintuitive.

Still those lifeless eyes seemed to bore right through her. Helen told herself that if the dead woman could really see, she’d be in her face right now, probably chewing on her face.

This didn’t make her feel any better.

She noticed the rope wound around the zombie’s ankle and followed it back to where it was tied to a water pipe. She figured she was handcuffed to something similar.

She guessed she was still in the pub—a small function room, by the looks of it. She doubted she’d been out long. Even the dumbest criminals knew that the longer they kept her around, the more chance there was of being caught.

Right now they were probably discussing the best way of disposing of her. They’d probably already decided to kill her rather than just run for it. Assuming they really hadn’t had anything to do with Trinity’s death, this made a simplistic sort of sense. ‘A woman copper you say? Yeah, she came round and we told her all we knew. No, she didn’t say where she was heading off to. Sorry we can’t be more help.’

She had no doubt now that Ryan and Dean were nasty pieces of work. She didn’t know if it was zombie fighting or necro-prostitution they were into, but either way one scary truth held true: if you needed a zombie, the easiest way to get one was to make your own.

If it wasn’t for the chaperone locked around her left ankle she might already be dead, but the stay of execution was temporary. A few hours at best, time enough for them to cart her off into the countryside or a deserted warehouse on the other side of town where the CCTV coverage was sparse.

And after that? Well, the seedier parts of the internet were awash with the best ways of inflicting wounds that would kill slowly; they could be back here in time to open up before her heart flat-lined and her chaperone went off.

There’d be plenty of trace evidence linking her to The Serpent and The Rainbow, and by extension the brothers Dowd, but though she guessed they had smarts, she doubted they’d be clever enough to realise this, and if she told them—always assuming she got the chance—they’d just assume it was the desperate pleading of the condemned.

Which, of course, it would be.

She examined the room as subtly as she was able, turning her head only fractionally so as not to alert the zombie.

The walls were painted a greyish shade of magnolia. Blu-Tack and drawing pins were still fixed where they’d help up banners or balloons. There were four tables and perhaps two dozen chairs, most of which were pushed up against the double doors, blocking them. Helen had no idea where they led. There was a single door in the opposite wall between her and the dead woman.

A table sat squarely between her and the zombie and Helen could see her possessions atop it: her phone, warrant card, purse and car keys. The Beretta was conspicuous by its absence.

She glanced down. The carpet was the colour of marmalade. Amongst a thin layer of crumbs she saw several of her hairpins.

In the movies Helen would have been able to use one to pop her cuffs and, reunited with her phone, turn the tables. Trouble was, Helen knew it was impossible to pick a handcuff lock with anything so flimsy, especially a police issue handcuff lock.

She was coming to the unpleasant conclusion that there was only one possible way out of here, one way of calling for help.

She had to die.

Or at least appear to. Never taking her eyes off the zombie, she carefully shifted position, hooking the toe of her right shoe under the cuff of her left trouser leg. She heard a gasp from the other side of the room, the exhalation of dead lungs. The dead woman cocked her head to one side. Her eyes seemed to narrow as if to peer at her. It was almost comical.

Almost.

Helen had done enough for now. Bare skin now showed between the top of her sock and the hem of her jeans. Fixed to the side of her leg by a slender plastic bracelet was her chaperone, a flat cube of black plastic. Incredibly small and lightweight, yet incredibly sophisticated, it monitored her pulse at all times, and if that pulse should stop, its GPS tracker would send out an alert and an alarm would sound.

There were ways to simulate a lack of a pulse; the old rubber ball under the armpit trick would work just as well under a knee.

Shame rubber balls weren’t standard police issue really.

There was one other sure-fire way to set off a chaperone of course. It would still be tricky. The carpet was thick enough to soften any blow, and she doubted she’d be able to twist her body enough to kick her leg against the wall with any power; and anyway, chaperones were designed to take a fair bit of punishment. Helen was only glad the civil liberties lot had made such a fuss about subcutaneous chaperones, or she really would be up shit creek.

Helen looked at the table currently out of reach. The table legs looked sturdy enough. She looked at the zombie and wondered how long the rope was, wondered how tightly it was secured to her leg.

Then she wondered no more. The faded bite-mark on her arm started throbbing as if it knew what was coming, and then Helen started frantically flailing her legs, kicking them against the floor as the zombie charged towards her.