She was in what appeared to be a hospital room: For one brief moment, she thought it might be another dream, but when she moved, the pain throughout her body proved it all too real.
She lay in a bed; white sheets with a pale yellow stain covering her legs and abdomen. Her street clothes were gone, replaced with a thin, open-backed hospital gown. An intravenous tube ran from her arm to a bottle dangling above her. A machine echoed her pulse, and another one whose purpose she didn't know, was silent.
She tried to sit up, and then sank back down. How had she gotten so weak? She felt as bad as she did when she'd gone cold turkey from heroin. She dimly remembered the doctor with the slaughterhouse body odor who'd tried to stick her. Apparently, he'd succeeded.
Clenching the bed rails, she tried again, forcing herself upright. She paused, exhausted from the effort. After a moments rest, she slid her legs over the side and rested her bare feet against the cold tile floor.
Her leg and arm ached. She studied her wounds. Somebody had fixed her up.
Then she remembered the dream. Martin had been there, and he'd showed her something. Something horrible.
'Gotta-gotta find ... Jim and Danny. Have to tell them.'
She yanked the tubes from her arm, and an alarm began to sound, soft but urgent.
Frankie stood up, swayed, and then regained her balance. She took one faltering step and then another.
'Got to ... warn them ...'
Dr. Maynard wiped gore on his lab coat, adjusted the tripod, and turned the camcorder on. It was pointed at the surgical table, on which the corpse of a once-pretty young blonde was tightly bound with Velcro straps. Her legs were parted wide and suspended in stirrups. The lips of her vagina were puffy and gray, and the hair around them had been recently shaved off. Her full breasts now sagged, and the nipples had turned black, as had her swollen tongue, dangling from her mouth like a piece of raw liver. She licked her peeling lips, revealing pale gums.
Each of her teeth had been pulled. Her digestive track and major organs had been removed, and the open cavity was wet and glistening. A diamond wedding ring had sunk into her sausage-like finger.
Her name had been Cindy. She'd worked as a receptionist for one of the law firms with an office inside Ramsey Towers. She'd died a week before, after choking on a piece of hard candy. Rather than destroying her brain before she could be reanimated, they'd tied up her corpse to use as research.
At least, that was the ruse that Maynard had fed to Stern, Bates, and the others.
'More questions,' she rasped, 'or do you wish to fuck me again?'
Maynard glanced guiltily at the camera, turned it off, rewound the tape, and then began recording over it.
'Oh, I see. I guess that will be our little secret.' The zombie laughed, writhing in its bonds. Its eyes and nose leaked gummy, yellow fluid.
Maynard raised his voice. 'After death, the subject functions like a living being. The stomach and other digestive organs have been removed, yet it still seeks nourishment, specifically in the form of living flesh.'
He illustrated this for the camera by pointing to the gaping hole in the creature's abdomen.
'I'm hungry,' the zombie verified, as if on cue. 'Just give me a little something.'
Maynard cleared his throat. 'The flesh that it eats does not pass through the digestive system. It is absorbed through an as yet unknown process.'
'You're very observant,' the creature snarled. 'Now feed me! Or better yet, release me.'
'None of that, I'm afraid,' Maynard said.
'I'll make it worth your while, Doctor,' the zombie purred, spreading her legs wider. 'I'll let you do things to me-things you've never done with a living woman. We can get rough, if you like.'
Maynard's cock stiffened, pressing against his soiled pants. The zombie saw it twitch and smiled.
'Like what you see? Isn't my swollen pussy pretty?'
He shot another nervous glance at the camcorder, and then continued.
'How does your kind convert food into energy?'
'Why should I tell you?'
'Because I'll feed you after you answer my questions.'
'You wouldn't understand. It's done on a sub-cellular level.'
'But how?'
'Magic. At least, that's what your kind would call it.'
'I don't believe in magic.'
'Of course you don't. You're a man of science and reason. Logic is your god. And that is why your kind will lose this war. Magic is the only way to stop us, and you have eradicated it from your lives. There are none among you who still remember the old ways. You thought that science would keep you safe from the dark, and as a result, you have lost the only weapons capable of destroying us.'
'Nonsense,' Maynard scoffed. 'Science is the key to stopping your kind. Not some superstitious bullshit that our ancestors learned in a cave.'
The creature stirred restlessly, parting her legs wider.
His hardening member jumped again. The zombie stared at the bulge in his crotch and licked her lips.
'I'm so hungry.' She sighed, exhaling fetid air from unused, rotting lungs. 'And I've answered your questions
