Waking Up Dead

days. Yeah, he was weird, and yeah, a little bit maniacal, but she got him—just as he got her.

“Yeah?”

“You know I’d never hurt you, don’t you?” he asked, and his gaze was intense.

“Of course I do. I’d kick your ass.”

Sebastian grinned. “I don’t just mean because of the fact that you can lay me out. I mean because we’re friends and I count on your help here.”

“I know, Seb.” She patted his hand. “We’re all good, and I do believe in what we’re doing here. I’m proud to be part of it, to have something useful to do.” She paused for a minute, looking over Two-h-ee again. He was leaking pus now from its mouth and nose and she resolved to flip Sebastian the finger if he dared suggest that cleaning that shit up was part of her job. “You know it’s weird. I used to hate them, still do, if truth be told. It’s hard to get over the things we’ve done and seen in the last two years, you know?”

“I know,” Sebastian replied. “Believe me, seeing my colleagues eaten was nothing I ever want to live through again. There was this one girl, we were making our way here…” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Point is,” Jackson said after a moment. “That knowing they’re not dead, that they’re still people, changes things a little. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still kill any fuckers that come my way, but it makes you think a little different.”

“Yeah, it changes things.”

Their conversation was halted as Luke and Pete came through the door. They held the redheaded zombie by her arms and legs and Sebastian hurried forward to help them move her onto the table. Jackson joined them and together they began to strap her down.

“Quick, quick,” Sebastian said, as he pulled one of the ropes. “She’s starting to wake up, and we do not want those teeth anywhere near us.”

Luke looked up. “It is the bite that does it, then.”

The doctor nodded. “The virus lives in the saliva, not the pus or blood. I don’t quite know why that is the case, because feasibly speaking, it should travel in the other fluids.”

“I’ve been bit,” Luke said slowly.

“Doesn’t infect everyone either,” Sebastian said. “Again, I don’t know why. But then no virus does. Even Ebola, back in the day, didn’t.”

“I used to coat the wounds with whiskey,” Luke added and Sebastian laughed.

“Wouldn’t have made any difference, and sometimes one bite will do it while another won’t. It just depends.”

Jackson cuffed the redheaded zombie’s hands in place with a click. She, like Two-h-ee, was now spread on the table, and Jackson frowned as she imagined what they’d be doing to the zombie this time tomorrow. Smothering her perhaps? Luke finished tightening the ropes and took a step back before casting her a smile.

“That wasn’t as bad as I imagined.”

It awoke then, and not slowly or muggily, but in an instant and shot forward. The various restraints held the zombie back but it howled and snapped its teeth. Pus dripped from its lips and pooled on its grimy chest. The smell was suddenly overpowering and Jackson took a step back.

“Just in time by the looks of it,” Pete said. “Bitch is hungry.”

And she was at that, the look in its eyes was very familiar to Jackson. Hunger combined with calculating. It wanted to eat them all, and Jackson wondered what was going through the zombie’s mind. How much could it actually think? Did it even know they were people, or did nothing like that remain? More to the point, what was with the fucking smell? She turned to Two-h-ee and noticed that his pus pool was now leaking onto the surrounding flooring of the cage. She was so not cleaning that up.

“We should get moving,” Luke said and he stepped around the table to run a hand up and down her back. Jackson leaned into the contact and was surprised to feel ever so slightly cheered by the thoughts of crawling back into a warm bed. “Let’s not push our luck, eh?” he added.

A smile shot between them. Jackson’s stomach clenched. Distance and problems aside, Luke was just so damn hot. It hit her like that at times, shocking her a little, and she was reminded of the moment they had met, when he’d pulled her into the pool room and she’d practically drooled at the fine specimen of masculinity he had presented.

“Yeah—”

The sound of footsteps filled the room and they all turned to see Jay come through the door. He was clearly out of breath, sweat beads obvious across his buzz cut. Jackson took one look at him and felt anticipation disappear, replaced with adrenaline. It zinged through her veins, clear and immediate.

“What is it?” she asked stepping forward, breaking the contact with Luke.

“There’s…” Jay pulled in a ragged breath and pointed to the outer door of the shack. “We need to leave now.”

“Leave?” Sebastian looked up from whatever the hell he was messing around with next to the zombie. “We haven’t finished yet. Might as well get rid of Two-h-ee while we’re here.”

“No,” Jay gasped. “Now. They’re coming.” And Jackson could see fear in his eyes, and that shot something through her, because the big, silent man didn’t seem like he would be the type to feel that. She’d pegged him as one of those who were past that point.

“What the fuck’s going on?” Luke asked. “What did you see? How many are there? Are they coming through the ground?”

Even as he asked the questions both he and Jackson moved toward the door, Pete bringing up the rear. Everyone pulled their weapons free and Jackson’s head cleared of all thoughts. There and then the redheaded zombie, Two-h-ee, the virus and its odd workings, everything faded into the distance and she put herself in battle mode.

“How many?” she asked Jay, repeating Luke’s question. Visions of a superpack ran through her mind, or even zombies rising from the ground—proper old-school style.

“I—”

But there was no need for Jay to say anything else because they all heard it then. A groan followed by another, and then another and another. A veritable symphony of them and Jackson shuddered because those awful death sounds were not coming from the redheaded zombie, but her question was answered at least. A super-size pack—there was no doubt about that.

“Time to rock and roll,” she whispered, and Luke stepped forward so that his body heat pressed against her and she knew it was because he alone had heard her.

“Let’s do this,” he said. “Quickly.”

“Yeah—” The death groans continued, making Jackson pause. They were far louder than they should have been, but worse they were combined with something else. Pounding. And only one thing made that sound. Wasn’t it what had alerted her to Luke’s presence before she even knew him?

The others heard the exact same thing and Sebastian gasped at the same time as Pete let loose a strong of cusses. “How the fuck did they find us?”

“They’ve never been here,” Sebastian said. “Never.”

Jackson stroked Mandy’s hilt and rolled her shoulders, already envisaging the battle in her mind if they didn’t mosey on out right now.

“Well they’re here now,” she said. “So let’s move.”

They practically sprinted through the large space of the shack, no time to even lock the door to the small room. Sebastian muttered as they ran but even he was smart enough to know that shit was about to go down and the experiments had to come second place.

“Straight to the truck,” Luke said. “We’ll gun it and move out immediately. Sebastian, get the door open and then stand as far back as you can just in case any of them are out there. We’ll take them out first, then get to the truck.”

The groans increased in volume as Sebastian stepped forward to grasp the handle to the main door, and maybe that might not have meant anything but the way they sounded, almost like a melody, kicked something to life in Jackson, a memory, maybe her worst memory, and she skidded to a standstill. Her brain supplied the