Flip This Zombie - Jesse Petersen [64]
He looked down to where my hand touched his and I followed his gaze. Instantly, I drew back and stepped away from him. He smiled.
“You are a very interesting woman, Sarah,” he said softly. “The fact that you haven’t lost all hope, become completely jaded by all you’ve been through, is amazing.”
I looked down at the zombie on the table, but I was thinking of David. He was jaded. He had no hope left. Or at least that’s what the doctor believed, what we had both accused him of before he stormed off the previous afternoon.
Except now that my anger had passed, I couldn’t really believe that accusation to be accurate. David had always fought with everything he had to survive, and even harder to keep me safe and alive.
If he had truly lost all hope, why would he even bother?
“Since you’re going to be field testing the sedation formula for me, I’d like to show you how and where I administer it,” Kevin said, his voice pulling me from my thoughts of David.
I nodded.
He touched the zombie’s head, eliciting a soft mutter from it that caused me to reach reflexively for the gun I normally carried in my waistband. It wasn’t there, of course, since I was in the lab, and for a moment stark panic overwhelmed me. My heart began to race and my mind conjured images of this thing rising up. There would be nothing I could do.
Kevin reached out and his cool hand touched my arm. “It’s okay, Sarah. I promise you, he isn’t going to wake up any time soon. They still mutter and moan in this state, just as we do under sedation.”
I nodded as I forced myself to calm down. Or tried to, anyway. Freaking out wasn’t going to help anyone. Though that had never stopped me before.
“Sorry,” I whispered as I motioned toward the zombie again. “Show me.”
Kevin released my arm and used both his hands to slowly turn the zombie’s head away from me.
“You see here,” he said, indicating a small puncture mark on the side of the creature’s neck.
I nodded as I stared, but I wasn’t really seeing the needle mark. No, instead I couldn’t help but look intently at the other mark on the zombie’s neck.
It was a brand with three circles and a line. Just like the one on the fur of the guinea pigs we’d seen less than a week ago.
Just like the one David had described to me on the bionic zombie. I stared at it. He’d said it was on the thing’s neck. And here was another of Kevin’s zombies… with a brand on the exact same spot Dave had told me about.
“Do you brand them all?” I asked past dry lips.
Kevin nodded, although he seemed briefly annoyed that I had interrupted whatever it was he’d been saying while I zoned out.
“Yes. I try to mark any creature I’m working with so that I can easily tell which ones I’ve tested on and which ones I haven’t. Also, in case they escaped my care, I would be easily able to identify them for recapture.”
I nodded as he began to explain about shooting the dart into the neck so that the serum didn’t have to work so hard to reach the brain, but the uneasiness in my chest persisted and kept his words from completely sinking in.
No, this didn’t prove anything. After all, Dave had certainly seen the marking before on the guinea pigs in the lab. And I was still stuck on the fact that I hadn’t noticed the brand on the bionic. It was entirely possible the situation was just as I had accused Dave of creating. He’d imagined the marking because he didn’t like Kevin and didn’t trust his work.
I backed away a little further. “Well, that all makes sense,” I said with a little nod. “I’m certain I’ll get it all figured out once I have the dart gun in hand.”
Kevin’s brow wrinkled as he watched me move away from him. “Is everything okay, Sarah?”
I nodded. “Oh yes. Just tired.”
He shook his head. “How stupid of me. Of course, you must be exhausted. Enough