Strange Trouble (3 page)

Would her blood heal them anyway?

She had no way to know until she fed them. Z didn’t want to
let her, but Levi was willing to try.

Death and reanimation of a zombie victim usually occurred
twenty minutes to three days after the bite, depending on the person.

Symptoms could begin appearing immediately, but those first
symptoms—body aches, fever—were generally mild.

She started to call Z back, but put a hand to her stomach,
frowning.

She leaned over suddenly as her stomach cramped, and heaved
up a crimson gush of blood.

The sickness was sudden and intense and despite her previous
understanding that she might have gotten infected from the bites, she was
stunned.

As were those around her.

“Rune?”
Lex asked. “What?”

“Well fuck.” Rune straightened, wiped her mouth, then leaned
over again as blood spewed from her mouth in a torrent and splashed upon the
ground. The infection was making itself known in a hurry.

And just that suddenly, she lost her thoughts.

Misery.
Pain.
Confusion.

Hello, Other.

What? Who are you?

I am waiting for you.

She felt an icy terror then, and more.
A
dread, insidious and thick, eating at her insides.
Such
a cold, horrifying voice.
Did she know that voice? Did she
kn
—

The next time she became aware she was on her back, staring
up at the sky, as something tried to claw its way from her stomach.

Then blackness.

She heard shouts and the metallic sound of blades, slicing,
cutting
. The earth vibrated beneath her as people ran,
leaped, fought.

The ground was a cold, hard bed. She smelled old blood
mixing with new blood, a sharp, sour scent. She sensed the determination of
spring as it tried to break through the frozen ground.

Crushed leaves, the dried skeletons of
dozens of tiny animals, birds ruffling their feathers as they watched from
naked trees.
A vision of Nicolas Llodra, the mad vampire master, swam
into the murky waters of her mind.

“Destroy the brains,” someone shouted. She didn’t recognize
the voice. Or maybe she did. What was a voice? What was a brain?

Suddenly she was back at the inn, letting Strad into her
room.

He came at her like a bulldozer.
A
tornado.
A raging man filled with grief and pain and desperation.

His voice echoed in her mind.
Rune...

But then he was Jeremy. She was restrained in her bed and
Jeremy was cutting, cutting…

She began to seize, understanding what was happening as her
body convulsed. Not long ago she’d been hit with a vaccinator, an evil
invention of the Church of Slayers. It was like that, only worse. Somehow, it
was worse.

The next time she swam to the surface of awareness her body
was numb, and the berserker was with her.

God, she was sick.

So sick.

Kill me, Berserker. Don’t let me become a zombie.

Kill me.

Maybe he heard her, or maybe he saw it in her eyes. He knelt
beside her and lifted her trembling, freezing body against his chest. “You’ll
survive this.”

Then Lex was there, throwing her blood-spattered body at
both of them and wrapping her arms around Rune. She said nothing.

What would they do if she died?

Both Strad and Lex were addicted to her. They couldn’t be
weaned away from the bite or the blood.

So what would happen to them if she died?

I can’t die. I’m immortal.

Maybe.
Maybe not.

But she could suffer a hell of a lot.

Owen was there, then, laconic and calm, but she saw the
horror in his eyes. He couldn’t hide that from her.

She wanted to shrink back, to cover her face.

She felt empty. Her skin seemed to rub against her clothing
like husks rubbed against a dried corncob. She could not close her eyes. Dry
and rubbery, they bulged from sockets too small to hold them.

“What’s this?” Lex asked, pulling away.

Rune couldn’t turn her head to see. She couldn’t move her
eyeballs.

“Hair,” Strad
said,
his voice curt,
cold. “Her hair is falling out.”

“Is she going to die?” Lex asked. “Don’t let her die.”

Can’t you see me? I’m right here looking at you. I’m
listening. Can’t you see me?

“I’ll feed her,” Lex said. “She needs blood.”

“No,” the berserker said. “That won’t help her now. What
blood she has left is leaking out…everywhere.”

“Still.”

Rune heard rustling, and then Lex leaned over into her field
of vision, baring her neck.

“Lex.
I said no.”

“Move out of my way, Berserker!”

Strad stood suddenly, and the world tilted as he shifted Rune
in his arms. “You’ll become infected. Damn you, Lex.” He turned his head.
“Denim.
Take Lex away.”

Abruptly, Rune came back. At last, she could blink. She
could speak.

“I’m here.” Her voice was weak, but they heard her. She was
as surprised as the crew that she could talk.

“Rune?”
Lex asked.

“Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Lex cried. She wrapped her fingers around Rune’s
wrist. “I can read you now. I can
read
you. You’re back.”

“She’s not dead?” Jack’s voice was full of disbelief. “She’s
not gone?”

“She was,” Lex said. “She
was
dead.”

“No,” Strad answered, his blue eyes stark and blazing in his
haggard face. “She’s not gone.”

“I’m fucking immortal,” Rune whispered. “You can’t get rid
of me.”

Raze, his eyes red and swollen, peered at her for a brief second.
Then he turned and roared, shaking his fist at the sky.

Levi and Denim, their faces identical except for the
twisting scar that marred Denim’s perfect features, stood side by side and
smiled. Levi leaned on Denim as his own bite weakened him.

“You’re both so fucking beautiful,” she told them. “Levi.
Hang on until I get better, baby. Don’t…don’t you die on me.”

Then she remembered Z. “Oh God, where’s Z? Get Z.”

The twins looked at each other, their eyes widening.

“I’ll go after him,” Owen said.

“Bring him back,” Rune begged. “He can’t die alone.”
He
can’t die.

“Oh, have no doubt.” Owen’s voice was grim. “I will bring
him back.”

Rune snuggled against the berserker’s huge chest, warm in
his arms. “I feel better.” She did feel better but was still too sick and weak
to move a lot, or to hope for much. Something had happened.
Something
bad.

She hadn’t died.

But she had a sinking feeling that when she found out what
had changed inside her, she might wish, once again, that she had.

“Tell me what happened.” She heard one of the trucks start
up as Owen took it to search for Z. She gave Strad a quick smile. “I can
stand.”

He let her down, gently. “I could hold you all day.”

She avoided the eyes of her crew, afraid they’d see
something soft in her own gaze.

“More zombies appeared,” Denim said. “We had to take care of
them. Also the zombie heads on the ground reanimated. Beheading them, burning
them…if there is an intact brain left inside the skull, the zombies reanimate.
We had to destroy the brains.”

Rune shuddered. “Where is Rock County law enforcement? Where
are all the people? Are we too late?”

They began walking back to their vehicles, stepping
carefully over destroyed,
rotting
bodies.

“I saw a few zombies in police uniforms,” Jack replied.

She glanced at him, trying to keep her balance. She felt
stronger by the moment, but her body was still having trouble.
“The new zombies?”

He nodded, adjusting his eye patch. “I noticed. They were
different. Not the usual dry, slow zombies.”

“What the hell is going on here?” She frowned, not arguing
when Strad grasped her arm to help her walk. She’d be independent later. Right
then she could use the hand. “If any infected townspeople escaped, they’re out
there spreading the virus as we speak.”

“Something is fucked up,” Levi said, a little breathless.
“It’s not just the zombies.”

“Or,” Lex said, stopping suddenly, “it is.” She pointed to
their right, and automatically, they turned to look.

“Oh shit,” Rune said, spotting the crowd of zombies heading
their way. “Jack, where’s the flamethrower?”

“Out of fuel,” he said. “Owen and Z are gone, you and Levi
are sick. That leaves five of us to fight.”

Rune put a hand to her stomach, trying to breathe.
“Too risky.”

“What do you want us do?” Strad asked, bloody spear in hand.

Rune stared in the direction of the road, the long, white
road growing dim in the red evening sun. Zombies crowded it.
And
not just a few leftover zombies.

Dozens and dozens of them.

“We run,” she said. “Regroup. Think. Raze, carry Levi.
Strad—”

The berserker thrust his spear back into its sheath and
lifted her into his arms, and Shiv Crew did the only thing they could do if
they wanted to live.

They ran.

“Z and Owen,” Levi said, once Raze had put him into the
backseat of Rune’s SUV. “We have to find them.”

“We’ll find them,” Rune replied.

Strad ran around to the driver’s side and climbed under the
wheel. He was almost too big to fit.

Lex and Denim got into the back with Levi.

“Raze,” the berserker said, “you and Jack take my truck.
Owen took yours.” He tossed Raze his keys.

“Rock County officials knew the town was overrun with the
monsters,” Denim said. “What the fuck were they thinking?”

Rune sighed. “They were afraid.”

“Darius Elliot,” Strad said.

“He’s an asshole,” Rune replied. The wolf alpha had been the
first one to contact them and ask for the crew’s help. He hadn’t mentioned any
zombies.

“We know why they’d hesitate to report it,” Denim said.
“Remember the little town in Arizona that got infested?”

Rune nodded. “They bombed the town with the humans and
Others
trapped inside, right along with the zombies.”

“And the ones who got out before the military was called
in,” Lex said. “Hunted them down, tested them,
then
punished them for running.”

“That was a long time ago,” Levi said.

Rune glanced back in time to see Lex wrap her arms around
him and lay her head on his chest.

Maybe Rune could save him, but she didn’t really believe it.

Spiritgrove COS leader Tim Emerson had forced her to feed
him, yet his brain tumor hadn’t gone away.

How could she rid Levi of a lethal zombie infection?

Or Z.

She wanted to cry. Wanted to scream and throw a tantrum and
shout curses at the sky. Losing any member of Shiv Crew would destroy her.

“Something is going on,” Lex said.

“What do you see, baby?”

“I’m not sure. But…Strad, careful!”

The berserker had driven in the opposite direction of
town—away from the zombies in the road—but at Lex’s warning he stopped the SUV.

“What’s up there?” he asked, and they all stared through the
window at the road ahead of them.

It disappeared around a sharp turn, and Rune watched with
dread and something close to fascination, knowing, just knowing, what waited
around the bend.
“Zombies.”

“Lots of zombies,” Lex agreed.

“We are so unprepared.” Rune looked at Levi. “How are you
doing?”

He shrugged and threw her a smile, reminding her of her Z.
“Not sure.”

Shit.
That meant he was doing awful.

She needed to feed, and Strad would be willing. But did she
want to chance infecting him?

Maybe she’d already passed the infection out of her system.

Maybe she hadn’t.

A clump of black hair fell into her lap, and she brushed it
into the floor. She couldn’t see all the damage, but she could feel it. It was
bad.

She had to feed.

Strad pointed his chin at the road ahead. “Look.”

Zombies were spilling around the curve. The shuffling ones
fell beneath the rush of the stronger zombies and lay like rotting slugs.

Her cell rang. Some of the crew had developed a habit of
leaving their phones inside the vehicles before they went into battle. She’d
put hers in the glove box when they’d first met up with the zombies. That
seemed like a million years ago.

Strad maneuvered the SUV around and headed back in the
opposite direction, followed closely by Raze and Jack.

“Ellie,” Rune said, after she saw his name on the display.
“God, baby, I miss you.”

“What’s wrong? Are you all okay?” He sounded anxious, even
more so than usual.

“We ran into some strange trouble,” she told him.

“What the hell happened, Rune? I’m not getting an answer
when I call Rock County. Where’s Levi?”

She hesitated. “Ellie…”

“Oh no.
He’s hurt. He’s hurt, isn’t
he?”

“Call him. He’s here in the car with me.”

He hung up before she finished talking.

“I didn’t want you to tell him,” Levi said.

“He should know.” She punched in Raze’s number.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Do you have any grenades with you?”

“I brought one.” Raze almost always carried one for
emergencies.

She’d been counting on it. “We’ll have to blast the fucks
out of our way.” She turned to Strad. “Let Raze by. He’s going to throw a
grenade.”

“You got it.”

After the thick knot of zombies had thinned out, they’d
drive through them into town and get things figured out.

“You don’t want to blast the zombies blocking the road out
of here?”

She glanced back at Levi. Denim was now holding the phone to
his twin’s ear. “No,” she said. “There isn’t time. And we can’t leave Z and
Owen.”

He pulled to the side of the road to let Raze pass them. As
they sat there, he reached over and put a big hand on her leg. “Doing okay?”

Her leg jerked beneath the weight of his heavy, hot hand.

“Let me in, Rune.”

“Rune?”

“Yeah,” she said, and squeezed his hand gently before moving
it off her leg. “I’m okay.”

He frowned but said nothing. He was somehow calmer. But at
the same time, he seemed to radiate more rage than ever.

Did he want her, or did he want her bite? Both, she’d
decided. He wanted both. Talk about fucking complicated.

There was no time to think about her relationship with the
berserker. She couldn’t afford to be distracted.

But images pelted her mind—images so vivid and intense she
could have closed her eyes and been back in that room, that bed.

She shook them off.

Not right now.

She had to help her crew stay alive.
All
of them.

Somehow.

They watched Raze drive on up the road, toward the zombies.

“Not too close, Raze,” she murmured.

But he kept going. He’d have to get decently close in order
to toss the grenade into the middle of the monsters and clear out as many as
possible.

Finally, he stopped, left the truck running, and climbed up
onto the hood. The zombies seemed to hesitate, and then with a frightening
speed, some of them ran toward Raze.

“Fuck,” Rune muttered, digging her nails into her thighs.

Jack had gotten out of the truck as well, and stood with his
guns aimed at the zombies’ heads.

He began picking them off one by one, stopping the monsters
from getting too close. But there were too many of them.

Rune jumped out of the car, pulling her own guns.

Strad was standing beside her before she even realized he’d
left the SUV. But when she started to walk forward, toward Raze’s truck, he put
a hand on her shoulder.

“Wait,” he said. “After Raze throws the grenade he’ll have
seconds to back the truck out of there.”

It was true, but hard to stand and watch from a distance.
She should have been up there with them.

Fearing that Raze was going to let the zombies get too close
to him, she held her breath until finally, he threw the grenade.

A couple of zombies reached him but he dispatched them in
seconds and he and Jack jumped back into the truck.

Rune and Strad ran to the SUV and climbed inside, and Strad
made a tight turn, rammed his foot down on the gas pedal, and got them the hell
out of there.

Raze was right behind them.

The explosion sounded after what seemed like five minutes
but had actually been a few seconds. “I hope a lot of the fucking monsters are
missing their heads right about now,” Rune muttered. “Get us to town, Strad.”

Raze and Strad slammed on their brakes, turned the vehicles
around, and headed back toward the blast.