Free White Trash Zombie Gone Wild by Diana Rowland Page A

four.”
    Weird. He wasn’t usually
this
abrupt. “Isn’t that full growth?”
    Jacques ignored me and muttered under his breath as he scanned the measurements. After about half a minute of waiting for a reply, I gave up and started to unseal a fresh barrel of slug slime for Kang’s tank.
    â€œNo nutrient medium,” Jacques snapped. “We’re wrapping him.” With that, he shoved the tablet back into my hands and departed.
    MegaWeird. I peered into the crockpot and saw that it held melted paraffin with plenty of cinnamon. The bucket contained brains pureed with . . . something. I leaned close and sniffed. Honey? I groaned under my breath. I had no idea what all this was for, but anything that involved wrapping Kang was sure to take longer than refilling the tank. Guess I wasn’t getting out of here anytime soon.
    Jacques returned with a gurney and pushed it close to the side of the tank.
    â€œWhy are we wrapping him?” I asked as I helped lift Kang onto the gurney.
    Jacques busied himself with opening the case of gauze, then shifted to stir the paraffin. “Pierce wants Kang awake sooner rather than later,” he said at last, stress winding through his normally calm and even voice. “And now that Kang has reached full growth, Pierce will be relentless.”
    Ever since Kang’s head had been brought to the lab for regrowth, Pierce had pressured Dr. Nikas about how much memory Kang would retain, if and when he woke up. I couldn’t imagine what he wanted from a small-time local zombie like Kang, and Pierce flat out refused to share. “What changed?” I asked.
    â€œPierce is impatient.”
    Only about this. In everything else, as far as I could tell, Pietro/Pierce had always displayed careful patience. “Do you know what he wants from Kang?”
    He set the bucket of pureed brains on the edge of the gurney. “Rub this on him. Every bit of exposed skin.”
    I stuck my hands into the puree then dropped a glob on Kang’s chest. “What exactly are we doing?”
    Jacques went still for a moment, then I jerked in surprise as he hefted the case of gauze and hurled it to crash against the wall, sending bandage rolls flying out like popcorn. I stared, flabbergasted, while Jacques stood among the scattered bandages, his chest heaving and color high in his cheeks.
    I’d never even heard Jacques raise his voice before now. “Is something wrong? I can call Dr. Nikas. I mean, if you—”
    â€œNo!” he said then, more quietly, “No.” He squatted and began to gather bandage rolls and toss them back in the box. “Mobility.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThat’s the other reason we’re going to wrap Kang. The tank is unwieldy.”
    â€œWhere’s he going?” Yet as the words left my mouth, the ugly picture came together. Scowling, I smeared the brain puree over Kang’s chest. “Pierce’s top priority is prepping for the exodus of the Tribe. Kang’s some sort of asset to him, and he wants to kickstart Kang’s recovery
and
make sure he survives the move.”
    Jacques gave a sharp nod. He stood and dropped the case of gauze onto the cart, then began to unwrap bandage rolls, jaw tight.
    â€œYou don’t
want
to be mobile, do you,” I said. “You’ve been through this exodus thing before.”
    He released a long breath. “Twice.”
    Jacques had never revealed even this much personal information to me before. “It’s bad?” I asked.
    He lapsed into silence. I took the hint and returned to goop-smearing while I did my own quiet pondering. Jacques’s reaction to a possible exodus didn’t put me at ease.
    Once I had Kang slathered in brain puree, Jacques tossed me a bandage roll, then unwound one of his own and dipped it into the melted paraffin and cinnamon. I followed suit, and together we worked meticulously to mummy-wrap