Free The Human-Undead War Trilogy (Book 1): Dark Intentions by Jonathan Edwardk Ondrashek Page B

ask a few questions himself. 
    Greg shook his head, his long grey hair flying from side to side. He looked like a hippie, except he was so against drugs even headache relief was a sin in his eyes. “I grabbed my first cup of coffee and took it upstairs. Then I disassembled the emergency equipment for routine maintenance. Then I got some hunger pangs and came down here to grab some donuts. I flipped on the television and crashed.” He clenched his jaw. “Clear enough for ya?” 
    Keith scribbled on a clean sheet of paper in one of Brian’s notebooks. “Why’d you leave the emergency equipment disconnected?” 
    “I only planned on bein’ gone for a few minutes.” 
    Keith nodded. That would explain the cup of coffee and the wires hanging below the desk in the observation room. 
    “Do you really think they been kidnapped or kill’t?” Greg asked.  
    “Not sure. We’ll see what the investigators say.” 
    “How long d’ya think they’ll be up there? I got a lot of work to do yet. Like that damn sunroof. Piece of shit.” 
    Keith sipped from his cup and raised an eyebrow. “What’s wrong with the sunroof?” 
    “Hardly opens when you want ‘er to. Sometimes takes a few minutes before it cooperates.”  
    They were all tired and agitated, and Keith knew he wouldn’t get any further by drilling Greg for more answers when he was obviously innocent. “Sorry for detaining you. Get out of here, all right? Go home, get some sleep, and we’ll call you later if we’re open.” 
    Greg obliged and left Keith to stand alone in the cafeteria. Keith plopped into a booth and stared at the blaring big-screen television mounted on the opposite wall. He then opened the top notebook in the stack spread before him. He reviewed Greg’s responses. If it hadn’t been an inside job, how had the Undead discovered a way around their security measures? 
    Brian and Ruby would never have gone into the training room together. It was against policy, and Brian was a stickler for safety. With the emergency equipment out of service and the sunroof malfunctioning, one of them had to have been in serious trouble for the other to forgo safety procedures. 
    He didn’t like it. He also didn’t like being cordoned off from the third floor by FBI agents. He didn’t like the incessant verbal drilling by them either. He wanted to do more for Brian and Ruby. He wanted to be more involved with discovering what happened, yet the facility was crawling with spooks that refused to let some cartographer in on the investigation. 
    He sighed, stood, stretched, and meandered toward the coffee machine. He needed to go home, rest, and return the following day to— 
    To what? To mope around all day? Would he be able to focus on work? Or would he be side-tracked? 
    What would Brian expect of him? 
    The dull whir of the coffee machine lulled him into submission. Brian would expect him to forge ahead. He would expect Keith to continue to map the lands and help with whatever experiments he was able to. Keith wasn’t a physician, but Brian had taught him many things throughout the years, including dissection, bodily structures, how to use a microscope, and what to look for in blood samples. Maybe one of the other scientists could use his help. 
    He walked back over to the booth and snatched up the notebooks. The red one seemed to glare at him, mocking him for being useless. 
    He read and reread the title several times, then grabbed his coffee and bolted through the doorway of the cafeteria. 
    He had something important to do after all. 
    ***
    The squirrelly investigator pushed his glasses back on the bridge of his nose. His face flushed and his freckles darkened. “A struggle, yes. But the amount of blood present on the scene isn’t enough for us to conclude there was a death.” 
    President Strajowskie folded his arms over his chest. “And how did this intruder leave with