Reanimated Readz Read Online Free PDF Page B

eat them down to the stem, until his head is hollow and his eyes are staring, wide and vacant, back up at me. I wipe my mouth, and tear open his lab coat, looking for keys, more weapons, anything.
    Underneath is a uniform with a badge. Not a tin badge, but one sewn onto the pocket of a navy blue shirt. It reads Guard, Culvert County Jail .
    He was no doctor at all, just a lackey with a goatee. I thought his brain tasted dumb! Now I know why. I take the stun guns, one in each hand, and walk toward the conference room door.
    There are six guards outside, but they’re human. I am too, I guess, but they’re real human. Virgins, innocents. Meaning they’ve never tasted brain, never killed a man, so far as I know.
    And they’re not desperate, like me.
    I open the door to find them talking to one another, two at a time in their assigned pairs. I stun the first two in the neck, easy as pie. They slump to the floor like pins in a bowling alley.
    I even stun the third before he can react, but the fourth is too quick. As I’m extending the gun to zap his neck, he knocks it out of my hand. It falls to the ground, clattering end over end on lime green floor tiles that seem to go on forever.
    I ignore it and lunge for the fourth guard, even as the fifth and sixth surround me. He is tall, but bony and goes down fast. He scrambles away from me on his back, using his hands like a crab. I follow as his boots kick out, hitting my elbow, my fingers, as I finally grab hold of one of his pant cuffs and yank him onto the tiles for good.
    I scramble on board, holding him down and climbing onto his chest all knees and elbows as I reach for his neck. I bite him, just out of habit, the taste of Creed’s blood still on my lips and he stops fighting, immediately.
    “Stop,” he begs me, sputtering, kicking his legs to squirm away. I let him and slide to the floor as he scampers away. “Just…stop biting me and you can go. Go, I don’t care. I just…don’t…want to be like you.”
    I wipe my lips and shake my head and look up cautiously, waiting for a boot from the fifth guard to cave my head in or the sixth guard to stun me senseless. But they’re both standing there, stock still, frozen in motion, just nodding their heads toward their friend.
    “Leave him be, kid,” they say, Southern accents as thick as their necks. “Just leave us all be and go do what you’re gonna do. We just did what we were told.”
    Their talk may be tough, but their eyes are fearful and wide. One flinches when I sit up a little taller.
    And that’s when I realize: they don’t know. Creed, the government, whoever, didn’t tell them about Project Z. They still think I’m a zombie, a real zombie. I look down at my tank top, stained with blood, with puke, spotted with brain gore and no doubt, they believe I’m the undead.
    Just like I did, until about five minutes ago.
    I stand then, kicking their friend softly and grunting hoarsely so my secret’s still safe with me. “Get him out of here then. Go, before I change my mind.”
    I watch them. One grabs his friend, the other grabs his keys, then they both drag him to the nearest door. The windows are blacked out, just like in the warehouse, but when he opens them I see a blue sky outside, and sunshine, and green grass and woodsy shrubs.
    They drag their friend outside and one looks at me, horrified, then gladdened and, finally, triumphant. I wonder why until the door slams and I hear the key turn in the lock, shutting me back in darkness, locking me inside.
    I frown and reach for Creed’s keys inside my pocket. They’re still there.
    The warehouse is silent, the inhabitants of the three cages all staring at each other as they surround the grubby red square in the middle of the floor. Even the Thugs are mute, standing stock-still as they watch me enter through the double doors. There are four more guards inside. The last of them, I suppose.
    They make a move for their stun guns and I step forward, quickly, to