Zombies! (Episode 10): State of Emergency Read Online Free PDF Page B

had been as busy as any large corporate office. But not anymore. She wasn’t interrupted every few minutes by some nurse who needed a signature or some doctor who thought he’d discovered the cure. No one tried to intercept her as she made her way to the Zoo.
     
    Still in her same cell, alone once again in the Zoo , Zoe Koplowitz was now making use of the furniture. Instead of huddling under the bed, she sat upon it. She didn’t talk much. Sometimes she didn’t talk at all. But those first words… Are you my mommy? Luco had always liked to believe she was immune to the lure of motherhood. She wasn’t. The wellspring of emotion that the little girl had opened up in her had taken her so by surprise. And now Kraemer wanted to kill her. Luco was not likely to allow that to happen.
     
    “Good morning, Zoe?” Luco said into the intercom.
     
    Zoe turned her head to look at her. Though her eyes did seem to focus, they still looked dead. The tests that they had run on her had confirmed that she was still very much a corpse. There was no organ function. The blood in her veins had long since changed its consistency. Much of it had dried up and crumbled away. But the vascular system itself was intact. The organs were intact. Everything about her was intact. And the brain was functioning. In fact, an EEG had shown some real activity.
     
    “I can’t sleep,” Zoe said to Luco.
     
    Luco jumped back in surprise. It was the first time Zoe had spoken in two days. Their last conversation had been a short exchange.
     
    How do you feel, Zoe?
     
    What do you mean, Mommy?
     
    Do you hurt?
     
    I’m hungry.
     
    And that had been it. Luco had been trying to get a clarification but there was none forthcoming. If Todd Mayfield was any indication then the existence of brain function didn’t override the instinct to eat living flesh. Todd had made himself a nice meal. In fact, if he’d been given a fork and a knife, Luco wouldn’t have been surprised to see him use them. And that was the most chilling thing of all for her. What’s more frightening? A horde of mindless flesh eating zombies or one very intelligent one? Of course, who was to say that there was just one? How many more creatures like Todd were there out on the streets? The human race wouldn’t stand a chance against the cunning dead.
     
    “Are you still hungry?” Luco asked. She had wanted to feed Zoe the way they had been feeding Todd but Kraemer had forbidden it. He had forbidden a lot of things.
     
    Zoe didn’t answer her.
     
    “Zoe,” Luco began. “Do you want me to help you go to sleep?”
     
    She turned her head so that she could look Luco fully in the face. “The man tasted good, Mommy.”
     
    Luco’s breath caught in her chest. She had no response to that. She just switched off the intercom and backed away. Zoe didn’t seem to notice.
     
    Luco was more shaken up by the exchange than she had originally thought. On her way back to her office, she made a wrong turn and wound up in the morgue. Most of the drawers had been emptied. The labels were still on but the bodies were gone. The Butcher Shop was clean and empty. She didn’t linger. She didn’t need to be down there and, in fact, had promised herself never to return. This time she focused on where she was going and arrived at her office straight away.
     
    The light on her telephone was blinking. She figured it would be Kraemer so ignored it while she ate a sandwich and watched an episode of Becker streaming over the internet. All the while, the little blinking light taunted her. When both her sandwich and her television show were complete, she picked up the phone and dialed into her voice mail. Much to her relief, it wasn’t Kraemer. It was Naughton. She called him back right away. He told her that it was already snowing and that she should be ready to go by five. He’d pick her up. They could go back to his place and get buried under the snow together. She told him that it sounded