Zombies! (Episode 4): The Sick and the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

was convenient when the patients were living human beings. They were mostly useless in cases like Todd Mayfield, whose food was usually too big for the drawer… and often struggling.
     
    "We have safeguards for interacting with the specimens," Luco answered. "Todd's mostly docile because he's well fed. There's always someone with a taser standing by but we haven't had to use it on him yet."
     
    "You sound almost affectionate about him," Solomon mentioned, his tone edged with disgust.
     
    Luco didn't answer. She had been there during Todd's brief bout with the illness. She'd been responsible for treating him when he was alive. And she hadn't done anything. She knew then that she couldn't save him so she didn't even try. Instead, she'd studied the progress of the disease uninterrupted. To say that she'd learned nothing would be a lie, but she wasn't sure that the knowledge was enough to make up for Todd's suffering. It had been only three weeks since then but it seemed like ages. This was how she knew him. Affection was the wrong word to use in describing her feelings for Todd. Pity was closer. Guilt was closest. She didn't bother to correct Solomon.
     
    As they moved further down the corridor, Todd looked up at the group, his meal still in his blood soaked hands. Juarez wouldn't even look at him, the sour taste of vomit still burning his throat. In fact, nobody saw Todd look except Seaver, who was bringing up the rear. For long moments, they looked into each other's eyes. Seaver didn't exactly see intelligence there but what he did see, while being unidentifiable, chilled him to the bone. Cell phone in hand, he snapped a quiet picture.
     
    They passed several other specimens on the way down the hallway. Luco pointed out a few of them and paused when they reached the cell housing Dr. Mwabi. The poor woman was wearing one of the hospital gowns they'd seen the other patients wearing. She'd obviously been transferred quickly after her death. There wasn't a mark on her, but that didn't help her to look any more alive. Her pallor was waxy and her eyes were clouded over. She shambled around the room, her hands jutting out in front of her. Every few seconds she'd point her nose in a different direction and sniff. She was nothing like Todd, whose motions seemed almost calculated. His actions were usually with purpose. Even when he was fed live animals, he attacked them in a very calculated way, usually from behind. He capitalized on their fear of him and his environment. To Luco, Mwabi looked blind. And frightened. She was distinctly unzombie-like.
     
    At the end of the passage, Luco stopped in front of one room. Unlike the others, this one still had furniture. Its occupant had been placed inside before any others had come through their doors, even before the complex had been dedicated to the zombie infection. The men crowded around to have a look at this poor freakish thing with little blonde curls and glazed blue eyes. She was huddled underneath the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest.
     
    "This is Zoe Koplowitz," Dr. Luco introduced. "Our first."
     
    "She's just a little girl," Lochschenborg exclaimed.
     
    Luco nodded slowly. "Her father was the first zombie encounter in the city. He was killed on the street and the policemen who went to his apartment encountered Zoe and her mother. They shot the mother in the head. Zoe bit one of the officers but the other managed to trap her in the bathroom."
     
    "What happened to the officer who was bitten?" Juarez asked.
     
    They all looked at him as one, as if the question was the most ridiculous they'd ever heard. Because it was.
     
    Zoe stared up at them, sniffed the air once, and then went back to her huddling. Despite her stature and childish features, there was no mistaking her for anything except what she had become. Pale in life, her skin color had almost completely drained. Her hair, too, had lost most of its color. Looking at her, one could barely discern any blonde in it