The pace of activity increased as the crew members readied for filming. Makeup people touched up zombie rot and prosthetic gore, and other crew circulated through the crowd with water bottles and some of the white-wrapped bars. Apparently shambling was hard work, I thought with amusement.
A sudden shiver of unease ran through me for no reason that I could name, even as an odd noise like soft moaning rippled through the crowd of extras. Mildly weirded out, I surreptitiously palmed a handful of brains from a baggie in my side pocket and got it into my mouth without anyone seeing. At least I hoped not.
The something’s-wrong feeling increased as I scanned the area. Though filming hadn’t started, extras began to stagger or flail their arms or sway in place. Definitely not normal. I downed another handful of brains as I slipped through the crowd, again glad that I was skinny enough to do so with ease.
However, I was less than thrilled by my lack of height since I couldn’t see a damn thing. I went still and lifted my head, scenting the air and not caring how strange it looked. Hell, I was surrounded by a bunch of people pretending to be undead. I was the normal one in this crowd.
Yet my sniffing only confused me more. I caught hints of the distinctive zombie-rot odor, but it came from multiple sources. Not good.
Another weird ripple of unease passed through me, once again accompanied by a bizarre shift in behavior of the extras. Unnerving groans came from all around me, and a fake zombie nearby staggered and sank to the ground, hands clawing at her face and throat. My frown deepened as the latex peeled away, revealing a square stick-on patch on the side of her neck surrounded by faintly grey skin that didn’t look made up. Baffled, I swung my gaze around, caught a glimpse of one of the makeup people holding a cardboard box in her hand with what looked like more of the strange patches in it along with some of the snack bars that had been handed out earlier.
I steadied my gaze on the makeup artist, and my heart skipped a beat. It was the petite black woman who’d stolen my blood at the boat launch. A makeup artist who draws blood?
Realization slammed in.
The subjects. Philip was undercover with Saberton, and he’d said he needed to stay close to the subjects. I stared around in shock and no small amount of horror as bits and pieces began to fall into place. The extras were being used as test subjects by the Saberton Corporation.
And now bits of the conversation with Dr. Nikas lit up.
Fake brains are the holy grail.
Dangerous to test them on zombies since it risks changing the parasite—like what ruined Philip.
A way to make temporary zombies…
Oh my god. The stick-on patches. The too-real looking grey skin. The snack bars. Some sort of research patch on a temporary zombie being fed fake brains? It made a horrible and sick sense. Saberton was temporarily zombifying the extras in order to test fake brains on them. No one would blink twice at zombie extras actually looking a little like zombies for a while.
Righteous anger flared—not only at the Saberton associates but at Pietro’s team as well. Instead of putting a stop to it and trying to protect these people, they’d had Philip remain undercover so that he could steal whatever findings Saberton came up with and pass them over to Dr. Nikas to use in his own research. People didn’t matter.
My gut tightened. Brenda Barnes, the cardiomyopathy victim, most likely died from this testing. The adhesive on her neck. It fit.
An extra staggered in circles nearby, confusion in his eyes turning sharp and feral. Something was going wrong with the temporary zombies, causing bizarre actions and actual zombie-like behavior. Then I felt it. With no obvious cause, a weird, twitchy unease touched with hunger permeated me. Philip. Call it a zombie-mama’s intuition, but I had a bad feeling Philip was the source of the problem with the extras. He was somewhere in this crowd, going nuts and throwing off some sort of weird feeding frenzy pheromone. Damn.
Turning, I pushed through the crowd of temp zombies around Jane, elbowed one sharply out of the way as it reached for her. “Jane! You need to get out of here.”
Her brow furrowed as she looked around for some obvious source of danger. “What? Why?”
Crap. She probably thought the extras were still simply being in character, giving her a little demo. Yeah, well she’s gonna get one hell of a demo if she doesn’t get out of here! But what the hell was I supposed to tell her?
“Um, there’s a labor dispute, and I think there’s about to be a riot!” I blurted, then fought back a cringe. Holy crap, but that was without a doubt the dumbest thing I’d ever said. “Look, you need to get off the set,” I insisted.
A small frown of doubt touched her mouth as she took in the increasingly erratic behavior of the extras. “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
I shot a look to her aide. “Get her out of here or…or I’ll tell Pietro you didn’t get her out of here!” Too late I realized the threat was pointless if he didn’t know how much power Pietro held.
Fortunately he at least seemed to understand that the crowd was growing unruly for no discernible reason. He nodded and slipped an arm around Jane’s waist on the opposite side from her cane. “I’ve got her,” he told me, then looked to Jane. “Let’s get you to the car, Dr. Pennington.” He shepherded her toward the barricades, and I stayed long enough to make absolutely sure she was really getting out of the crowd before I turned back to the mess.
Crew members and staff sought to regain order but were losing the battle as the bizarre rowdiness increased. Distantly I heard someone yell to get the cameras running. What the hell? I thought in outrage, though a sensible part of me totally understood that any director worth a shit would want to film a crowd of zombies going nuts. Besides, the director probably had no idea what the real deal was.
I fought my way free from the thick of the crowd, continuing to scan and scent. My gaze passed over a black-haired woman, then went right back to her. She stood tall, scanning the crowd, and didn’t seem at all disturbed by the craziness around her.
I shoved a stumbling extra out of my way as I got closer to her. “Heather?” I asked in disbelief as I peered at her, noting on closer inspection that she was wearing a dark wig over her blonde hair.
Her attention rested on me, and a smile touched her mouth. “Hey, Angel,” she murmured, then went back to scanning the crowd. “I’m in with Mr. Ivanov. Can’t thank you enough.” She looked calm and oh-so-very ready for action.
“That’s awesome,” I said. I figured her minimal disguise was to help keep her off the Saberton radar. “You’re looking for Philip too?” I mentally prayed for her to tell me they’d already found and extracted him, but she merely gave a sharp nod.
“Yep. Me and Kyle—my trainer—were nearby when the call came in,” she told me. “Others are on their way.”
Crap. Philip hadn’t been extracted yet, adding confirmation to my gut feeling that he was the source of the problem with the berserk extras.
I felt his influence—a growing unnatural hunger accompanied by waves of unease, like insects crawling in my skull and sending twitches through my muscles. Unlike the poor extras who didn’t have a clue what they were experiencing, I didn’t have much trouble controlling the compulsion to feed, especially since I was fairly tanked. Yet along with the undesirable urge came something else—a strong sense of Philip, as though I knew where he was without knowing.
I lifted my head and scented the air again. There, to my left. I slipped through the increasingly wild crowd, surrounded by shouts and cries that were far too realistic to be part of a movie.
A fake zombie reached for me, confusion and anger warring it out on his makeup-covered features. I dodged the grab only to be forced to spin away from another who lunged toward me, lips pulled back from rotted teeth. For an instant I wondered if that was makeup or if the extra actually had poor oral hygiene. The latter, I decided as the few teeth in his head snapped together on nothing.
Baring my own—far better—teeth, I shoved the fake zombie back and continued moving toward where my newfound intuitive radar told me Philip was. Another zombie let out a gurgling moan, and a heavier waft of rot hit me like a fist. Shit. This wasn’t one of the extras. This was Tim Bell of the broken nose, and he looked bad, eyes wild and desperate, and flesh shredding for real from his clawed hands. A young woman with only light zombie makeup stood beside him, eyes wide in confusion, but not acting erratically. Maybe not a test subject?
Tim let out a rasping snarl, then grabbed the woman’s arm in a hard grip. She let out a shocked wail of pain, confusion shifting to a perfectly understandable fear. I could easily smell her brains, which meant it had to be driving Tim absolutely bonkers.
“Heather!” I yelled, hoping the woman was within earshot, even as I kicked Tim’s knee as hard as I could. He staggered and let out a bellow, but to my relief he released the young woman. Snarling, he turned on me, a scary, dangerous expression coming over his face. In my peripheral vision I saw other extras grow more agitated as he focused his fury on me. Great. Goddamn pheromones all over the damn place.
The young woman fled through the crowd, but in her place Heather appeared. Her sharp gaze took in the situation and no doubt noted that this particular zombie was waaaay different from the other misbehaving extras.
“Whatcha got?” she asked calmly. Her eyes never left Tim as she pulled out a collapsible police baton and snapped it open.
“He’s a real one,” I told her quickly. “Philip made him, and he’s all messed up.” Tim was obviously hungry, and though I had pockets full of thawing brains, I wasn’t about to waste them on this motherfucker unless absolutely necessary. “The other one Philip made might be somewhere in here too.” Crap. And Philip. Like a nest of pissed off snakes in my belly, I sensed him escalating out of control.
“Oh, right,” she said, brandishing the baton. “We’re supposed to get those two as well as well as Philip.”
I took a step back as she squared off against the very pissed-off Tim. “I need to find Philip,” I said, feeling the urgency of it rise with every passing second. “You got this one?”