Zom-B Underground (Zom-B #2)

I'm B Smith and I'm a zombie.

I study my face in the small mirror in my cell, looking for a monster but only finding myself. I look much the same as I did before I was killed, hair shaved tight, pale skin, a few freckles, a mole on the far right of my jaw, light blue eyes, a nose that's a bit too wide for my face. But if I stare long enough I start to notice subtle differences.

Like those blue eyes I was always so pleased about. (I was never a girlie girl, but they were my best feature and, yeah, I used to admire them every so often if I was feeling gooey.) They're not as shiny as they were. They look like they've dried out. That's because they have.

I tilt my head back and pour several drops from a bottle into each eye, then shake my head gently from side to side to work the liquid about. Reilly gave me the bottle. He also taught me how to shake my head the right way.

"You can't blink anymore."

That was several days ago, not long after I was brought to my cell from the room of fire. I was bundled in here without anyone saying anything, no explanations, no sympathy, no warnings. After the horror show with the zombies and the gang in leather, a group of soldiers simply shuffled me along a series of corridors, stuck me here and left me alone.

For a few hours I paced around the small cell. There was nothing in it then, no mirror, no bed, no bucket. Just a sink that didn't have running water. I was wild with questions, theories, nightmarish speculations. I knew that I'd been killed and come back to life as a zombie. But why had my thoughts returned? Why could I remember my past? Why was I able to reason?

The zombies in Pallaskenry and my school were mindless, murdering wrecks. They killed because they couldn't control their unnatural hunger for brains. The zombies in the room were the same, single-minded killing machines on legs.

Except I thought that those teenagers with the weapons were zombies too. Rage had definitely been bitten by one of the undead - the moss growing around his cheek was proof of that. But they could talk and think and act the same way they could when they were alive.

What the hell was going on?

Reilly was the first person to enter my cell that day. A thickset soldier with brown hair and permanent stubble, he brought in a chair, closed the door behind him, put the chair in front of me and sat.

"You can't blink anymore," he said.

"Uh urh ooh?" I grunted, forgetting that I couldn't speak.

"You can't talk either," he noted drily. "We'll sort out your mouth soon but you should tend to your eyes first. Your vision will have suffered already, but the more they dry out, the worse it'll get."

He produced a plastic bottle of eye drops and passed it to me. As I stared at it suspiciously, he chuckled. "It's not a trick. If we wanted to harm you, we'd have fried you in the lab. Your eyelids don't work. Go on, try them, see for yourself."

I tried to close my eyes but nothing happened. If I furrowed my brow it forced them partly closed into a squint, but they wouldn't move by themselves. I reached for them to pull the lids down. Then I saw the bones sticking out of my fingers and stopped, afraid I might scratch my eyeballs.

"Good call," Reilly said. "Revitalizeds all come close to poking out an eye - a few actually did before we could warn them. Most reviveds instinctively know to keep their hands away from their eyes, but you guys..." He snorted, then told me how to administer the drops.

I stare at myself in the mirror again and wipe streaks from the drops away as they drip down my cheeks - the closest I'm ever going to get to tears now that I'm dead. My eyes look better, but still not as moist and sharp as they once did. I can see clearly, but my field of vision is narrower and the world's a bit darker than when I was alive, as if I'm staring through a thin gray veil.

I open my mouth and examine my teeth. Run a tongue over them, but carefully. I nicked it loads of times the first few days and I still catch myself occasionally.

After Reilly had given me the drops, he told me why I couldn't talk.

"Your teeth have sprouted. When you returned from the dead, they thickened and lengthened into fangs. That's so you can bite through flesh and bone more easily." He said it casually, as if it were no big thing.

"The bones in your fingers serve the same purpose," he went on. "They let you dig through a person's skull. Better than daggers, they are. We're not sure why it happens in your toes as well. Maybe the zombie gene can't distinguish between one set of digits and the other."

I wanted to cry when he said that. I don't know why, but something about his tone tore a long, deep hole through my soul. I made a moaning noise and hung my head, but no tears came. They couldn't. My tear ducts have dried up. I can never weep again.

Reilly went on to explain how they were going to file my teeth down. They'd use an electric file to start me off, but after that I could trim them with a metal file myself every day or two.

"It'll be like brushing your teeth," he said cheerfully. "A few minutes in the morning, again at night before you go to bed, and they'll be fine." He paused. "Although you won't really need to go to bed now...."

It's been hard keeping track of the days, but by totaling up Reilly's visits I figure I've been here at least a week, maybe longer. And not a wink of sleep in all that time. They gave me a bed, and I lie down every now and then to rest, but I never come close to dropping off.

"The dead don't sleep," Reilly shrugged when I asked him why I couldn't doze. "They don't need to."

I was nervous when a medic first filed my teeth down. I always hated going to the dentist, and this was a hundred times worse. The noise was louder than any dentist's drill, and splinters from my teeth went flying back in my throat and up my nose and into my eyes. My teeth got hot from the friction and my gums felt like they were burning. I pushed the medic away several times to snarl at him and give him an evil glare.

"Just don't bite," Reilly warned me. "If you nip him and turn him into one of your lot, you'll be put down like a rabid dog, no excuses."

The medic wiped sweat from his forehead and I realized he was more nervous than I was. He was wearing thick gloves, but as I'd seen in the room when the woman bit the tall guy in leathers, clothes and gloves aren't foolproof against a zombie attack.

I tried to control myself after that, and didn't pull back as much as I had been doing, even though every part of me wanted to.

The medic left once he'd finished. I ran my tongue around my mouth and winced as one of my teeth nicked it.

"I should have warned you about that," Reilly said. "Doesn't matter how much you file them down, they'll always be sharper than they were. Best thing is to keep your tongue clear of your teeth."

"Thash eashy fuhr you tuh shay," I mumbled.

"Hey, not bad for your first attempt," Reilly said, looking impressed. "Most of the revitalizeds take a few days to get their act together. I think you're going to be a fast learner."

"Shkroo you, arsh hohl," I spat, and his expression darkened.

"Maybe you were better off mute," he growled.

It took me a while to get the hang of my new teeth. I still slur the occasional word, but a week into my new life - or unlife, or whatever the hell it's called - I can speak as clearly as I could before I was killed.

"B Smith went to mow, went to mow a meadow," I sing tunelessly to my reflection. "But a zombie ripped her heart out, so now she's a walking dead-o."

Hey, I might be dead, but you've gotta laugh, haven't you? Especially when you're no longer able to cry your bloody eyes out.