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“So Parker needs two more days,” Hughes said.
“One day,” Kyle said. “He turned two days ago.”
“Parker needs two more days,” Hughes said again. “In case Annie isn’t remembering right. In case it takes longer for him to come back. Hell, we should give him a week just to be sure.”
“We’re not giving him a week,” Kyle said.
Hughes was right, but Annie was not going to stand there and argue with Kyle. Not less than an hour after Frank jumped to his death.
She went into the house. It wasn’t much warmer inside, but at least there was no wind. She shut herself in her room again, partly to get away from the others and partly because privacy and solitude were luxuries she hadn’t had in a while, and she didn’t know if she’d ever have them again.
How could she have been so stupid? She knew about the problems with blood type, but she was so blinded by the sheer awesomeness of making a vaccine. She could give it to her friends right away and later to others.
They needed professional help. They needed doctors. Even if Parker never recovered, they still needed doctors. If a blood vaccine doesn’t work, maybe something else would. But where on earth could they possibly find any doctors?
Twenty-seven hours later, Parker woke up. All the muscles in his body, including muscles he did not know he had, felt like they had been mashed against his bones in a vise. Even his eyes hurt when he tried to move them or blink. He felt a knot in his back as hard as a bowling ball, and it wouldn’t stop spasming. All he could do was endure it through clenched teeth.
He was tied to a chair with blood and gore on the floor in front of him. He was thirsty, so thirsty, and he tasted blood in his mouth.
Why …
Oh. God.
How long had he been tied up?
“Help!” he cried. “Help me!”
His entire body ached like it had never ached before. The pain felt like it had crawled inside him and subsumed his identity. He could hardly think about anything else. Nothing made sense.
He gasped.
Ignore the pain. Think. How did you get here? Who tied you up? Did your friends tie you up?
Who are your friends?
Hughes. Frank. Annie.
Kyle.
Shit. He had tried to kill Kyle. The others tied him up and—
Oh, God. One of those things. They had turned him into one of those things.
Did he bite Frank? Or did he dream that?
“Frank!”
He did, didn’t he? He actually bit Frank. He remembered it clearly now. The others had come into this room and he bit Frank. Was Frank okay?
No, Frank would not be okay. Unless they gave him the vaccine first. But why would they give him the vaccine? They didn’t know if it worked.
Then it hit him. The vaccine worked! Parker was immune just like Annie. They could all inject themselves with her blood and they’d come back if they ever got bitten.
“Guys! I’m back!”
The pain receded somewhat. It didn’t hurt any less, but he felt a rush of exhilaration that made him not care.
But then he realized, of course, that his friends were going to come upstairs and shoot him. They couldn’t let him live now. Not after he tried to kill Kyle and actually killed Frank.
He was the old Parker again, but the old Parker hit his wife. The old Parker damn near shoved Kyle over the cliff. The old Parker didn’t want to kill Frank, but it was the old Parker’s fault that Frank died.
He felt beyond exhausted emotionally, as if he had cried for a month without even stopping to sleep. But he cried anyway.
Kyle heard Parker yelling—in English. The sonofabitch was actually back.
Their little experiment worked. Annie’s immunity could be transferred, at least to somebody with the right blood type.
Amazing.
Too bad Kyle didn’t know his own blood type. It was too risky to chance it. Odds were sixty percent that his body would have an allergic reaction if he injected himself. He didn’t know what that meant. Would it kill him? Maybe, maybe not. But sixty-percent odds of something terrible happening were unacceptable.
In the meantime, Parker. The sonofabitch was actually back.
Kyle knocked on Annie’s door. “Parker’s awake!”
Hughes emerged from his own room. “I heard.”
Annie flung open her door. “He’s awake?” she said, a little too gleefully, Kyle thought. Things were about to get ugly again.
“You didn’t hear him?” Kyle said.
“I was asleep,” she said. She looked like she had been crying.
“Let’s go,” Kyle said.
“We need to get one thing straight first,” Hughes said.
Here it comes, Kyle thought.
“We haven’t decided what we’re going to do with him yet,” Hughes said. “So don’t fuck with him. Hear?”
“As long as you don’t let him go,” Kyle said.
“We’ll discuss that later,” Hughes said. “After we find out what kind of state he’s actually in. He might not remember what happened. He might not even recognize us.”
Right, Kyle thought. Annie didn’t remember when she recovered either. What if Parker didn’t remember?
Well, so what, Kyle thought. The man was dangerous either way. That’s been established. He can’t be allowed to go free even if he doesn’t know his own name.
“I’ll bring the Mossberg,” Hughes said. “Just in case.”
Outstanding, Kyle thought. Maybe that creep job will try something and we can end this once and for all.
They passed the corpses in the grass outside and entered the main house. Kyle could hear Parker groaning in his room from the stairs.
Hughes pointed his shotgun at the door and gestured for Annie to unlock and open it.
She did.
Parker was still tied to the chair, his wrists still bound to his ankles. The side of his head was swollen. Blood drained from his split ear and onto his shirt. Despite himself, Kyle felt a flush of sympathy for the man. He looked like hell and must feel even worse. He deserved it, but still.
“Help,” Parker said.
So Kyle hadn’t been hearing things. Parker actually returned from the walking dead. Or in his case, the tied-to-a-chair dead.
“Look at me,” Kyle said.
Parker groaned, but managed to raise his head. “Kyle.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said.
“You remember what happened?” Hughes said.
“I don’t know,” Parker said. “What happened to Frank?”
“He remembers,” Kyle said.
“Did I—”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “You did.”
“Did you what?” Hughes said. “What do you remember?”
“Did I bite Frank?”
“You killed him,” Kyle said.
Parker moaned.
“The disease killed Frank,” Annie said.
“Like hell it did,” Kyle said.
“I attacked Lane’s people,” Annie said, “when I was sick. Was that me or the disease?”
Kyle said nothing. She was right, but so what? Parker was a murderous bastard whether he had the virus or not. Otherwise he wouldn’t be tied to that chair. Frank would be fine.
“What happened to Frank?” Parker said. “What exactly happened?”
“Threw himself off the cliff,” Hughes said.
“Oh God,” Parker said. “Just shoot me.”
“Oh, we will,” Kyle said.
“Later,” Hughes said.
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “We’ll shoot you later. Count on it.”
Parker groaned again. “I’m in terrible pain. Can you at least untie me for now?”
“In your dreams,” Kyle said.
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