Resurrection: A Zombie Novel, - [ereader manga .TXT] 📗

“Well?”

“Well, what?” She felt her face flush hot. “I remember a lot of bad things now like everyone else.”

“Something that made you scream. Something that gave you fits in the night.”

“What does it matter?” She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “It has nothing to do with you or this store or the boat we need to be getting to.”

“It matters,” he said, “because you don’t want to talk about it. Because I’m trying to decide if I should send you back out there or if you should stay here and cool off or whatever it is you need to do to get better.”

“Why do you care?” she said. “Send someone else if you don’t think I can handle it.”

“Listen. I know you’re not stupid. And I’m pretty sure you’re smart enough to know that I’m not stupid either. I sent you and Kyle out yesterday for a reason. It can’t be that hard to figure out why.”

Because she and Kyle were competent enough to get the job done and not ruthless enough to disarm Bobby and come back in here shooting.

“Okay,” she said. “So send me out again. I’m fine. Really. I wasn’t last night, but I’m okay now.”

She wanted so badly to pat her right pocket and feel her knife there against the front of her leg, but he would know.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said.

“You don’t want to hear my shit story. My entire family is probably dead.”

“Probably? So you did not see them die.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did.”

“What do you care?”

“Because I know you from somewhere.”

She thought about the gun tucked into the back of his pants. She couldn’t see it, but there was no way she’d forget it was there. And neither would he.

“You and I will not be okay until I know where I’ve seen you before,” he said. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why the fuck I can’t place you, but you know. Don’t you? I saw it written all over your face when you woke up this morning. You admitted to everyone that you got your memory back, and now that you remember, you can’t even look at me.”

She would have killed him the night he saw her face if he hadn’t run out the back of that house. She must have looked horrendous then, and horrendously different, but he was going to figure it out eventually.

“I don’t know, okay?” she said. He was right. She couldn’t look at him. Not in the eye. “I don’t remember everything.”

“You’re lying.” He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her against the wall.

She turned her head away from him.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Please.”

“I wouldn’t care, Annie, if you weren’t so obviously hell-bent on keeping it from me. Were you with those people? The ones who robbed me last week? I don’t remember seeing you with them, but I must have. I must have. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

“No,” she said. And she started to cry. She tried not to, but she couldn’t help it.

And she realized at that moment that she had a decision to make. She’d have to do one of four things. She could continue to lie even though he knew she was lying and wait for him to resort to more extreme measures. She could scream and hope someone would help her, though Roland would probably put a stop to any of that. She could fight him, though the odds that she’d get her knife out and open in time were minuscule. Or she could tell him.

She decided to tell him.

She did it this way: She said, “I need to show you something. It’s not what you’re expecting. And it’s not what you’re going to think when I first show you.”

After a momentary pause, he said, “Okay.”

“What I’m going to show you will answer your question,” she said.

He looked intrigued now and a bit more at ease. Exactly what she wanted.

“But before I show you,” she said, “I need you to understand that it’s not what it looks like. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He trusted her! She could tell. He looked at her in a way he hadn’t before. You can tell when people trust you and when they don’t. It’s obvious. And Lane trusted her, at least at that moment.

She was going to show him something and he was going to lose his goddamn mind. Which was fine. As long as it bought her a couple of seconds.

“But I need you to promise me something,” she said.

“Promise you what?”

“I need you to promise me that you understand in advance that what I’m about to show you is not what it looks like. So after you see it, you need to let me explain.”

“Explain it to me first,” he said.

“I can’t. Because my explanation won’t make a damn bit of sense if you haven’t first seen it. So just watch and then listen. Okay?”

“Fine.” He was a little more dubious now. That wasn’t good. But she had a plan.

She positioned herself so Lane couldn’t see her back in the mirror, then took off her shirt. The only clothing above her waist now was her bra.

“Annie,” Lane said and turned his head. “That’s not why I—”

“Shh. Remember what I said? It’s not what you think.”

“If you think—”

“That’s not what this is.”

She took a deep breath and rehearsed her next moves in her mind. She’d need at least three seconds and possibly more if her hands shook too much from the adrenaline. And her adrenaline levels were spiking. She could feel her heart beating faster and a warm rush in her throat.

She rehearsed it. Three seconds. She rehearsed it again. Three seconds. And then she did it.

She turned around.

Lane gasped when he saw the bite mark on her back.

Zero-point-five seconds.

She thrust her hand into her pocket and grasped Bobby’s knife.

“Jesus Christ!” Lane said as his mind processed what he was seeing.

One second.

She pulled the knife out of her pocket with her right hand. She had her back to him so he could not see what she was doing.

She heard him back up against the far wall and slam into the paper-towel dispenser.

One-point-five seconds.

She grasped the dull edge of the folded blade with her left hand.

Lane gasped again. There was no doubt he knew exactly what he was looking at. Had he figured out yet where he’d seen her face?

Two seconds. She opened the blade with her left hand and pointed it straight out and away in her right.

Two-point-five seconds.

“You—” Lane said as if underwater or in slow motion.

She turned and faced him.

Three seconds.

His eyes widened slowly. At least it seemed to her like his eyes widened slowly. But they couldn’t have widened too slowly because she sank the blade of her knife into his throat at three-point-five seconds.

9

Everyone in the store heard Lane shouting, but Parker reached the door first. Parker heard banging and scuffling. They were fighting in there. Good grief, did Annie attack Lane?

Kyle rushed to the door and turned the handle. Locked.

“Stay back!” Roland shouted from his post near the front. He had his pistol trained perfectly level at both Parker and Kyle. “Do not approach the door while Lane is inside.”

Parker heard something that sounded like choking or gurgling.

“Annie!” Kyle said. “What’s going on in there?”

Silence.

Parker stepped away from the bathroom door but did not take his eyes off Roland. The asshole was just waiting for an excuse to pull the trigger. “Kyle,” Parker said. “Step back or Roland will shoot you.”

Kyle took a