The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(32)

“Objection!” said one of the men, his words buzzing like the thrum of a thousand flies’ wings flurrying in concert. His face was a blur of smoke, a break in reality. He wore a smock and mortarboard like an old-time professor, while his companion dressed in Armani black.

“Lauren and we are un-hello!” the other shrilled. “She couldn’t fail properly! Some planetary disassembly required!”

I tried to answer, but the zombie powder had my words locked in a vice. My tongue felt fat, numb and useless in my mouth, like a dead slug.

“We had to destroy the village to save the village,” the professor buzzed. “Burn out the infection. We were not in the tomb. We did not give her the ring.”

“We do not believe in marriage! Only divorce! Are you on our frequency, Kenneth?”

I shook my head, mute. I could feel them scrabbling at my mind, trying to take hold—no, trying to explain. They wanted to show me something, but they didn’t know how to talk and I didn’t know how to listen.

“Get your mind right,” the professor said, “and come see us. We will teach you gardening skills. There are strange weeds to be pulled.”

“Limited-time offer!” the other buzzed. “Act now or forever hold your peace!”

“What’s another word for life abundant, Faust? What’s another word for life abundant?”

I rubbed at my forehead. My numb fingers slicked off beadlets of hot sweat, like oil on rubber.

“When you know the word, you will know your enemy,” the professor said. “But not if you die here. Wake up! Wake up and go deaf!”

Their images faded, turning blurry and vague at the edges. I felt my thoughts slowly returning as the dose of the Missionary’s powder passed its peak and ebbed away.

“Come and find us,” the professor droned. “We have to show you—”

Then they were gone. I blinked, trying to focus my eyes, struggling to make sense of the world. The drugs in my system were wearing off, but they were still strong enough to keep my brain locked in a straitjacket.

“Line up!” a gruff voice shouted. “Lunchtime! You’re hungry! Take a sandwich and eat it!”

I stood at the end of a ragged line. I wasn’t sure how many of us there were, squeezed into the prison cell, and nobody talked. We shuffled ahead, one at a time, as a man in camouflage fatigues shoved sandwiches into our hands. My stomach grumbled, and I staggered toward the back of the cell, eager to eat. I hoped I remembered how.

“You?” a voice whispered. “Holy shit, it is you! Dan, hey, focus!”

I didn’t want to focus. I wanted to eat. The first man had said I was hungry, and I was. I ignored the new voice and lifted the sandwich, but rough hands tore it away from me and snapped their fingers in my ear.

“Don’t eat that shit! They lace the food, that’s how they keep you stupid. Hey, you listening? You remember me? Eric, from the storm tunnels!”

He grabbed my chin and turned my face toward him. He looked more ragged than the last time I’d seen him, with bloodshot eyes and a week’s worth of scraggly chestnut beard, but his face sparked something in the back of my mind.

The Stacy Pankow murder. The job that had put me on a head-on collision with Lauren and her cult. I’d gone down into the tunnels under Vegas to check out an alleged drowning, and found an enraged wraith instead.

“You were…” I started to say, forcing my numb tongue and lips to move. “Down there.”

He nodded fast. “Yeah, yeah, and you took care of that little girl. Whatever you did, man, you laid her to rest.”

I didn’t lay Stacy’s soul to rest. I sent her to hell. It wasn’t my finest hour.

“You’re magic, aren’t you?” Eric whispered. He shot a look over toward the sandwich line, making sure nobody was listening. “You really are. We need you, man. We need you now.”

“Can’t…can’t think right. Head’s not attached to the rest of me.”

Eric squeezed my shoulder hard and marched me to the back corner of the cell. He pushed me down, and I sat on the cold stone floor. He squatted beside me.

“It doesn’t last long,” he whispered. “That’s why they keep feeding us that shit. Another hour and you’ll be sharp again. I figured it out. Got a couple of other guys to stop eating, too. Leroy and Bull, they’re wide-awake and ready to throw down, but we need a plan. We’ve just been playacting, pretending to be zombies like the rest of these guys while we try and figure out how to get out of here. We ain’t eaten in three days, Dan. I don’t know how much longer we can hold out.”

A screech ripped through the air. It wasn’t human.

It came from somewhere beyond the bars, farther than my blurred vision could see. A second screech set my teeth on edge. It sounded like a pterodactyl getting its wings sawed off.

“And that’s why,” Eric whispered. His face went ash gray.

“What?” was all I managed to say, but the question was obvious.

He shook his head. “They take two or three of us a day, one at a time, up that hallway. Nobody ever comes back. You just hear the screaming. I think it’s like that horror movie, man. The one where those sick f*cks pay a million dollars to torture somebody?”

I didn’t have the heart or the words to tell him the truth. Whatever was going on here, it was probably far, far worse than that.