White Trash Zombie Gone Wild by Diana Rowland

Wyatt’s Butcher Shop.
    Get Your Braaains Here!
    I smiled. Tomorrow morning, I’d do me a little brain shopping.

Chapter 5
    The rest of my shift whizzed by without a hitch, and I happily clocked out at two p.m. on the nose. I hit the road and cranked up the radio, then proceeded to sing at the top of my lungs with the kind of teen-pop music I’d never in a million years admit I actually listened to. But hey, that shit was
catchy.
    Twenty minutes later, I pulled into the gravel parking lot of a faded blue cinderblock building—the front for Dr. Nikas’s super cool zombie research lab. Research
for
zombies, not
on
zombies. The only other vehicle in the lot was a dull bronze ’79 Chrysler Newport that belonged to Raul, one of the full-time lab security zombies.
    The camera by the front door was a decoy, with a cracked cover and dangling wires to make it appear totally useless. Even though I knew that the real—and well-hidden—cameras had picked me up the minute I turned off the highway, I still gave the door a pert salute as I approached. A second later security buzzed me through and into the drab, threadbare waiting room with its decade-old magazines. A faint odor of mildew hung in the air, adding to the impression that the room and the rest of the building held nothing of interest. I continued through and down a hall with the same dull color scheme, punched my code into the keypad beside the door at the end then proceeded into the “kill zone” corridor that led to the main complex. Its kill-zone-ness had been beefed up in the last few months, after a team of Saberton operatives made entry during an ultimately fruitless attempt to steal hibernating zombie heads. I waved at the mirrored window on the wall and pressed my thumb against a sensor plate, then entered as the thick security door slid open.
    No more boring beiges and stuffy odors. Recessed lighting revealed a blue and gold hallway that continued to my left and right. Cool air carried a fresh scent that didn’t come from any cleaning product. Across the hall and behind bulletproof glass doors was the central hub of the lab complex. The doors slid aside with an effortless
whiss
as I approached and whispered shut as soon as I passed through. A far cry from the creaky sliding doors at the local BigShopMart.
    The central hub looked like a kickass science fiction movie set, with nifty computers and shiny equipment, but the open floor plan and high-domed ceiling made it feel comfortable and homey. And no wonder. Dr. Ariston Nikas and his two assistants made their homes here. Though the hub was unoccupied at the moment, instruments and computer screens flashed with work in progress, including a screen that showed a series of status updates along with progress charts and projected growth rates for Kang—the zombie who got his head chopped off by a serial killer and was now being regrown.
    One of my jobs at the lab was tending to him, but he could wait. My bones were starting to itch. It wouldn’t take long to complete my most important task for today—replenishing my V12 supply.
    I headed down the corridor that led to the medical wing. Through the open door of the second treatment room I spied my zombie baby, Philip Reinhardt, sitting on the exam table. Not a real baby, of course. I’d turned him into a zombie about a year ago—forced to do so by Dr. Kristi Charish during one of her unethical experiments. I’d never zombified anyone before then, but my zombie instinct kicked in before Philip could die of Saberton-inflicted gunshot wounds. I turned into a nightmare monster, mauled and bit until the parasite spores took root to save him. If I’d failed, Philip would have died, just like a second volunteer
had
died when I couldn’t turn him. But Charish didn’t care. To hell with human or zombie rights. All she wanted was documentation and data to impress Saberton Corporation and establish herself as