Life Sentence: Two Tales of the Living Dead Read Free Page B

nervous clucking, ignoring the little voice inside himself that said, “Take the cure as it is, before it’s too late.” Boros was close, though, and Daniel willed himself to hang on. The pain and exhaustion were simply more obstacles to overcome.
    And then, it was ready.
    Daniel made Boros go through the final stage twice—two batches with four subjects each time. When he was assured of the results, he ordered six of those subjects killed, the other two left alive and stored for long-term monitoring and potential future tests. He wasn’t sure what Shana objected to more—killing successful subjects or holding the other two captive. He had assured her, though, that once he’d been treated, all the failures could be terminated and sent on to their afterlives. That satisfied her.
    Killing the successful subjects and keeping two for testing was but one of the precautions he took. He knew he was heading into the most dangerous phase of the testing. He was about to die and put his rebirth in the hands of others. It would be the final test of loyalty for his assistant, and while he trusted her more than anyone in his life, he took precautions with that, too, guaranteeing she wouldn’t decide at the last moment that he could stay dead.
    Then he let Boros kill him by lethal injections. Not pleasant but, according to his research, the quickest and most reliable method. The next thing he saw was Shana’s face, floating above his, her pretty features drawn with concern, worrying that the cure might have failed. While he’d like to think she was worried for his sake, he knew better.
    “Sir?” she said when he opened his eyes.
    He blinked hard. “Yes?” He had to say it twice. When he spoke, the relief on her face . . . there was a moment there when he wished it was for him.
    He tried to sit up. She helped him. She gave him a glass of water. She wiped his face, made him feel more himself, and he was grateful.
    Daniel had undergone surgery a couple of times in his youth, and this reminded him of that, coming out of the anesthetic, slow and groggy. Boros bustled around, administering tests, checking his reflexes and responses to visual and audio stimuli. Shana kept him comfortable.
    At last, Boros declared the conversion a success. He had Daniel get up and move around, doing a few tasks on his laptop, making sure his physical and mental capacities were normal.
    “All right, then,” Boros said. “Go back to bed.”
    Daniel didn’t want to go back to bed—he felt fine and he needed to relocate to the safe room in the basement, where he’d remain for a few days, presumably “on vacation” until he was fully recovered.
    When he tried opening his mouth to refuse, though, he couldn’t. Instead, he found himself walking back to the bed. And, as he lay down, he realized with no small amount of horror that he’d been tricked.
    Boros walked over. “Did you really think I’d give up the chance to have a man like yourself as my personal puppet?”
    Daniel started to sit up.
    “Lie down.”
    He did.
    Boros smiled. “Yes, I know, you checked and rechecked, making sure I gave you the right formulation. And I did. You can ask Ms. Bergin. Unfortunately, it appears there is no way to remove the control a necromancer has over his zombies.”
    “But—”
    “I know, I demonstrated it to you. With subjects raised by my assistant, meaning they would have no reason to obey me .”
    Daniel tried to look at Shana, but she’d disappeared behind Boros.
    “Don’t bother appealing to her. She’s been paid well for her cooperation. Yes, you’re holding a chit on her, but considering that you’re under my control, that’s a problem easily remedied. So let’s start there. Please release—”
    The muffled hiss of a silenced gunshot cut him short. Boros slumped forward, a small-caliber bullet through the back of his head, Shana behind him with a gun. As Boros lay on the floor, blood oozing down his balding scalp, Daniel sat up, slowly,