The sad thing was, Caleb wasn't joking. "About an hour, Ma.
"And you won't be alone?"
"No, ma'am. Caleb's with me and he's a good-sized guy." "How old is he?"
Nick clenched his teeth in frustration. Why did he have to play this game with her all the time when it was only a matter of a simple yes or no? Dang, his mom should have been a lawyer. "How old are you?"
Caleb paused as if he had to think about it. "Fifteen."
"Fifteen," Nick repeated into the phone.
"What do his parents do for a living?"
This time his temper snapped and he spoke before he could stop himself. "What does that matter?"
"It matters to me and if you want to go, I want an answer."
Nick rolled his eyes at the response that grated on his last nerve. "What do your parents do?"
There was a strange look on Caleb's face. When he spoke, his tone was completely stoic. "My dad's a broker and my mom is his eternal unwilling concubine who sold her soul to him to buy the equivalent of a Ferrari."
Nick let out a long breath. Caleb definitely had a way with words. "His dad's a stockbroker."
"His mom?"
"She's a housewife."
His mother hesitated before she continued grilling him. "Is he a good boy?"
"No, Mom, he's Satan incarnate. In fact, once it's over, we're going to get liquored up and tattooed, then find some cheap hos and have a good time with his trust fund."
Caleb laughed.
His mom, however, did not share that sense of humor. "Don't you take that tone with me, Nick Gautier. I'll ground you till you're old and gray. Now answer my question."
Would she never appreciate his sarcasm?
Realizing he had to play nice, Nick took the attitude out of his voice. "Yes, he's a good boy. Never been in trouble at school and he's on the honor roll. Captain of the football team. All-around psycho serial killer who hides bodies in the fridge whenever his parents go out of town."
Well... he'd tried to remove all sarcasm. Thing was, for him, it was an impossible task.
Caleb laughed again, then leaned in to speak so that Nick's mom could hear him. "I also eat babies for breakfast and torture small animals for fun. My therapist says that I'm making real progress though."
His mother responded with a sharp note. "Don't you boys get smart with me."
Nick grinned at Caleb. "Sorry, Mom. We couldn't resist."
She spoke to her boss, then came back to Nick. "All right. You can go, but I want you here in an hour."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll be there." "I love you, baby."
Nick felt his face turn bright red as he turned away from Caleb. "I love you too," he said in a low tone. Then he hung up the phone and returned it to Caleb. "I don't want to hear no crap from you about that."
Caleb held his hands up. "Don't worry. Wish I had a mom I could love. Mine's a psycho hose beast who begrudges me every breath I take. Besides, you didn't make kissing noises at her. So what's to mock?"
This time. And it was only because Caleb was here that he didn't.
Caleb put the phone in his pocket and led the way toward Bubba's store.
As they walked, Nick's thoughts went back to Stone and the oddity of their meeting. "What do you think Stone was doing behind Liza's store?" It wasn't like him to be out alone. His brand of cowardice usually needed an audience to perform for.
Caleb jerked his chin in the direction of the full moon. "He was probably prowling around with his buds and found some Dumpsters with trash in them to sniff."
"Huh?"
"It's a full moon, Nick. I'm sure the animal in Stone took over. He was probably trying to teleport somewhere and because of his young age, screwed up the jump. I think he landed behind the doll store 'cause Liza was summoning the gods earlier tonight and her powers called out to him or something. They might have even interfered with his."
Nick snorted at his worthless answer. "Ah, gah, you're not going to start with all that werewolf crap too, are you?"
"You don't believe in them?"
"I only believe in zombies and only because I've seen them today. The rest... total caca."
Caleb shook his head. "You live in New Orleans and you're Catholic, not to mention friends with Bubba and Mark, yet you don't believe in demons, werewolves, or vampires?"
"The only vampires I've ever seen are the Goths trying to get a glimpse of Anne Rice's house, who drink strawberry sodas and tell each other it's blood."
"You're such a skeptic."
And Nick took a lot of pride in that too. He didn't like the idea of anyone putting anything over on him. Better to be jaded than a victim. "I take it you're not."
"I believe in it all."
"Why?"
"C'mon, Nick, haven't you ever been walking down the street and just felt the hand of evil brush down your spine? You know that tingle. That sense that something isn't right, but you don't know what it is. That's a demon by your side, boy. He's sizing you up to toy with."
Nick didn't believe a word of what he was trying to sell. "You're just trying to mess with my head."
"I'm trying to prepare you for the real world."
"The real world is getting a good job, paying your bills, and keeping your nose clean." Staying off death row.
Caleb gave him an arch stare. "Wow. You've totally bought into that namby-pamby status quo."
"It's not status quo. It's the truth."
"Whatever you say." Caleb stepped up on the curb as they reached the Triple B. He moved ahead and opened the door to let Nick enter first.
"Store's closed. There's no classes to—" Mark's voice broke off as he came out of the back room and saw them.
"Oh. It's you guys. Come on in."
Nick scowled at the strange welcome. "What's going on?"
Mark didn't answer as he walked past them and went to the door they'd just entered through, locked it, then turned the closed sign around. "You won't believe this." He motioned for them to follow him into the back room.
Oh goody. He couldn't wait. Whenever Mark uttered those words, it was always a doozie.
But the minute he entered the back, Nick pulled up short. Bubba and Madaug were sitting in front of the computer—oh, that little wanker. How could Madaug be here after not picking up the phone all day?
Nick wanted to choke him.
Madaug's glasses were slightly askew on his nose as he tugged at his short hair while reading through the code on the screen.
"How did he get here?" Nick asked Mark.
Mark gave him a droll stare. "Walked."
Nick scoffed at him. "Seriously. After all we've done to locate him today, when did he pop back in?"
"Couple of hours ago." Mark stood opposite of Nick and Caleb.
Oblivious to them, Madaug pointed to a line of code. "See, Bubba. That's what I was talking about. This algorithm was designed to subliminally repress their anterior cingulate cortex while this one stimulated the orbital frontal cortex and amygdala, thereby raising their serotonin levels."
Nick scowled at Caleb, who, thankfully, looked as confused as he felt.
Bubba and Mark, however, seemed to be fluent in the geek speak that left him baffled. "Yeah." Bubba scratched at the stubble on his chin. "But I don't see how that gave you control of the hypothalamus."
"It doesn't really. Only the somatic nervous system should be affected with a small byproduct of elevated stress in the hypothalamus that should have inhibited his aggressive behavior. What I can't figure out is how I lost control. What did I miss, Bubba?"
Nick cleared his throat. "I can tell you what I'm missing. A clue. What are you people talking about?"
Mark cut a sideways look to Nick. "Zombie Hunter."
Nick had to bite his tongue to not respond with no, duh. "And that would be different from all the other discussions you guys have had how?"
Mark let out an aggravated breath. "Not killing zombies, Nick, playing them."
Madaug turned toward Nick to answer. "I invented a video game called Zombie Hunter. That's what we're working on."
Nick smiled. "Oh, that's cool. Can I play?"
"No!" Mark, Bubba, and Madaug shouted all at once.
Bubba took a swig of his soda. "Trust us, Nick. This is one game you don't want any part of."
"Why?"
Madaug pinned a gimlet stare on him. "Because anyone who plays it gets turned into a zombie."
Oh yeah right... Nick didn't believe that for one instant. "Bullcrap."
"Nah, man, it's true." Bubba indicated Madaug with the can in his hand. "Your little friend here is quite brilliant."
Yeah, brilliant at getting shoved into lockers....
Nick couldn't understand how Madaug could be bright enough to figure out how to program a game, but not fly under the radar of the people who wanted to abuse him.
Madaug pushed his glasses up on his nose. "I learned that a specific sequence of light and sound can actually alter brain waves and override them. See, the brain is like a computer and if you can bypass certain programming, you can hack in and change someone's core hard drive."
Nick had to give him credit, it sounded impressive. "How did you learn this stuff?"
"My mom's a neurosurgeon atTulane and my dad's a research criminal neurologist. They have really boring conversations at the dinner table and force me to listen to them while I eat my mom's really bad cooking. My dad's doing a study right now on ways to inhibit violent behavior, which is what gave me the idea for the game. I took his notes, did some independent research, and then had Bubba teach me the core programming to build levels for the game that would alter their brain pattern."
Caleb hit Nick in his good shoulder. "See what you can learn when you listen to your parents?"
Nick scoffed. "That ain't what my parents talk about." But if anyone ever wanted to learn how to pole dance or gut a human being, Nick was the one to talk to.
That, however, was another topic and not helpful tonight at all... then again, the gutting might come in handy if more zombies came for him.
"So who has the game?" Nick asked Madaug.
"I gave a copy to Brian 'cause he was always messing with me. I wanted to see if I could reprogram him to stress out whenever he felt the urge to come at me. Instead of getting pleasure, bullying would increase his fear, and make him pull back. That was the plan."
Bubba took another drink. "He was Madaug's guinea pig."
Madaug looked sick over that comment. "Yeah, and now I can't find the game. I don't know who has it, but apparently other people have been playing it which is why we have zombies cropping up all over the place."
Bubba snorted. "Yeah, two and three at a time, 'cause God forbid kids should do what we did back in the old days and play in a room by ourselves. What kind of geeks are they raising nowadays? Geeks with friends who play video games together. Whoever heard of such? It's the end of days, I'm telling you all."
Nick was confused by his outburst. "But, Bubba? Aren't you and Mark friends?"
"Ah, hell no. Mark's not my friend, he's my minion."
Mark stiffened. "I prefer sidekick. I tried once for the title of Padawan, but Bubba wigged out saying that mentors are always killed off in books and movies and he'd be damned if he was going to die once he taught me everything I needed to know about killing zombies."
"Then why let you be his sidekick? Isn't that the same thing? " Nick asked.
Mark laughed. "Uh, no. In the movies, the sidekicks are the ones who die."
Nick wasn't about to touch that screwed-up logic.
Bubba ignored him as he continued speaking. "And because Madaug had it programmed to repel Brian from him, we think the programming is backwards and it's making them seek him out instead. So we need to rework the code to switch them back to normal."
That sounded good, but Nick only had one problem with this theory. "So why are they coming after me?"
Bubba and Madaug gaped at him. "What?"
"Two of them, a few hours ago, tracked me down at work," Nick explained. "They almost had me too."
Bubba shook his head in denial. "That's not possible. The programming only works around Madaug and his DNA."
Nick held up his good arm to show them the bandage where he'd been bitten. Again. "Possible or not, they tried to turn me into a Nick McNugget."