A large, white room. No windows, but there's a long mirror in one of the walls. I've seen enough films and TV shows to guess that it's a two-way observation point. I bet there's a team of soldiers or scientists on the other side, watching everything.
There's a pool table and a ping-pong table down at one end of the room. A bookshelf with a scattering of books, magazines and comics. A couple of TVs, one hooked up to a DVD player, the other to a video-game console. There's a table close to that TV, loaded with games and a few iPods. A variety of couches and chairs are positioned around the place.
A couple of the zom heads are playing pool. Three are busy gaming. One - the girl called Cathy - is watching TV and filing down her teeth. And the final zom head is slumped on a chair near the bookshelf, flicking through a car magazine.
Seven in total. One more than I saw in the room all those weeks ago.
I hover by the door - Reilly didn't say anything when he let me in - waiting for the others to notice me. Finally one of the guys playing pool looks up and shouts, "Hey! It's the girl who kicked Rage's arse!"
Everything comes to a stop and those who were sitting stand up to ogle me, all except the one in the chair with the magazine. He just glances at me, yawns, then returns to his mag.
I push forward, smiling awkwardly. "Hi. I'm Becky Smith, but everyone calls me B."
"Becky it is," one of the boys laughs, and jogs across. He sticks out a hand - it's covered by a glove and bandages. "I'm Mark," he says as we shake hands. "I wasn't there when you revitalized. They keep me out of stuff like that. Afraid I'll react badly to the flames."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
The boy gestures at himself. He's covered completely from neck to toe, heavy clothes, some sort of a padded vest, more bandages, heavy-duty boots. "I got burned to the bone while I was a revived. They don't know how. My face is okay but I'm like a skeleton under all these layers. I have to stay wrapped up. They're worried that if I lose any more internal - "
"Can it, Worm," one of the other boys says. "You'd bore her to death if she wasn't already dead." He nods at me but doesn't smile. He's dark-skinned, with short curly hair. I would have shot him the finger six months ago in response to his nod. But since I'm trying to change and accept everyone as an equal, no matter what color they are, I nod back at him instead.
"B," I tell him.
"I know," he says drily. "I'm not deaf. I'm Peder."
"Danny," the boy beside him says. Danny's tall and bony. Greasy blond hair and bad acne. He's wearing jeans and a T-shirt like mine. As I look around, I see that all of the others are similarly dressed, except for the guy in the chair. He's in the leathers he was wearing when I first saw him.
"Cathy Kelly," the girl introduces herself coldly. She sits and focuses on the video game. She has long, dark hair tied back in a ponytail. Pretty, but not in a soft way.
One of the other boys comes over and shakes my hand. "Gokhan."
"Gherkin?" I frown.
"Gokhan." He spells it out. "Turkish, innit?"
He's plump and relaxed-looking. Olive skin. Large, pudgy fingers. He's filed down the bones sticking out of the tips and painted them with swirling, colorful designs.
"And I'm Tiberius," the other guy who was playing pool says. He's the one who first spotted me. He's short, with ginger hair and loads of freckles.
"Tiberius?" I laugh automatically. "What sort of a dumb name is that?"
"I was named after the river Tiber in Rome," he says stiffly. Then he turns his back on me, offended, and snaps at Mark, "Are you playing or what, Worm?"
"In a minute," Mark says. "I want to show B round first. Don't you want to get to know her? She's one of us now."
"Maybe she is and maybe she isn't," the boy in the chair says. He finally stands, cracks his knuckles over his head and makes a yawning motion. I know from practicing in my cell that we can mimic the habits of the past, when we had a set of fully functioning lungs. I even find myself yawning or sneezing by accident sometimes, my body remembering happier, simpler days.