Zom-B Underground by Darren Shan Page A

you.Otherwise…” He puts a finger to the side of his head, twirls it round and makes loony eyes at me.
    “Nice to know you think so highly of me,” I snarl at Burke.
    “Would you rather I’d let you revert?” he asks gently. “Should I have abandoned you and left you to rot?”
    I frown uncertainly. I can see where he’s coming from, but still…
    “You had no right to promise on my behalf,” I mutter. “You shouldn’t have told them I’d be willing to torture people–”
    “Zombies,” Josh slips in.
    “–and kill them,” I finish.
    “I know,” Burke says. “But I figured if they kept you alive, at least you’d have the chance to make that decision yourself. You’re faced with a choice, B. It’s not a welcome choice, and I honestly don’t know how I’d react in your place, but it must be better than having no choice at all.”
    “And that choice is…?” I challenge him.
    “Do what they ask and stay on as a zom head,” he says evenly. “Or refuse to do their bidding and become a senseless zombie again.”
    “Not much of a choice, is it?” I huff.
    “No,” he admits. “But if you choose to defy them, at least you’ll give up on consciousness willingly. The other way, you’d have simply regressed without any understanding of why it was happening to you.”
    “So I can become a vicious mercenary or a brain-dead cannibal. That’s what you’re telling me?”
    “Boiled down to its basics, yes,” Burke says.
    Josh coughs politely. “I don’t see any point in taking this conversation further. You know where you stand, Becky. It’s time to decide. Will you help us or do we send you back to the pens?”
    I stare at the three men, thinking hard. I’d like to say it’s an easy choice, but it’s not. I want to do the right thing and toss their offer of cooperation back into their ugly, cynical faces. I want to stand tall and proud like a hero, face true death willingly, without any regrets.
    But at the same time I don’t want to fade away and become a brainless member of the walking dead. They’re going to carry out their experiments with or without me. Why not play along and cling to the semblance of life that I have? It wouldn’t make any difference in the grand scheme of things.
    When we did history at school and studied the Nazis, I was always scornful of the collaborators, those who morally objected to the cruelties but went along with them anyway, guards at death camps, doctors who were asked to experiment on live subjects, tailors who made clothes for soldiers, factory workers who provided them with guns. I thought they were cowards. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d have refused to help the Nazis just to save my neck.
    Now I realize it’s not that simple. If it’s put to you plainly, cooperate or die, it’s impossible not to have doubts. Maybe a saint would shake her head and refuse to consider the possibility of collusion, but I’m no saint. Hell, I’m not even halfway human.
    But I’ve experienced firsthand the dreadful consequences ofmeekly obeying people who are rotten to the core. Tyler’s face flashes through my thoughts, as it does a dozen times a day, and I hear his cries again as the zombies bit into his flesh, see the pleading look in his eyes as he desperately begged me to save him. When I jumped at my dad’s command and threw Tyler to the zombies, didn’t I become a collaborator of sorts, as guilty as anyone who served the Nazis?
    The man I helped kill today meant nothing to me. I didn’t know him, wasn’t connected to him, probably had little in common with him. Maybe he was a brute who deserved to die. But even if that was the case, he had a place in this world, a stake to existence, and I took that away from him. I vowed, after throwing Tyler to the wolves, that I’d never do it again. If I’m to honor that vow, I’ve got to treat everyone the same, not pick and choose those who count and those who don’t. No collaboration, not if it costs