Zom-B Angels by Darren Shan

beginning to wish he’d ruled me unfit for active service.
    ‘Until I am satisfied,’ he says and hurls me over his shoulder again.
    I’m keen to learn all sorts of cool moves, and disgusted by what I consider a waste of my time, so I leave the sessions with a face like thunder, but Ashtat tells me I have to be patient.
They all had to endure this to begin with.
    ‘Master Zhang wants to turn you into a fighting machine,’ she explains. ‘That isn’t a simple task. You should be thankful he’s spending so much time on you, even if
it is only to throw you around. If he didn’t consider you worthy, he would not be proceeding so diligently with you.’
    I know she’s right, but it’s hard to maintain my interest and temper. I was never the most patient of girls. Maybe that’s why I didn’t have a boyfriend — I
couldn’t be bothered putting in all the time and effort required.
    If I’d come to Master Zhang when I was human, I doubt I’d have stuck with him more than a day. I definitely wouldn’t have made it past the second. But things are different now.
It’s not like I have more attractive options. If I don’t play ball here, I can go off by myself, regress and become a shambling revived, or maybe hook up with Mr Dowling and his merry
band of mutants. Hardly the sort of career prospects that young girls around the world dream about.
    At least I get on pretty well with my room-mates. They’re not the sort I would have been friends with in my previous life, but they’re not a bad bunch. They do their best to help me
find my feet, show me round County Hall, give me tips like how to groom the bones sticking out of my fingers and toes.
    I haven’t spoken to many of the other Angels. I’ve picked up names here and there, and I know a few to nod to in the gym and pool – such as Ingrid and her crew – but I
haven’t tried to bond with any of them. I’m still not sure if this place is for me, and won’t know for certain until I’ve had a chance to chat with Dr Oystein again. If I
don’t like what I hear, and decide that I’m better off out of it, I don’t want the added aggro of having to leave friends behind.
    On the afternoon of the fourth day, after lunch, when I have free time on my hands, I head down to the lab with the Groove Tubes to catch up with Reilly, something I’ve been meaning to do
since our first reunion.
    The soldier isn’t in the lab, nor is Rage, who must have been fished out not long after I was. I get an angry feeling in my gut when I spot the empty Tube, recalling the way Rage threw the
rest of the zom heads to the lions, how he killed Dr Cerveris. I’m uneasy too — I don’t trust Rage. It wouldn’t surprise me if he popped up behind me and dug a knife into
the back of my skull.
    I ask around and track down Reilly to the kitchen where Ciara works. Reilly and the dinner lady are talking while she washes up. As far as I’m aware, they’re the only two humans
here, so I guess they feel closer to one another than to the cannibalistic zombies they serve.
    ‘Hey,’ Reilly says when he spots me. ‘I was wondering when you’d come looking for me.’
    ‘What made you think I would?’ I snort.
    ‘I’ve always known you had a crush on me,’ he grins.
    ‘Not if you were the last guy in the world,’ I jeer, hopping up on to a table across from the pair and letting my legs dangle. ‘Isn’t there a dishwasher for that?’
I ask Ciara as she scrubs another plate.
    ‘I prefer washing by hand,’ she says cheerfully. ‘It passes the time and it keeps my mind off . . . other matters.’
    Her shoulders shudder slightly and I don’t ask any more questions. I’m sure, like any other survivor in this post-apocalyptic city, that she has memories she’d rather not dwell
on.
    ‘Go on then,’ I say to Reilly. ‘Tell me how you came to be here.’
    He shrugs. ‘There’s no big story. Josh and the others who hadn’t been killed by the clown and his mutants pulled