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show them mine. “We can duke it out,” I growl, using my best zombie voice, “or you can run like your friends did. Don’t worry. I won’t tell. But if you stay, just know I’ll bite you just to watch you die….”
    They scurry past, careful to avoid me as they sprint toward the doors. They lock them after they go, but I just smile. At least they tried to do their duty until the bitter end.
    As far as they know, they have locked me in. That should count for something.
    I let the Fugs out first, but they won’t come. I don’t blame them. Their scared eyes shrink in their heads until I step back, open the warehouse doors and say, “You’re free. Go, now, and don’t look back.”
    They still clamor inside, looking to one another. I shrug and turn toward the next cage over. Chip Wailing watches me warily, Garrett Evans picks his nose, and Angela Chase drums her fingers on the steel bars.
    “Took you long enough,” she says, voice as grim as mine.
    “Yeah, where were you for so long?” asks Garrett Evans, studying his booger.
    “Eating Creed’s brain.” I burp, opening the cage door. They eye it, and me, cautiously.
    “Get out. Come on, let’s go,” I urge, yanking Angela out by the arm.
    “Hey,” she shrieks, yanking it back violently. I let her.
    “What gives, dude?” asks Chip, hovering protectively around Angela.
    “The experiment’s over,” I say, eyeing the Thugs’ cage. They sense something is up, something is changing, and watch me warily.
    My former cage mates all speak at once:
    “What experiment?”
    “The hell?”
    “Experiment?”
    “We’re not zombies,” I say, fingering the key in my hand, the one I know fits into the lock that keeps the Thugs in—and me out. “We never were. That’s what Creed took me away to tell me. That’s what we’ve been doing here, for two weeks—proving to the government that real kids will kill for brains if you just tell them they’re zombies and keep them hungry for long enough.”
    “But the drugs,” Angela says. “The infestation. We saw—”
    “Look!” I shout, cutting her off. Her eyes, already bleak, look positively wounded. “I’m sorry, but we don’t have a lot of time. If you don’t believe me, head out those doors, turn to the left and replay the video in the conference room. You’ll see all you need to know, and then some.”
    Chip looks at me, at the other two, then splits, sneakers squeaking as he runs out the warehouse doors and down the long, green hallway. Garrett looks uncertainly at Angela, who still looks at me. Then he follows Chip.
    I can hear their shoes as they slap on the green tile that leads to the conference room, the door swinging open, then I hear Chip going, “Gross,” probably as he spies Creed’s body on the floor.
    “Go,” I say, sliding the key into the Thugs cage. “Get out of here, before it’s too late.”
    “W-w-what about you?” she asks, watching me as I pause with the key still in the lock.
    “I’ve acted like a zombie for two weeks, Angela. I’ve killed, I dunno, six, seven people? I’m basically a cannibal now. I can’t just walk outside and go back home and start playing Xbox again, you know? I can’t just tell my story to reporters and write a tell-all book and make a million. I’m a murderer, a killer. I—”
    “But it wasn’t your fault,” she says. “They tricked us, right? So, so, I mean….”
    Then her voice trails off as it hits her, all of it, all of a sudden. The brains, the bodies, the people we called “Fugs” just to make it easier to kill them. What we’ve done, how we’ve done it, who we’ve done it to. how much we’ve…enjoyed…it.
    As her face crumples, as she drops to her knees, I slip inside the Thugs’ cage, lock it from the inside and toss the keys back through the door.
    “No!” she cries, but her heart’s not in it. She falls on her backside, crawling away and watching as the Thugs circle me closely.
    They sniff, and paw, and tear, my