by T. A. Brock
Grayson nodded. “Yes, of course.” He wished she would just tell him what to do. He would do anything.
“But now, I believe there is one thing you want more than that.” She hesitated. “Am I right?”
He was confused until he really thought about it. There was one thing he wanted more than anything.
“Yes,” he told her.
Raina nodded. “It means more to you to be with her than to be human again…am I right?”
He nodded. Though it would be more accurate to say that Cori’s life, her safety, was more important to him than his humanity.
“Then I will tell you how to use your Save.”
“Yes, please. Tell me.” He was anxious now. So much so that he wasn’t expecting her next words.
“There are two things you must know. After that, it’s simple.” There was a pregnant pause where Grayson had the distinct feeling his life was about to change. “First, you can never be human again. Never. Accept it and move on. And second, you must, must, turn her.”
Chapter 26
Turning a Lie into Truth
GRAYSON HADN’T REALIZED how high he’d soared until he came crashing down in a disastrous heap. He thought this must be how Icarus felt on that day when he’d flown too close to the sun.
“What did you say?” he hissed at his sister.
“You heard me,” she said flatly. “That is how you use your Save; you turn them into one of us, bring them into our family. Just like Leiv did…just like I did.”
Grayson’s head was shaking in disbelief. “You told me…I don’t understand. You said it didn’t work with you and Leiv, that no zombie had ever successfully used their Save.”
“It was a lie. I was Leiv’s Save. And you were mine. We call them Save not because they can actually save us but because they are saved, reserved, for us. To bring into our family.”
“But what about the tests?”
“They aren’t what we made them out to be. They’re genetic. And Cori has already passed. You can tell by the pull. Only zombies and their Saves can feel it. It proves her biological line is compatible with the zombie virus, meaning she can easily be turned. No chance that she won’t rise.”
“A lie…” Grayson echoed.
Raina stared at him.
“So I never had a chance to be human? That was a lie too?”
She nodded.
But what about his message from the Oracle? She alone has the ability to save you from your unhappiness, from the reality that you hate so badly, but know that it will come at a price: her life for yours.
She’d never exactly said he could be human again. He’d just understood it that way. But she…she was talking about turning Cori.
Grayson had never truly felt betrayal before. But he knew it now and it was a sour knot in the pit of his stomach.
“We were trying to protect you,” Raina explained. “You were so miserable, Gray.” She raised her chin. “We gave you hope. A reason to live.”
He stared at her like she was crazy. Did she really believe that?
“You gave me false hope. That’s not the same.” His voice was hard and heavy. It was like a Buick was parked on his shoulders. How could they—the only two people he’d loved until Cori—have lied to him?
“Grayson, really…it’s not as bad as it seems. We were always going to tell you.”
“When?” he bellowed.
“After…after you became attached to Cori and realized this was the best option.”
Hearing those words made him fully understand what his brother and sister had expected from him. The hopefulness he’d seen so many times on their faces when they’d talked about his Save…It hadn’t been there because they hoped he’d be the first zombie to succeed. It was there because they wanted him to accept their way of life—by bringing another human over to the dark side. They’d hoped he would murder her, make her into a monster.
“You—” he had to swallow the knot in his throat “—wanted me to kill her?”
Raina was shaking her head viciously. “No. Not kill her, turn her. Make her like us.”
“It’s the same thing!” he raged.
“It’s not wrong, Grayson,” she yelled back. “It’s how we procreate. It’s how our species survives. We must use our Saves and in return we have companionship, family, a reason to go on. Happiness.”
She was crazy. They were all crazy. If they thought this wasn’t wrong, that there was nothing wrong with turning humans into zombies, they were nuts.
Grayson looked around. He was surrounded by them, by zombies. It didn’t matter that he was one too. At that moment he hated them. All of them. Except for maybe…
“Aiken?” was all he could manage to get out.
The Reaper had a bewildered expression on his face. His head went back and forth in a helpless gesture. “I thought you knew…I had no idea you thought…”
Grayson’s breath was coming in heaves, his head was pounding. He felt his skin tighten over his bones as he turned in a complete circle. All around him, they were all around him. And Cori, they surrounded her too.
“Grayson?” It was her voice that centered him. He looked at her. Her blue eyes were wide, worried, confused. Her bottom lip trembled. “Are you okay?”
She was fearful. But not for herself. She was encircled by zombies—zombies who could hurt her—and she was concerned about him. “Your eyes,” she gasped.
Grayson didn’t even notice when everything turned murky but he squeezed his eyes shut anyway. His hands went to grip the sides of his skull where it pounded as if it were being played like a drum.
“Grayson!”
Cori reached for him, but Aiken held her back.
Grayson struggled to focus on her and managed to succeed even if only for a second. “Angel. You’re safe. It’s all gonna be…okay.”
He felt his mouth dry up, his eyelids seemed sticky, his lungs struggled to suck in air. He needed water. Fast.
He went as quickly as his dried up joints would allow, toward the river, flinging his jacket off along the way. Desperate, he knelt on the muddy bank. His knees were the first to touch liquid. As the fabric of his pants wicked moisture to his arid skin, he felt a tiny measure of relief. But not nearly enough. He bent and drank like an animal, straight from the stream, dunking his head all the way under the flow. But still, it wasn’t enough. So he ripped open the front of his dress shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere, and delved into the water. He grasped armfuls of it as if to embrace it, soaking as much of his body as he could. When the pain barely started to let up, he drank more. Drank until he couldn’t take another sip.
Grayson stood, breathing hard, trying to calm himself. When he finally gained some control, he turned back to the grisly sight. He didn’t look at Cori. Couldn’t. Neither did he look at Aiken or the other Reapers. He looked only at his tribe—at Leiv and Raina.
“If you thought that I would ever be okay with turning her…” he snarled as he marched back to where they stood. “If you thought that I would pass on a fate I so obviously and desperately hate…” Each word snapped from him like a whip. “If you thought even for a moment, that I would go along with this…” He looked directly at Leiv when he said his next words. “Then you never really knew me at all.”
“Gray—”
Grayson threw his hand up to stop Raina from talking.
“From this moment on, I have no tribe,” he spat. “You are both dead to me.”
“Gray, you can’t mean that—”
“I knew…you couldn’t doooooo it…” Leiv grunted and twitched. “That’s why I came…I know you better than you think, bro.”
Grayson shook his head. He couldn’t find the despair that had racked him earlier when he looked at Leiv. Now, he just wanted him gone. “You know nothing,” he said, his voice a cold bark. “And I’m not, nor have I ever been, your brother.”
Leiv looked longingly at Cori.
“Give me a reason to kill you, bro,” he told
Leiv. Grayson’s temper was hanging on by a razor-fine thread.
What happened in the next few seconds would haunt Grayson for the rest of his morbid life. One day, he would look back on it and realize there was nothing he could’ve done to stop it, change it, or postpone it. It was fated. Destined to happen. But until then it would be pure undiluted guilt in his mutated zombie veins.
Not very far away in the forest, he could hear a voice—no, two.
“…I don’t think they’re out here…”
“Yes, they are…I saw them come this way…”
“You sure it was Aiken?”
“Pretty sure…”
There wasn’t enough time to warn them. There was only enough time for Grayson’s eyes to meet Aiken’s before the voices were there…
And Leiv struck.
She wanted to run. She should have run.
Cori wasn’t sure what happened. One minute her eyes were glued to Grayson, watching his every move, the next all hell broke loose. The air was filled with hideous, threatening snarls and bodies were being flung here and there.
Fighting. They were fighting.
Grayson, Aiken, Leiv…there seemed to be extra bodies in the fray but she couldn’t tell who. The only people she could see clearly were the girl Reaper—who was hovering close to her—and Raina who was standing off to the side, looking worried. Everyone else was a tangle of limbs under the moonlight.
And then, as fast as it had begun…it was over. Gruesomely over.
“Noooo!” Raina screamed loud and long and painful, the sound echoing in the clearing. It was a sound Cori would never forget.
She didn’t see what was about to happen until it was already done. With a swift and efficient motion, Aiken swung his sword in an arc bringing it cleanly across Leiv’s neck.
For a micro-second everyone was still, all eyes fixed on the ghastly looking rotter as he went motionless. Then just like a scene from a horror movie…his head fell. Cori slapped a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out. Her eyes were peeled so wide she saw stars and the only sound coming from her was a panicked whimper.
No one moved.
Raina sobbed.
Grayson stared at the decapitated body with a void expression.
Aiken was breathing heavily, angrily.
That was when Cori noticed Peg and Rex. Both were on the ground. Leiv had lunged at something. Must have been them. They sat up, staring frantically at their surroundings.
“What. The. HELL?” Rex said, his voice rising with each word until he was screaming. “What is that…thing?”
No one answered him. He glanced around and noticed Cori. Gave her a strange look.
“Someone answer me!” he yelled again.
Cori knew what he felt like. Confused. Scared. Shocked. So she fessed up. “It was a z-zombie,” she told him, her voice shaking so badly words were less like words and more like syllables without a home.
Rex got to his feet, though he seemed unsteady. Peg stayed on the ground, her mouth opening and closing but never finding words.
“A…zombie?”
Cori nodded. “A bad one.”
Rex scoffed, eyes bulged. “As if there might be a good one?”
“There are,” she said.
“Are you all right?” Aiken asked but he wasn’t talking to Rex. He was talking to Peg. She nodded, her eyes wide and glassy.
“Well, isn’t this just lovely,” muttered the girl Reaper—Cori couldn’t remember the name her mom had used…Coma…Cody…
Aiken flashed the girl a warning look.
Rex stumbled over and bent down to look at the corpse. “I’m sure this isn’t a zombie, Cori. He was probably just…sick or something.” He looked at Aiken. “Good God, did you really have to kill him? And why in the blazes do you have a sword?”
“Yes,” was all Aiken said.
Rex straightened and pulled out his cell phone. “Well, I’m calling the police—”
“No!” Aiken snatched the phone from his hand. “You can’t do that.”
“Aiken, seriously. It was self-defense. You won’t be in trouble.”
Aiken shook his head. “You can’t call the police, because he’s not human.”
To his credit, Rex didn’t roll his eyes or laugh. He ran his tongue over his front teeth and Cori guessed he was grappling for patience. “Not human? Then what is he, and don’t say he’s a zombie.”
“He is a zombie.”
Rex blew out his breath and planted his hands on his hips. “Right. Okay. If you think—”
Cori glanced at Peg then, figuring she must be in shock or something since she wasn’t talking. But no, it was worse than that. “Peg!” she exclaimed and rushed forward.
Peg’s eyes rolled back in her head and she was convulsing, her body twisting in impossible directions.
“No, stay back!” Aiken shouted as Rex went to kneel next to Peg. “Rex, don’t touch her. Cori, stay back.”
Cori stopped short but Rex ignored him. Just before he went to touch Peg’s face, the girl Reaper snatched his hand back. How she’d gotten there so fast, Cori wasn’t sure.
“Don’t touch her,” she snarled.
Rex stared at her, his mouth hanging open.
Aiken dropped to his knees in the dirt and began pulling Peg’s wrap aside, lifting her dress, looking for something…Then he found it. On her upper left arm was a set of vicious looking teeth marks.
“She’s been bitten,” Grayson said from somewhere behind Cori.
“No,” Aiken whispered. Both of the other Reapers bent next to Peg. “This can’t be…”
“What?” Rex asked. Panic dripping from his voice. “Tell me what’s wrong with her.”
“No, Peg!” Aiken’s voice was broken, bleeding. He was holding her now, her body still seizing. “I never wanted this…God, I never wanted this for you…”
“Aiken! Somebody, call 9-1-1! She needs an ambulance.” Rex was struggling to get to his phone.
“They can’t help her,” the girl Reaper said, her voice flat, lifeless.
“What do you mean they can’t help her? Of course they can help her.” He’d reached his phone by then. Cori knew she should try to explain things to him but she was confused herself.
“Grayson, what’s happening?” she asked, desperate for some kind of explanation. If Leiv had bitten her…
When he didn’t answer, she looked at him. He was staring with huge eyes at Peg, his head shaking back and forth. His expression…it made Cori want to scream in terror.
“She’s turning into one of us,” the guy Reaper said quietly.
“One of you?” Rex screamed. Any trace of the manners he usually possessed was long gone. “What the hell does that mean?”
“She’s turning into a zombie,” Cori said numbly. Oh Peg…how could this happen?
“Cori, just stop it! Zombies aren’t real!” Rex was beyond frantic.
At that moment, Peg stopped moving. The seizure was over. She was perfectly still as Aiken held her close. Was she breathing? Cori couldn’t tell. She saw Aiken’s face though, and it was contorted with grief, the kind of misery most people never experience, even in a whole lifetime.
After several minutes, Aiken laid her back on the ground. “I’m sorry,” came his tortured voice. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
Baby? What had happened between those two, Cori wondered.
He was touching her face, her hair. “I’m so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself for not protecting you…”
“She’s not breathing,” Rex said. “Oh, god. She’s not breathing! Aiken, do something!”
“There is nothing to do,” he ground out.
“What is wrong with you,” Rex said angrily as he crawled over to Peg. The Reapers didn’t try to stop him this time. “Haven’t you ever heard of CPR?” He checked Peg’s pulse. Checked her neck and then her wrist. After a minute his hand fell away and his butt hit the ground. “She’s gone,” he barely whispered. Tears rimmed his eyes. “She’s…de
ad. How can she be dead?”
“She’s not dead,” Aiken murmured, still touching her face.
Rex looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “She’s not breathing. Her heart isn’t beating. She’s dead.”
“She’s not dead!” Aiken said fiercely. “She’s just…turning.”
Rex shook his head and actually laughed. It was a slightly hysterical laugh, crazed. “You guys are all absolutely freaking psychotic.”
“They aren’t crazy, Rex,” Cori tried. “It’s true. They are zombies and now Peg will be one too.”
He gave her a withering look. She wished someone else would back her up but they were all eerily quiet. “There is no such thing,” he hissed. She’d never seen him like this. But of course he’d just watched his best friend die.
Cori had tears running down her face and all she could do was shake her head at him.
“There is such a thing,” the girl Reaper finally muttered, never taking her eyes off of Peg and Aiken. “You’re surrounded by four of them, this very minute.” Rex’s eyes jetted around. “That’s right, everyone except you and Cori.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time. And then, “You can’t prove it.”
Slowly, she turned and looked at him. The expression on her face made Cori shiver. “Is that a challenge?”
He shrugged, narrowed his eyes, tension leaking from his pores. “Call it what you want,” he bit out.
In a lightning quick move, the Reaper pulled her dagger and sliced open her palm. Then she shoved the gaping brown wound in Rex’s face. “Does that look like human blood to you?” she asked through her teeth. “Does it?”
Rex glared at her hand and then at her face. “No,” he said finally.
She closed her fist over the wound and turned back to Peg’s body—which was rapidly losing color.
“Cota, head’s up.” The guy Reaper tossed her a bottle of water and she drank it.
At least now, Cori knew her name.
When Cota finished the water, she glanced at Rex. “Want more proof?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but flashed him her now nearly healed palm.
