Chapter Eight
A few minutes before six, I station myself on the third floor at a padded bench in front of an enormous picture window, where I can guard the empty parking lot.
This is the first time I’ve been alone since the attack; the world already seems totally changed. Everything’s grown quiet. From my window, I can see the entire parking lot and out to the road beyond. A strip mall runs along the opposite side of the pavement, with a scraggly patch of pine forest growing beside it. In the dusk, the woods seem dark and full of shadows. There’s no wind, no sound of birds, no airplanes overhead. The road stays empty and silent. Only the traffic light changes. Red, green, yellow. Waiting for cars that never come.
After the morning’s storm, the rain ended. All day, the landscape’s seemed partially obscured by smoke, as if our suburb was burning. Now, the sun sets slowly, glowing like a dirty pearl, sinking beyond the woods across the road. As the sunlight fades, figures emerge from the trees. I gasp. At least fifty corpses materialize from the dim woods and beeline toward our building.
Oh crap! I should tell someone, right? I’m supposed to be on guard duty. But I’m frozen with fear. My mind snaps back to the ship’s atrium, the fingernails raking across my skin, the pack of corpses staggering closer and closer…
“They won’t attack us.” The deep voice beside me makes me jump and grab my heart.
Liam. He stands next to my bench, staring out the window.
“I watched them the last two nights. They’ll shuffle around the building, but they won’t try to get inside. They won’t even get real close. They don’t wanna get fried on our door.”
Instead of looking outside, I fixate on the floor as Liam sits beside me. I raise my head to peek at him and try to calm my erratic pulse. It doesn’t work very well and I find myself studying my shoes again.
Dammit, he must think I’m a complete idiot. Or really into shoes.
“Are you okay?” he asks softly. He gestures at the herd of infected, who’ve reached the Sacagawea High School sign. “Is all this getting to you?”
C’mon Donna, restart your heart. “I’m all right,” I squeak.
Honest to God, I can’t figure out which makes me more nervous, the herd of monsters, or talking to Liam.
After a long, awkward silence, Liam leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “I hate to tell you this, but I think zombies are stealing your car.”
“Are you serious?” My eyes jerk to the window.
He points to the parking lot, where a group of goons circles my dad’s Toyota.
“But they don’t have the keys.” I say, without thinking.
If I had uttered these same words to Deke, he’d have given me a sideways glare and sarcastic sigh. Liam, on the other hand, laughs. It sounds heavenly after so many hours of nonstop horror.
“They pulled the same trick on me last night. Took my mom’s car.”
My eyebrows shoot up. “The zombies stole your mom’s Mercedes?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, now, that’s just sad.”
He turns back to the window. “I watched from here; five of them picked up the car, like it weighed ten pounds.”
“Super strong,” I reply.
“So they say.”
I cock my head to one side. “Hey, Liam, did you just call them zombies?”
“Yeah,” his gaze shifts back to me. “I heard you use the word during the meeting. It fits. You know, all the, ‘Rawr!’” He fake-moans and puts his hands out, imitating their drunken convulsions. I laugh, and he joins in. He’s beyond hot when he smiles—chiseled cheekbones, easy confidence. I remember why half the girls at school were crushing on him.
“No,” he adds, “zombies is definitely an improvement over whatever Gretchen says. I mean, if they attack, I want to shout ‘The zombies are coming!’ not ‘Those infected by the Bleek-Burns virus are beginning to converge on our establishment.’”
I laugh again. My heart is back to its regular rhythm.
“So…” I say sadly, as the Toyota is carried out of sight, “my car’s been zombie-jacked?”
“Yup. They’ve stolen all the cars from the lot.”
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the goon-squad wants my dad’s piece-of-crap car. Or any cars, for that matter.
“They’re expecting us to make a break for it, right?” I ask. “They want to trap everyone here?”
“I guess. Or else they’re starting a zombie-owned used car lot.” He has me laughing again, and I’m glad.
Liam gives a resigned shrug. “It doesn’t make much difference whether we’ve got cars or not. There’s nowhere to go. No place to hide.”
I bite my tongue. Deke and I agreed not to tell anyone about the escape plan—at least, not until Dad finds a ship.
It gives me some measure of peace to know Dad and Muriel are safe for the moment; doing nothing more dangerous than speeding through open waters off the Florida coast. I’m not sure how fast a tender boat goes, but they probably won’t make Daytona tonight.
I check the clock above the door to the teachers’ lounge. Six thirty-seven. Just over twelve hours since I met my first zombie on the ship stairs. Only twelve hours since the whole world turned upside down.
“What a long day,” I confess to Liam. “A long, strange day.”
I can’t say awful. Now that I’m here with him, my day is definitely improving. I can’t help myself; I stare at him again. My hand reaches self-consciously for my arm, where the big cut congealed into an ugly gash.
“Whoa, what happened?” he asks, eyeing the injury. I tell him about the cruise ship and my flying leap from the staircase into zombie oblivion.
“Did they bite you?” he asks.
“Of course not. Would I be sitting here if they had?”
He shrugs. “Just checking. Have you cleaned it yet?”
I shake my head.
“C’mere.”
I follow him around the corner, where he ducks into a janitor’s closet, returning with a first aid kit. He rips open a package. The scent of alcohol fills the air. Oh my God, is this gorgeous boy going to clean my nasty cut? He takes hold of my arm with one hand and turns the wound toward him. His fingers are warm on my skin. Heat shoots up through my arm and into my cheeks.
“Ready?” His face hovers inches from mine. I nod. The antiseptic burns, but Liam is gentle as he traces the cloth over my skin. I’m half-embarrassed he’s cleaning my disgusting cut, and half-thrilled he’s touching me. He finishes, patting a giant adhesive bandage over the wound. Even through the thick bandage, his touch lights my skin on fire.
“L-looks good,” I sputter, tilting my arm to inspect his handiwork. “Thanks.”
“No prob.”
“If this whole guard-duty thing doesn’t work out for you, you might have a future in the medical field.”
He doesn’t answer. Maybe that was a lame thing to say? Ugh. I have no idea how to talk to boys. I mean, boys other than Deke.
If Deke was here, he’d tell me to get my own damned Band-Aid and quit being such a whiner. I’d dish out a snappy comeback and we’d end up play-fighting, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners as we laughed.
“What are you smiling about?” Liam asks.
“Me? Uh…nothing.”
What is my problem? I finally get to talk with the guy of my dreams, and I’m thinking about Deke?
I follow Liam back to our bench, and for the next half hour, we sit inches apart, our reflections framed in the darkening glass of the window. I keep expecting my voices to make an appearance, but the sturdy school building and electrified door must be keeping me out of danger for the moment.
My mind edges back to Deke—wondering if he’s sitting this close to Gretchen. Is she looking for excuses to touch him? Something tugs deep in my gut, and I have to shake my head and force myself to concentrate on guard duty.
More and more meatheads trickle out of the woods. Zombies must like to stick close to home; most are teac
hers or kids from school. The football players stagger through the parking lot, still wearing pads and helmets. Their bodies seem different. Pale and blubbery like a troop of mutant Pillsbury Dough Boys.
I recognize one baseball player, a total A-hole who dumped Phoebe last year. He’s lost one of his arms. Bits of tendon and sinew dangle from his shoulder socket like grisly streamers. Was that his pitching arm? Guess he won’t make the JV team next season.
Our Vice Principal, Mrs. Annunziato, limps into view, blubbering incessantly and gnashing her teeth at the other zombies. I never liked her much. A few months ago, she caught me throwing an empty milk carton at Phoebe during lunch. We were only messing around, but Annunziato claimed I was starting a food fight. She made us stay late to clean the caf every afternoon for a week.
I scan the herd of bloated faces, searching for Phoebe. After a few tense moments, I sigh with relief, realizing she’s not in the crowd. Maybe Deke was right—maybe she managed to escape somehow? What if she and her family got in the car and drove to a safe place—a distant mountaintop or an isolated farmhouse or something like that? Maybe we’ll find each other when the virus ends.
If it ends.
Liam clears his throat. “Thanks for talking to me earlier, you know, about my mom.”
He gives me a small smile. It’s not the flirty, charming grin he flashes at the girls mobbing his locker. It’s sweet and sincere and maybe even a little shy. I barely remember how to breathe. Thanks for talking to him? Is he kidding? I should be thanking him for talking to someone like me.
“Um…no problem…” I murmur, gawking at my shoes again. My very fascinating shoes.
When I raise my head, Liam is still staring at me. Really intently. Like, “burn a hole in your soul” intently. I wonder if I’ve got pork rinds stuck in my teeth.
“Donna,” he says, and for some reason, it thrills me to hear him say my name, “I’ve always wondered, do you wear contacts?”
Uh-oh. I know where this is going. “No, I don’t.”
“Your eyes, they’re almost…silver, aren’t they?” I’ve heard this question a gazillion times in my life, but it never fails to unnerve me.
I utter my standard response. “Must be the lighting in here.” He gives me a knowing look. “Okay,” I admit. “They reflect. I have reflective eyes. I’m a complete freak.”
“No, they’re bewitching. Almost prismatic.”
Bewitching? Prismatic? I’m such a sucker for a boy with a good vocabulary.
He looks deeply into my weirdo eyes. Not just looks, gazes. A blush spreads from my neckline to the top of my forehead.
I jabber out of nervousness. “At first, my doctors diagnosed me with Ocular Albinism. But people with that condition don’t see well, and my vision tests perfect every time. Plus they have some pigment in their eyes. Blue. Pink. I dunno. My eyes just seem to…mirror the light.”
Liam nods. “Believe it or not, I’ve heard of Ocular Albinism. My mom’s a geneticist.”
That’s right, now I remember. His mom’s a scientist for the government. I’ve heard kids talk about her at school. How she created a vaccine several years ago. For bird flu or maybe it was swine flu. I don’t know—one of those flus. Cat flu?
“What’s your mom saying about this virus? Is it everywhere?”
Liam grimaces. “Yeah. Started in China, like the news reports said, but it spread through Asia and Europe pretty quickly. It hit the U.S. day before yesterday. South Florida was first.”
“Mmmm.” I frown. “Lucky us.”
I wish Liam had been in charge of today’s meeting instead of Gretchen. He obviously knows more about the state of the world than she does.
“Mom figured we’d have more time before the virus hit here, a few days at least, that’s why she didn’t rush home immediately. But then, once it reached North America, it spread overnight. It’s fast. Lightning fast. You get bitten and bam!” Liam snaps his fingers and I jump. “You’re a zombie.”
My quick breathing fills the space around us.
“Sorry,” Liam says.
“It’s okay.” I give a nervous laugh. “Not your fault I’m a wimp.”
“You wanna talk about something else?”
“Yes. And no. I do want to find out what’s happening. But I know myself. How this whole thing makes me so nervous.”
How I’m one step from completely freaking out.
I lift my feet off the floor and tuck them beneath my body, like zombies might sneak under the bench to grab me.
“Tell me some good stuff,” I say. “Are there more survivors? Is your mom having any luck with a cure?”
“Mom says it’s mostly guesswork about survivors. There’s us. Other people in her bunker. A few of them have talked to family members on the phone. She’s got a hunch someone’s working to keep the cell towers going. She says the government, or what’s left of it, is broadcasting on the Emergency Alert System. One of the engineers talked to Veronica after the meeting. She’s rigging up some new gadget so we can hear the updates.”
I nod. While I try to figure out what to say next, the cheerleaders show up to relieve us from our guard shift. I can’t remember the girls’ names—something rhyming. Sara and Dara?
“Tara, Lara,” Liam says, giving them each a bland smile.
“Hi, Liam.” they echo in unison. They’re like opposite sides of a coin. Both gorgeous, but Tara is petite, tawny-skinned, and bubbly while Lara is pale-blond and statuesque like some kind of Viking goddess.
Right away, Tara gets all huggy and super-friendly with Liam. Lara stands beside them, quiet and solemn. I don’t know if she’s being snotty, or if she’s just shell-shocked from all the zombie stuff.
“How’d you guys survive?” I ask Tara, hoping to get her mind (and hands) off Liam.
She tosses her dark hair over her shoulder. “Omigod, it was so scary.”
In a high, squeaky voice, Tara describes how she and Lara came under attack during cheerleading practice. I guess that explains the uniforms. All the other cheerleaders “turned” when zombie football players chased and bit them. Tara and Lara hopped in the custodian’s golf cart and fled to the Arts Complex, pursued by an entire squad of girl-demons in short skirts. I note every detail of Tara’s story, so I can tell Deke later. He’ll enjoy it immensely.
Liam barely glances at Tara while she babbles. The moment she finishes her story, he stands quickly, yells goodnight over his shoulder and starts toward the auditorium—where most of the kids plan to sleep, I guess. As he says good-bye, he smiles at me, showing off his dimples for the first time since we arrived.
A warm glow spreads through my stomach. Is that smile for me? Is he flirting with—
Beeep beeep.
“What’s that?” Tara asks, her hazel eyes growing wide. “Did you hear that?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Did it come from outside?” I resume my place at the window.
Beeep beeep.
Liam clatters back up the stairs. “Did you guys hear—”
Beeep beeep.
Tara and Lara move closer to the window.
“It sounds like…like…”
Beeep beeep.
“Someone’s honking a car horn,” Liam says.
Across the parking lot, on Broward Boulevard, a pair of headlights moves in our direction.
My voices begin to chant.
Chapter Nine
The four of us fly downstairs to the main door. Stanley, Deke, and a few other kids huddle together, gaping through the reinforced glass. Gretchen is noticeably absent.
Waxy linoleum tiles reflect the glare of fluorescent bulbs, making the foyer feel unnaturally bright against the darkness outside.
“Quit honking your horn, you dumbass!” Stanley screeches, as if the person inside the car could actually hear him.
“They must have seen the lights in our building,” Deke says.
“How the hell do they expect to get in here with all those zombies in the parking lot?” I ask.
“Getouttatheway,” says a voice from down the hall. Gretchen bustles forward, self-importantly, keys jangling in her hands.
The chanting voices roar through my head, drowning my thoughts.
Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line.
Hold the line? Now, what exactly does that mean? I check the floor. Is there a line somewhere?
Gretchen grabs the chains threaded through the door handles. Each handle is wrapped in thick layers of insulation—toilet paper and tape—to keep the metal chains and padlock from becoming electrified.
Hold the line.
Okay. Apparently, the line is the locks. Or maybe the door? I guess the voices don’t want Gretchen to open the door?
Gretchen fumbles with her ring of keys.
Hold the line.
“No.” Instinctively, my hands jerk forward to cover the lock.
“Donna! Get off.” She bumps me out of the way with her elbow. “There’s uninfected people in that car. Survivors. I need to let them in.”
“Uh, no you don’t. Did you see how many zombies are out there?”
“They’re not even close to the building. And they’re definitely not faster than the car. Those people can make it in time. Now move.”
Hold the line.
I make eye contact with Deke, pleading wordlessly for help.
He stares back like I’m nuts.
Gretchen’s found the key. I try to put my body between her and the door.
“Donna, watch out!” Deke lunges, knocking me away from the metal doorframe, and almost hurtling me into one of the rows of lockers lining both sides of the hall.
Oops. Electrified door. Forgot about that.
Gretchen snaps open the padlock and pulls the chains away from the door handles. “Veronica, turn off the electricity to the door.”
“No!” I yell.
Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line.
Deke stares at me for a second. A fraction of a second. A wave of understanding seems to flow between us.
“Don’t do it, Veronica.” Deke moves to block Gretchen. I join him, putting my shoulder against his. The knot in my stomach uncoils, just a fraction, now that Deke’s standing beside me, backing me up.
Donna of the Dead Page 8
