by Logan Keys
My breath’s ragged, but I shake my head when we get close. “Just do it. Just open the gate—now-now-now.”
She does, and with a rough shove, I’m inside with the creature.
The gate slams shut behind me, and the crowd erupts into a deafening, blurry sound. Cacophonies of their pitches collide, bouncing up to the roof before pressing down on my head with the greatest pressure.
It makes me panic.
Luckily, the creature had been distracted by some brave handler too near to the cage’s fence on the far end, but then, as if the zombie’s extra-predatorial senses kick in, he turns to face me.
If I expect him to charge toward me at mock speeds … then I would be correct.
These pet zombies are obviously fed.
There hasn’t been a time in my life I’ve been more scared. I’m locked in with a zombie, and no one is going to come help me or let me out. He’s quick, and here I am, a statue of fear.
My image of tonight’s events had been more gruesome, slow, and bloody. Instead, I’m ready to pee myself one moment, and the next, I’m counting stars, having been struck at full force and leveled into the dirt, thrown onto the sand like a rag doll. Immediately, he’s teething my neck while I’m still reeling, having not even tried to defend myself.
The guard outfit has a protective neck layer that’s hard to chew through, but he’s working at it in a sawing motion. Saliva’s already finding its way under the collar in a disgusting slimy feeling.
Chants from the crowd cut through our nonsensical melee, defining to some understandable calls—half for me to get up, and half simply jeering for him to finish me off.
If my new strength wants to kick in …any time now …The zombie’s realized my trickery and scratches at my outfit in gurgles of disappointment, wanting to undress me in the most unpleasurable of ways.
Since I’m not supernaturally strong, and I’m now wondering if I ever had been, worming out from under his arms will have to do. When there’s a momentary lapse in the biting, I squeeze through his legs like toothpaste in a tube.
Free and now running to the fence, I find the gate I’d been pushed through, but Crystal isn’t there anymore. Banging on it only makes the two gun-toting men waiting there, grin.
“Got yourself into a pickle, haven’t you, boy?”
Scanning the crowd, I locate Crystal in the stands. Her gaze is anxious, yet there she stays, feet planted, sorry that I’ve made such a choice, but unable to help me now.
The zombie’s given chase again, and we run a mad circle along the perimeter before my feet stumble upon my seeing someone else in the stands: Jeremy.
He watches, curious gaze mixed with disbelief. But no, he doesn’t know it’s me. He’s sure it’s just another Skull. A small and stupid one, a young one, but not me.
Then, after another ring around the not-so-rosy, I’m running low on energy. This time, near the gate, standing right behind the two men is him: Pretend Man.
So he had been with Crystal before. But why …?
The zombie catches me from behind, and we slam into the dirt. I twist my head to see Pretend Man, still there and still real, and he’s got that strange smile on his face.
Was that a nod?
He’d nodded at me.
He’s expecting it to happen again.
He knows it will.
But when?
I fight the urge to scream, When! When will it happen? How does it work!
The zombie’s torn through the back of my jacket, and with skin exposed, the attack intensifies. He’s close to biting me.
He holds me down—even my arms are pinned—while he works at the tear with a hungry savageness.
Fear brings on a rigid tension before it releases me from its mighty grip into that strange place again. One minute, the crowd is a dull roar, and the next, the noise mutes. An eerie stillness overtakes my senses, and everything aligns.
The zombie has some of my ski mask in his grasp. Soon … they’ll all see who I am.
Fabric bunches into my eyes as he pulls it up my face, revealing my chin.
It feels slow but must be quick, the roll that sets me on top of the zombie. I’m blind, yet able to overpower him anyway. I kick free and move to the center of the ring, fixing my mask.
That buzzing control is there. I’m that other me again, the new and shiny one with all the bells and whistles.
It makes me smile.
The zombie rises, too, and lunges, but I dodge him like he’s a child trying to get his ball back. My surge is here, tangible … and I can control it this time.
The crowd has become a small sound in the distance, rising with each second. They’ve changed their tune since this latest maneuver; they’re cheering me on.
“Kill him, Skull!” they chant, on and on.
I walk straight at the creature and, grabbing his arm, pull him over me; I toss him down face-first to kneel into his back. With my hands on either side of his head, I grimace at the thought of doing this again, but …
My gaze scans the crowd, first to Jeremy, then it floats down to Pretend Man, who’s nodding again with his pretend smile.
I spin the zombie’s head like a top.
Chapter Forty-Five
Tommy
I doze until morning comes. I’m ready to sleep for another day, but I have to get to formation, and Jo-Jo’s wilting next to me as the sun begins to “dose her,” as she calls it.
“I’m so bored,” she says with a generous yawn.
“Come on,” I tell her, “let’s say your prayers.”
“You first.”
“No way. Go.”
She sighs and closes her eyes. “Fine. Lord, please keep Tommy safe in training, and also, whatever he’s sad about, make him feel better. Thank you for making him a Team Leader for the live-fire mission, ‘cause that’s cool, and he’s doing way better than that loser Cory―”
“Jo.”
“Well, you are. And God knows more than anyone what a bag of—okay, fine. And Lord, give him strength not to tear the head off of that douche bag―”
“Joelle.”
“And could you please, please, please give me something to do tomorrow. Amen.”
“Amen.”
She crosses herself.
“Where’d you learn that?”
“Veronica. She’s a Catholic.”
I smile. “Okay then, into your box.”
“It’s not a coffin!”
I hold up my hands. “I didn’t say ‘coffin.’”
“Just making sure. It’s a bed, Tom-Tom. With a top, is all. Wait.” She pauses outside of the conex, eyeing it suspiciously.
It was made for weapons, but it’s roomy, and we’d outfitted it with a mattress, sheets, and a pillow.
“What?” I ask, looking over the large metal crate.
“Would a coffin be better, you think?” She glances around, then whispers, “Is there a reason they use them, like maybe I’ll get better sleep … ?”
I scratch my head. “Um, I have no clue.”
“Hmm.” She stretches. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that.” And I bite back a grin at her seriousness.
Chapter Forty-Six
The sky’s a burnt orange with bits of black above a cracked earth, like dry skin without lotion. Earth is barren now. I’m standing at a bridge I’ve seen before, and each time I’m there, I’m saying sorry for everything I’ve ever done, while it sways, offering me passage. But I never go.
I have something new to add to my confessions. I killed a man. In a rage. The bridge creaks in answer.
You may walk across me now, it seems to say when I’m finished admitting what I’ve done. It offers me absolution, but I never take it.
I just wake up soaked in sweat.
My eyes adjust to the darkness, and I focus on the bunk above me. All at once, I’m panting, then I shout out in fear, clutching my sheets when I see it―her—there.
Joelle’s underneath the upper
bunk mattress, arms and legs pressed into the sides of the metal frame. She hangs above, eyes solid black, like a cat zoomed in on its prey. Her enlarged pupils flicker with an unholy light, and her lips draw back from teeth elongated into needles.
Slowly, she reaches for my throat, and I call out her name like a prayer on my lips. “Joelle.”
She snaps back, eyes glazing over in sleep once again.
Jo-Jo falls, landing on me in a heap.
This is the first day-terror we’ve had in a while.
I lie there, breathing heavily, trying to recover. My dream was already weird, then her hanging above has officially freaked me out.
Thunder makes me jump. Night hasn’t fallen; there’s a storm outside. Lightning flashes and lights up Joelle’s face, relaxed now, and peaceful.
I sit up, careful not to shift her too much. For a vampire, sleep walking is a terrible thing. I’ve seen it enough to know. I’ve tried to wake her in the past, only to be nearly decapitated.
She’s as light as a feather, tiny for such a vibrant girl, and I carry her back to her case, laying her inside and tucking her in. She shifts, gives a small smile in relaxation, and sighs, while another string in my heart pulls taut. If I can give her even a moment of faith in this world, I will. My parents always made us feel safe and loved, and I never knew how lucky I was until I met others who’d been abused long before the zombies started to appear.
In a world that’s far from peaceful, at least I knew what trust once felt like. Some, like Joelle, aren’t so lucky. The people closest to her had forced her again and again under the knife. Someone she’d trusted had strait-jacketed her between feedings until they taught her self-control. And her own mother had brought her into the sunlight with different serums, trying to defeat that certain “weakness” of her prototype.
I check my watch. It’s time to head back. I’d been napping during my lunch break and Murphy’s funeral detail is working in preparation to bury him—well, his ashes—so we’ve had the afternoon off. I need to ready myself in dress blues. Even though I’m the reason he’s dead, I’m expected to be there and no one has even mentioned my involvement.
We rarely dress in our formal wear with black beret, a jacket adorned with medals, and so on. I look like an idiot, but a clean, sharply decorated one, at least.
The tie keeps knotting into a mess. I’m still fighting with the thing when a small chuckle comes from behind me.
“I can help.”
Joelle steps forward, face flush with sleep. It’s nice to see color in her cheeks; she must have already eaten. Her braids are a mess, tangled up in medusa loops. Her eyes, thank God, are normal.
“There,” she says, having somehow made a perfect tie with her tiny hands.
I do a mock salute, snapping my heels together.
She laughs, then turns contemplative. “You know, you’re gonna make someone very happy someday, Tommy Hatter.”
With my best cocky grin, I wink at her and don my hat. “Nah, it’s just you and me, kiddo. Us against the whole world. I’d be all right with that.”
Joelle nods. “Me, too.”
Chapter Forty-Seven
The funeral’s pathetic. Worse than pathetic. Thunder drowns out the twenty-one gun salute; the bugle’s wet inside, so it sounds like a drowning sheep bleating for help; and the folded flag flies loose from one of the detail to blow across the lawn while everyone chases it. I can’t hear what Sergeant Nolan says at the podium, and pretty soon, we’re all soaked by rain.
No family. No friends. Murphy’s gone, and it’s all my fault.
They don’t even call it “friendly fire.” Just a “training accident.”
I cringe at the fact that his resting place isn’t even in his own country. He’ll remain here in Sweden. Again, my fault.
A song kicks on. We usually play their favorite, and at first, I can’t hear it. But as they lower the urn, Cory turns the music to blasting.
Then, I recognize the tune. Queen.
Cory grins, and I stay in salute, glaring at him. He’d plucked it from my head that that song bothers me, and probably didn’t know any from Murphy’s choices.
I grind my teeth as he mouths to me the part I most want to avoid: “Momma, I don’t wanna die.”
As soon as we’re dismissed, I spin round and walk off. My heartbeat’s too quick; not a good sign. I make my way past our barracks and straight to the other side. We have a free afternoon, and I’m going to have a beer. Sometimes that calms the beast. Right now, it wants Cory’s head. No, scratch that. It wants to turn Cory inside out.
Usually, he’s not into revenge, but lately he’s capitalized on my own feelings more naturally. Now, it fishes through my emotions, aiming to be set free on Cory.
To let me watch as it peels his skin from his bones. …
I shake my head and walk on, unheeding of the rain.
There’s a small bar with only a few tables, but I’ve managed to beat the crowd. The cute Swedish waitress sashays over. “What’ll it be?”
She sets a napkin down and cocks a hip.
“Whiskey,” I say automatically.
I don’t know where my beer idea went. She leaves and brings some foreign label to my table. I’d pictured Jack Daniels, but this hits the spot with a burning-good-feeling, and the monster quiets. I take another shot, then another as the place fills with soldiers.
I know I need to leave before—
Cory walks in. He searches the room, already knowing where I am. This brain scanning thing of his is at an all-time level of annoying.
He spots me and comes straight over.
I get up.
“Sit,” he says, snapping his fingers for the waitress.
She rolls her eyes, strolling over on slow feet. Obviously she’s met Cory a time or two.
He grins at her reluctance. “Whatever he’s having, and a Heineken for me, sweet cheeks.”
She frowns and sends me a “this guy” glance before turning for the bar.
I remind myself to tip her well.
“What do you want, Cor?”
“We need to talk. We’ve got orders.”
He pulls out some papers, handing me one with my name and rank on the top.
“Nolan’s sending us out. Tomorrow.”
I scan the document in confusion. “Where?”
“America.”
I blink up at him, then search the paper again to see he’s correct. “No way.”
“Yep. It’s time to take it back. We move out at zero six hundred to do a go-see mission for the bigger forces. It’s now or never, bro.”
I chug my drink in a daze, and the fiery liquid burns a hole in my gut. “How long are we staying?” I ask, wiping a hand across my mouth, forgetting just how much I hate the guy sitting next to me.
Cory’s gone pale. He drinks his beer before looking at me with a flash of fear. “For good,” he says. “We don’t come back. We win, or die trying.”
For a moment, I chew on my cheek, considering this, then pull out my money. On my way out, I tuck it into the waitress’s apron, numbly ignoring Cory’s calls at my back. My emotions are a swirl of alcohol and excitement mixed with dread.
I don my hat and stumble out into the rain. The sky’s a dark purple. Sweden: purple, and not America’s orange. My dream had somehow heralded this news.
Strange, but that’s how it feels.
For the last two years, I’ve only been able to imagine the big orange sky.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
I’m going home.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Liza
Jeremy’s in the alleyway outside of Kiniva’s ring where we met that first night. For twenty long minutes, he’s paced and mumbled his speech in practice.
“It’s great that Kiniva’s letting me do this,” he’d said, and I’d acted surprised.
Crystal hadn’t given me away, not even then.
She’s watched me carefully tonight, but after throwing me out of a sid
e door after I’d won the match, she’d not mentioned it again.
Tonight’s it. Our last chance to get reinforcements for the Skulls and their big plan. Kiniva’s army is here, too. I’ve seen them with their guns and berets standing along one wall while the Skulls are lined up against the opposite. There are too many of them to count, and the place is full to its limit with people from all walks of life. Even a few plastics from the Upper Side are in there, frozen faces watching the ring as eagerly as their fake skin will allow.
Some scoff at the idea of them being here. To me, it’s the biggest sign of hope for change.
Pretend Man is nowhere to be seen and I haven’t had time to ask Crystal about him again.
Jeremy’s got both of my hands in his, now. The dark alleyway makes things intimate, but my throat’s too dry to even wish him luck. Hard to concentrate with him rubbing the insides of my wrists with his thumbs.
In this cramped, hot space, with barely inches between us, I’m trying to see the voice of the revolution standing across from me. What I’m not doing is imagining. He likes me, sure, but it’s a “passing fancy,” as my mother would say.
I have no thoughts of what it would be like if I were just a girl and Jeremy were just a boy who didn’t have the weight of the world on their shoulders. We could run away, and he wouldn’t have to save everyone.
Just me.
And then, Jeremy kisses me.
Though it’s not the shock to my system as I’d dreamed, more like slipping into a warm bath—subtle and slow at first, like a handshake—and I wait for him to return to his sanity.
But he doesn’t.
So I eagerly kiss him back. And the spark grows from its place where I’d all but stamped it out; it bursts into flames—a brush fire in the middle of the Sahara, a volcano erupting to burn away every idea of love I’ve ever known.
This … could not be imagined. It alters fundamental thoughts I’d had about this type of connection. No rationalizing it, this insane sensation of complete chaos. You happily throw yourself into it, even if it’s the most idiotic and unreasonable feeling in the world.
