Blue Moon

by James Ponti

  For Alex and Grayson, who, in addition to being my sons, are also my heroes

  Acknowledgments

  Although this is a work of fiction, it was only made possible by some very real people, many of whom, like the characters in this book, live and work in New York City, but none of whom are actually undead. At least as far as I know.

  Despite their aversion to excessive adjective usage, the Omega team at Aladdin is amazing, brilliant, talented, kind, thoughtful, encouraging, and fun. It is led by Fiona Simpson and Bethany Buck, and includes Annie Berger, Craig Adams, Jessica Handelman, and Nigel Quarless.

  Speaking of adjectives, only superlatives apply to my agent/friend/confidante Rosemary Stimola, who somehow manages to keep her eye on the smallest detail without losing sight of the big picture, and has done more for lowercase letters than anyone since e.e. cummings.

  Suzanne Collins is a remarkable writer, but she’s an even better person. I treasure her advice, her generosity, and, most of all, her friendship. I count myself lucky that we are the only two who truly understand and appreciate the Egg Mystery.

  Most of all, I want to thank my wife and children, who turn the solitary process of writing into something that is truly a family affair. They inspire, solve, challenge, reassure, and proofread. But most important, they fill my heart every day.

  Countdown

  I’ve never had much luck when it comes to New Year’s resolutions. Last year I only lasted three days before realizing I couldn’t survive in a world without junk food. And the year before that, when my sister and I promised not to argue anymore, we didn’t even make it to the end of my dad’s New Year’s Eve party. I’ll spare you the gory details, but fruit punch and guacamole were involved. So was dry cleaning.

  Here’s hoping this year will be more successful. I’ve skipped the “live healthier” and “live happier” type of resolutions and have settled instead on the just plain “live.”

  “This year I, Molly Bigelow, resolve to stay alive.”

  That’s it.

  I know that sounds fake, like “I won’t eat liver” or “I won’t get abducted by aliens,” but I’m totally serious. In the last five months I’ve been in eleven different life-or-death situations. Or is it twelve? You’d think I’d know the exact number, right? But it’s hard to keep track of them all when you’re an Omega.

  The Omegas are a secret society responsible for protecting New York City from the undead. It turns out there are zombies all over Manhattan. And while a lot of them hide out underground in abandoned sewers and subway tunnels, even more have lives that seem like yours and mine. (You know, except for the part about breathing.) That’s what makes my job so hard. Finding them can be difficult. Despite what you may have seen in horror movies, most zombies look normal.

  The two I’m following right now could pass for a hipster couple hanging out in a coffee shop. The girl’s wearing skinny jeans and a vintage jacket, and the guy has on a furry hat with earflaps that should be dorky but actually looks kind of cool. There’s nothing at all suspicious about them . . . unless you know what to look for.

  For example, her jacket is way too light considering it’s already in the low forties and about to get much colder. The undead aren’t warm-blooded. They’re no-blooded, so temperature doesn’t affect them. And he goes out of his way to make sure he never shows his teeth, even when he smiles. A big giveaway for many zombies, because their teeth can turn orange and yellow.

  Still, I wouldn’t tag them as undead just because of a jacket and a non-smile. After all, she might put fashion before comfort, and he could just be shy. The giveaway was when I spotted them sneaking into the Rockefeller Center subway station from a darkened tunnel that leads to abandoned tracks. You know, as opposed to getting off an actual subway like most people.

  I’ve been tailing them for about five blocks now, and from all appearances they’re both Level 2s, which means that in addition to being undead, they have no souls or consciences. This makes them extremely dangerous.

  Normally, I try to stay at least a half block away when I’m following someone, but tonight I’m doing my best to keep within fifteen feet because the streets are total chaos. Nearly a million people are trying to cram into Times Square to celebrate New Year’s Eve, and if I lose sight of them here I’ll never find them again.

  Every once in a while, one of the two checks to make sure they’re not being followed and I do my best to blend into the crowd. With all of the people around it’s not likely they’d notice me, but I’m still careful not to look right at them. Omega training taught me that it’s hard to remember a face if you’ve never made eye contact.

  At Forty-Fifth Street we reach a security checkpoint where the police start herding us like farm animals into barricaded chutes. I almost wind up in the wrong one, but I fight my way against the flow of people and wedge in behind the two suspects.

  Eventually, we dead-end into a pen, and once it’s full, a policeman puts up another barricade behind us and closes us in. There’s no getting in or out for food or bathroom breaks. This is where we’re staying for the next four and a half hours until a giant crystal ball drops down a flagpole and signals the start of the New Year. It’s a classic New York tradition that dates back to the early 1900s, and the undead have been a part of it since the beginning.

  The fact that they’ve been coming all these years where anyone could see them, yet no one ever has, shows how clever the undead really are. (Another thing the horror movies tend to miss.)

  This year, however, it seems as though they may be coming out of hiding and stepping into the spotlight. We know the undead are planning something big for tonight, but we haven’t been able to figure out exactly what it is.

  That’s what has us worried.

  All we know for certain is that there are a million people who have nothing to protect themselves with except for noisemakers and paper hats.

  And us.

  Omegas old and new are scattered throughout Times Square. In fact, there are more Omegas here tonight than have ever been together before. That’s because we’re determined to make sure everyone else gets a chance to make their resolutions come true too.

  I take my spot right behind the couple and wait. They’re not going anywhere and neither am I. I have four and a half hours to figure out what their plan is and come up with a way to stop it. That gives me enough time to think back to when this started and try to notice any clues I might have missed along the way.

  It all began with the most indestructible zombie ever imagined and a bowlful British candy bars. . . .

  Trick or Treat

  I mean seriously.

  So far this zombie had survived a lead pipe to the head, the total dislocation of his right arm, and a puncture in his stomach that now oozed yellow slime. Yet somehow none of it had slowed him down. He just kept coming right at me doing the wail and flail, which is what we call it when a zombie makes those creepy moaning noises and walks all stiff-legged and jerky. I kept my cool when he flashed the death stare with his milky white eyes. But when he reached out and I saw the chunks of dead flesh dangling from finger bones right in front of my face, I couldn’t help myself.

  I flinched.

  And how did my friends react? How do you think they reacted? They laughed hysterically.

  “What?” I asked defensively as I took off my 3-D glasses and realized that I might have done more than flinch.

  The zombie was still there, frozen in midsnarl on the giant television screen. Alex, who had just pressed the pause button on the remote, shook his head in total disbelief. “I’m sorry, but aren’t you the girl who just defeated Marek Blackwell in an epic battle at the top of the George Washington Bridge?” He pointed at the neon purple cast on my left arm. “Isn’t that how you broke
your hand?”

  “Your point?”

  “My point is that you’ve faced an actual Level 2 zombie,” he said. “How can you be frightened by this ridiculous movie?”

  “I’m n-not . . . frightened,” I said with a stammer even though I was hoping to sound confident. “Why would you even say that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” answered Grayson. “Maybe because you went like this.” He held his hands in front of his face and cowered as he let out a shriek so ridiculous, I couldn’t help but laugh too.

  “I guess scary movies scare me,” I conceded. “But I didn’t squeal. I just flinched.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Grayson replied.

  The truth is I normally avoid scary movies no matter what. It’s like a rule for me. But this was no normal situation. Officially our team was dissolved, but we’d managed to petition for a hearing to review the case. For now we were suspended until our fate could be decided. It had been a couple of weeks, and our Omega team was so desperate for any sort of undead action, we were spending Halloween watching a zombie movie marathon in Natalie’s apartment. Mostly, we made fun of how fake and unbelievable the movies were. But Natalie’s family has a deluxe home theater that’s tricked out with a giant 3-D television and surround-sound speakers that make even the cheesiest horror movies seem realistic.

  “If you’d like, we can watch some cartoons instead,” Alex joked. “Or does it scare you too much when the Road Runner gets the anvil to fall on the Coyote?”

  “You are sooooo funny,” I replied, mustering all the sarcasm I could manage as I whacked him on the back of the head with a pillow.

  That’s when Natalie came into the room with a massive bowl of candy. Like they did with everything else, her parents had gone overboard with the Halloween treats.

  “Unless there are a couple of hundred kids in the building I don’t know about, there’s no way we’re going to give all of this out tonight,” she said as she set it on the table in front of us. “So help yourself to as much as you’d like.”

  Alex gave the bowl the same look a lion gives a herd of zebras before he quickly began devouring his prey. Grayson, however, picked up a piece and examined its shiny orange wrapper before asking, “What kind of candy is this? I’ve never even seen it before.”

  “Well, we just can’t have normal candy, can we?” Natalie replied with a phony British accent. “Mum and Dad had to special-order chocolate from England. You know, to impress the neighbors who, by the way, don’t have kids and won’t ever see it. It’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous,” Alex mumbled as he tried to talk and chew at the same time. “It’s delicious!” He swallowed a bite and announced, “Best. Chocolate. Ever.”

  “Glad you like it,” Natalie said as she settled into the cushy chair next to mine. “So what was that scream I heard when I was in the other room?”

  “Grayson trying to be funny,” I answered. “And failing epically.”

  “Not that scream,” she corrected. “The one before that.”

  I slumped.

  “That was Molly,” Grayson said. “Flinching . . . epically.”

  “She was terrified of him,” Alex explained, pointing toward the zombie on the television.

  Natalie rolled her eyes. “You can’t be serious.”

  “It’s a scary movie!” I reminded them. “You’re supposed to get scared watching scary movies. It’s considered normal behavior.”

  “Well, you’ve only got one more week to be normal,” she reminded me. “So get it out of your system.”

  She didn’t need to say anything more than that. I knew exactly what she meant. Our review hearing was set for the following week, and when we presented our case to the panel of past Omegas, we’d have to be much better than normal. We were asking them to lift our suspension, and to do that, we’d need to convince them that we were essential in the fight against the undead. If they ruled against us, our team would most likely be disbanded.

  “Is that why you didn’t wear a costume?” Grayson asked me. “Because costumes scare you too?”

  My lack of a costume had been a running joke all night long. When I arrived at the apartment, I was more than a little surprised to find the others had all dressed for the occasion. Grayson was decked out as a superhero; Alex wore a vampire’s cape and plastic fangs; and Natalie went full Bride of Frankenstein, with pancake makeup, a huge wig, and a tattered wedding dress. Meanwhile, I’d come dressed as . . . me.

  “Nobody told me we were supposed to wear costumes,” I protested.

  “It’s Halloween,” Grayson said. “We kind of figured it was obvious.”

  (Dear World, when it comes to social situations, what’s obvious to you is totally not obvious to me.)

  The funny thing is that I was going to wear a costume but decided it would be a big mistake. Since they’re all older than me, I assumed they’d outgrown Halloween costumes and that wearing one would make me look too young. I didn’t want to be the only one dressed up. So, instead, it turned out that I was the only one not dressed up. Arrgh.

  It also didn’t help that unlike every previous October of my life, I wasn’t really in a Halloween mood. Normally, I spent weeks trying to figure out the perfect costume; but this year it just didn’t seem like the thing to do. I’d been in a funk ever since my battle with Marek atop the bridge. This had less to do with the fight and more to do with the fact that I’d been rescued by my mother. That would be the same mother whose funeral I’d attended two and a half years earlier. Once you’ve discovered that your mom is an actual zombie, dressing up like one doesn’t seem like fun.

  I haven’t told anyone about my mother. I mean, really, what can I say? (“Hey, you know those zombies we’re always fighting? Turns out one’s my mom!”) It’s even worse at home. I feel so guilty when I’m around my father and sister, but there’s no way to tell them Mom’s a resident of Dead City when they have no idea what Dead City is. I’m pretty sure they would call a psychiatrist right around the part where I say, “You see, there are thousands of zombies living underneath New York City. . . .” So I had this huge dilemma, and there was no one I could talk to about it. The only person who could possibly understand would have been . . . my mom. After all, she had been an Omega when she was in school (a legendary one, in fact), and she would be able to help me figure this all out. But she disappeared within moments of saving my life.

  I desperately wanted to go down into Dead City to look for her, but I couldn’t do that to my friends. I was the reason that our team had been suspended, and the three of them had staked their reputations to defend me. If I went underground without permission, it would ruin everything and our suspension would become permanent. So I just had to act like it never happened.

  “I’ll look for a less scary movie,” Alex joked as he started to click through the channels. “Maybe one with rainbows and puppies.”

  I was about to make a smart-alecky comment when something on the screen caught my eye.

  “Wait a second,” I said. “Go back.”

  “Back to the zombie movie?” he asked hopefully.

  “No,” I replied. “Back to the news.”

  He flipped back a couple of channels to a local newscast. A reporter with slicked-back hair, professor glasses, and way too much spray tan was sitting at a desk. Behind him was the picture of a man and the headline SUBWAY DEATH.

  “I think I know that guy,” I said, pointing at the screen. “But I can’t remember where I’ve seen him.”

  Natalie laughed.

  “That’s Action News reporter Brock Hampton,” she said, doing her best overly dramatic news reporter impression. “Remember? We eavesdropped on his newscast when we went to the crime scene on Roosevelt Island.”

  I looked at the reporter for a moment and realized she was right. “Hey, that is him,” I said. “But that’s not who I was talking about. I was talking about the dead guy. I’ve seen him somewhere before too.”

  According t
o the report, early that morning a man named Jacob Ellis had been found dead on a subway in Brooklyn, and the police were still trying to determine what had happened. There were two unusual details that made the story newsworthy. One was that his right arm was completely missing. The other was that he was handcuffed to his seat.

  “Despite the handcuffs, the police say that Ellis was not an escaped prisoner and, in fact, had never been in trouble with the law,” Brock Hampton intoned. “Perhaps it was a Halloween prank gone wrong, or maybe just a case of someone being extremely . . . unlucky.”

  “Unlucky?” Grayson asked. “I think if you’re dead and someone steals your arm, you’ve gone way beyond being unlucky.”

  “That’s it,” I said as I grabbed the remote from Alex and froze the image on the screen. I studied the face for a moment. “Jacob Ellis was one of the Unlucky 13.”

  “The unlucky what?” asked Alex.

  “You remember the pictures I found in the Book of Secrets?” I asked.

  “You mean the ones you weren’t supposed to look at or do anything about, but you did anyway, and it led to all of us getting suspended?” asked Natalie. “You mean those pictures?” (She was joking, but there was no denying that she was right.)

  “Okay, stupid question,” I said. “But those pictures were of the men who were killed in the subway tunnel explosion back in 1896. In Dead City they’re known as the Unlucky 13. That guy was one of them. He was one of the very first zombies.”

  Suddenly, Alex was interested. “Are you sure?”

  I looked right into the dead man’s eyes on the TV screen. “Positive.”

  “He’s been alive for over a hundred and ten years and he just dies on the subway and gets his arm stolen,” Grayson said. “There’s got to be a story behind that.”

  Unlike the movie monsters we’d been watching all night, we’d finally caught a glimpse of a real zombie story. Suspended or not, we began to look at the situation like an Omega team.

  “Do you think it’s like when the three guys pretended to be dead on Roosevelt Island?” Alex asked. “Do you think maybe he’s just faking being dead to get back into the morgue?”