by Stacey Jay
You Are So Undead to Me
Stacey Jay
For Laura Mae-daughter, friend, and fellow smartass.
PROLOGUE
The cold wind swept across the hill, whistling through the headstones that poked from the ground like dozens of crooked baby teeth. In the sky, a sickly yellow moon transformed the graveyard's bare trees into guardians made of old, white bone, and somewhere in the distance, an animal screamed.
Call me crazy, but I figured whatever was going to happen next wasn't going to be fun. Creepy graveyards aren't your typical location for good times of the cute-fluffy-bunny-and-rainbows variety.
My lips parted and I tried to cry out, but no sound came, nothing but a pathetic gurgling as the ground beneath me buckled.
Gnarled tree roots burst from the hard earth, wrapping around my arms and legs, lifting me into the air. More silent screams ripped from my throat as the roots flung me down the steep slope, toward the oldest part of the graveyard.
I threw my arms out to the side, trying to stop, but I'd already built too much momentum. Faster and faster I rolled, skin tearing, rocks bruising my bones. By the time I reached the bottom of the slope there was blood on my hands, on my face, smearing across the dead leaves at the edge of three open graves.
And there, from holes in the earth, three sets of glowing red eyes stared into mine, three pairs of gnarled hands reached for my flesh. I knew what they were at once. Zombies.
Rotted flesh hung loosely on their faces, chunks falling away as they groaned in anticipation of their meal. The smell of decay hit me like a physical blow, making me gag. I fought the urge to yack as I gasped for breath, still unable to make a sound.
"Help!" I finally managed to scream as soft, rotted hands latched around my ankles.
There was someone nearby, someone who could help me. I was sure of it. But before I could call out again, the third zombie was on top of me. Ancient teeth tore through my clothes, shredding fabric to get to skin.
I screamed, so loud it seemed someone else was screaming along with me. Frantically, I shoved at the zombie now digging into my shoulder so deep I could hear teeth scraping bone, kicking at the others near my feet and praying someone would hear me before it was too late.
"Nice outfit, Megan." It was Monica Parsons, fellow zombie Settler and general mistress of evil. She stood above me, watching the zombies feed.
"Help me!"
"Sorry, not into rescuing fashion victims."
I glanced down, gasping in horror as I saw the god-awful circa-1980s prom dress that had somehow found its way onto my body. The monstrosity was bright fuchsia except in the places where blood stained it black and probably the most wretched garment ever to see the light of day.
Or the light of the full moon, in this case.
"Does Josh know you're wearing that to homecoming? I really think he should be clued in to what a freak you are." She whipped out her cell, ready to document my shame with her camera feature.
"No!" I wailed, torn between fighting the zombies on top of me and trying to cover my face to conceal my identity.
"Desino! Absisto!" Another voice sounded from the darkness and suddenly the zombie on top of me froze mid-chomp. Seconds later a blurred shape slammed into it, knocking it to the ground, where the pair rolled over and over, all the way to the side of the old church.
I screamed as a chunk of skin disappeared with the zombie but didn't waste time getting to my feet. My lips were buzzing and blood flowed down my arm to drip from my fingers, but I pushed myself to move faster.
I had to save the person who had helped me, keep him from being eaten. But he was so far away, I'd never reach him time. But I could reach-
"Give me your hand!" I screamed to Monica, stumbling across the rocks on my bare feet. Now I was wearing nothing but a torn sleep shirt. I had no idea where my shoes and the '80s eyesore had gone and I didn't care. I just needed to get to Monica, get her hand in mine and our power combined before-
"Megan, Monica, run! Get the others, get-" The boy's voice became a strangled sound and I knew the zombie he'd knocked off of me was back in motion.
I risked a brief look over my shoulder to see the other two zombies lumbering forward, arms outstretched. Something yellow that looked like pus dripped from their mouths, making it clear they were hungry for a taste of the red trail I was leaving behind. But they weren't that close, not close enough to stop me before I reached Monica.
I grabbed her hand, clinging to it even when she tried to pull away.
"Let me go, freak, we've got to-ouch!" Digging my fingers into Monica's palm, I released every barrier to my power, every wall I'd first learned to erect to keep zombies from following me to the playground when I was five.
"This is it. You are never going to make the pom squad!" But I barely heard Monica now. All I could hear was the roar of blood rushing through my ears and the quieter hiss of more power than I'd ever felt sizzling along my nerve endings, all the way down to my fingertips.
"Reverto!" I screamed the word, flinging the power at the approaching zombies with a wave of my free hand. For a moment, the two coming for me hesitated, faltering in their steps.
But then they were on the move again, howling this time, their red eyes glowing with hate and hunger. I screamed, tightening my grip on Monica, unable to make my legs move now that the zombies were so close.
"Say it again! With me this time, you stupid-" Monica yelled.
"Okay! Okay," I sobbed.
"Now!"
"Reverto!" We screamed the word together. This time, the zombies spun around, turning toward the woods with another horrible groan. My eyes flew to the tree line, where a figure in a black cloak was disappearing into the forest.
We were safe. At least, Monica and I were. I still hadn't seen- "Hello? Are you?…" I spun toward the boy who had saved my life, but the world spun as well. My head felt so light I was sure it would float off my neck any minute.
"Wow, Megan. Desperate for attention much?" Monica asked, her words transforming into wicked laughter-laughter in which was soon joined by the hundreds of people attending the Carol High homecoming dance.
"No!" I wailed, trying to cover myself with my arms.
But it was too late. Everyone had already seen me buck naked in the hot spotlights illuminating the platform where the homecoming queen should have been standing to receive her crown. My shame was complete, my life utterly and completely ruined. I would never be able to show my face in Carol again and-
"Ohmygod!" I bolted upright, drenched in sweat despite the fact that I'd deliberately cranked up the air-conditioning before heading to bed. It was a dream, just a dream… at least, most of it.
Everything except the attack. The scar on my shoulder wouldn't let me forget how real that had been.
The puckered flesh ached a bit as I huddled back under the covers, determined to get back to sleep and not to dream. Not to remember. It had been years since I'd been able to recall so many details about that night, and I certainly didn't want to dredge up any more. My mind had buried those memories for a reason, and they should stay buried.
Just like corpses should stay in the ground.
CHAPTER 1
My cell rang at ten till six. Jess was talking before I could even say hello.
"So what are you wearing, the dress or the butt jeans?" she asked, sounding nearly as breathless as I felt.
This was it: the first night of the rest of my life, the beginning of my social ascension at Carol High School. Pom squad tryouts were a couple of weeks away, but it looked like I was going to be accepted into the ranks of the trendy and gorgeous even before I was issued my official Cougar Pride dance team uniform.
I'd scored a date with the ho
ttest guy in school over a Bunsen burner in junior chem. I was a year ahead and Mr. Hottie a year behind, but it was clearly fate-and not smarts or a lack thereof-that had made us lab partners.
"The dress," I said, taking one final spin in front of my mirror. "The one with the yellow and brown flowers."
"Yellow and brown? I thought they were red."
"Nope. Remember, it's the one we got at-"
"Take a picture and send it to my e-mail," she said. "The stepmonster is still borrowing my phone until hers is fixed, but I'm online and-"
The doorbell rang and I did my best to stifle a squeal of excitement. "He's here!" Josh Pickle-lame last name, but trust me, he's studly enough to pull it off-was really here to pick me, Megan Berry, only marginally cool sophomore, up for a date!
"Okay, go! But IM as soon as you get home. I want to hear everything!"
"Will do. Bye," I said, already halfway to the front door. I had to get there before my parents. Dad was wearing his weird "who flung poo?" monkey pajama pants and could not be allowed to interact with anyone. Therefore, I could not afford to play it cool and make my senior sex god wait at least a few seconds so it didn't seem like I'd raced to the door like a total loser.
But whatever-Josh had to know I was into him. It wasn't like I was very good at hiding my feelings where he was concerned, and he'd still asked me out.
"Bight. Deep breath," I whispered, my biggest smile on my face before I'd even opened the door. "Hey, give me just a sec and-"
Oh. My. God. There was a dead person on my porch.
Again.
My flesh crawled and my stomach threatened a second showing of the seven-layer salad we'd had for dinner.
"Mom!" I screamed, barely able to force out the word through the massive, softball-size lump in my throat. I slammed the door in the guy's face and fumbled with the lock, doing my best not to hyperventilate.
This could not be happening! Josh was supposed to be ringing my doorbell, not some dead guy. It was a guy, right?
I opened the door just a crack. Yep. Definitely a dude. The shoulder-length hair had thrown me for a second. The fact that his face was half covered in grave dirt-eww!-didn't help things either. At least he hadn't decomposed… much. He must have been a fairly recent member of the Unsettled.
"What is it, Megan? Dad and I were right in the middle of- oh my God!" Mom spied the dead guy and jumped about a foot in the air, then turned and raced back into the kitchen. She emerged seconds later with a bunch of newspapers and began spreading them on the floor near the front door.
Dйjа vu hit like a ton of bricks. It was suddenly as if the past five years hadn't happened, as if I hadn't been zombie free and normal long enough to be lulled into thinking that my freedom was permanent. Even with the creepy dreams I'd been having lately, I'd never thought my powers were coming back. After the attack, my entire family had assumed I was done with Settling the Dead.
But the guy on the porch, the newspaper on the floor to catch the dirt… God, it was so horribly familiar I expected to look down and find myself wearing the Hello Kitty pajamas I so loved when I was ten.
"Invite him in, Megan. I'll go get the record book. I'm sure I stuck it somewhere in the walk-in." My mom brushed her long brown hair out of her eyes and shot me an excited smile. She was excited about this! Excited that I was once again one of the freakiest kids in the South.
"No way, Mom. Josh could be here any second. I'm not going to do this tonight!" Or any night if I had my say about it, but there was no need to go there just yet. I knew my mom considered our family's legacy as Settlers of the Dead something wonderful, a vital paranormal service to those recently troubled in death and blah, blah, blah.
"Megan Amanda Berry. You invite that boy in. Now. That is a person out there, a person in need of your help, and-"
"I know it's a person, Mom, but it's a dead person. His life is already over. Mine doesn't have to be."
"Megan-"
"Seriously, my life will be over if Josh shows up for our first date and sees a corpse in the entryway." I used my most reasonable tone and willed her with wide brown eyes to take pity on me in my moment of desperation. I mean, couldn't she understand the position I was in? Everyone felt sorry for the kid in The Sixth Sense, and he was the only one who could see the dead people. Creepy, yes, but at least he didn't have to worry about a zombie tailing him to Softball practice and scaring half the population of Carol, Arkansas.
"Well, then, you'd better hurry and take his statement before Josh gets here." She disappeared into the kitchen, no doubt on her way to her and Dad's room to look for the Book of Unsettled Records. I'd thought I was done with that thing after what happened, after that night-
Even with the humid air streaming into the house, I shivered. I didn't want to think about that night. Not now. Not ever. The dreams were bad enough-I didn't have to torture myself while I was awake.
I turned back to the zombie, eying him up and down. He seemed normal enough-for a zombie. He didn't drool or lunge at my throat. He just stood there, looking a little spaced out, the way most Unsettled did until you gave them the cue to start spilling their guts.
I motioned him inside with a resigned sigh, being careful not to let him touch me as I shuffled around to close the door. It wouldn't matter how hot I looked if I smelled like a decomposing corpse.
The musty, slightly rotted smell of the Unsettled was hell to get out of clothing, and there was no way I was ruining the outfit that had taken me two hours to pick out. The white strappy sundress with brown and yellow flowers was retro without being too prissy. It picked up the goldish swirls in my brown eyes and looked great with my end-of-summer tan.
Over the summer I had finally outgrown the last of my awkward stage and looked good in clothes, even though I still had barely enough up top to fill out the built-in bra of my dress. My mother's fault. We look scarify alike, and she's always been super thin, with a not-quite-B cup.
"Hey, Meggy, heard you had a visitor." Dad popped his head out from the doorway to the kitchen but didn't come any closer. He still wasn't completely cool with the zombie stuff, even though he'd been married to Mom for twenty-three years, the first eight of which she'd been on active Settling duty. Her zombie-summoning power had started to fade when her offspring-that would be me-started showing signs of power.
Dead people started showing up on my porch when I turned five. Dead kids, to be specific. Settlers usually attract people of around the same age, something to do with the quality of our Settler vibes that I never really understood.
"Yeah. What a great surprise, right?" I smiled at Dad, trying to act like this wasn't freaking me out as much as it was. The dead guy grunted and shuffled on the papers, but his eyes remained fixed somewhere in the distance. I guess he could tell I wasn't talking to him yet. Normal zombies are fairly perceptive that way and far more mannerly than your average Walking Dead movie would have you believe.
"Your mom said this might happen, you know, as you got older and started to… develop." Dad looked like he'd just swallowed expired milk. I didn't know what was bothering him more, the zombie or discussing my hormones. Mom had warned me almost a year ago when I'd started my period that hormonal fluctuations sometimes enhanced Settler skills.
As if T-zone breakouts and cramps from hell weren't enough.
"Right. Did she find the book yet?" I asked, ready for a subject change.
"Not yet, but you know how things are in the Closet," Dad said.
The way we say closet in our house makes it clear the c is capitalized. The Closet is great and fearsome and full of more crap than any three-person family should own, let alone try to squeeze into a four-by-six-foot space. I nearly killed myself trying to sneak a peek at my Christmas presents when I was twelve and hadn't been in there since.
"Crap." I checked my watch. Less than ten minutes to arrival if Josh was on time. "Dad, could you just grab me that notepad Mom uses for the grocery lists? I'll write the stuff down there and transfer th
e info later."
"Is that SOP?"
Dad's retired air force and believes there's an SOP-standard operating procedure-for everything.
"No, but neither is letting someone outside the family see an out-of-grave phenomenon."
He nodded at the wisdom of that statement. "I'll grab you something to write with and then help your mom look. Be back in two minutes." He practically ran from the room, obviously not wanting Josh to see the zombie in our foyer any more than I did. Before I was born, a neighbor caught on to what was happening at the Berry house. My mom and dad had been forced to move halfway across the country from sunny California to Sticksville, Arkansas.
That would happen before I was born, so I couldn't even have the cool factor of saying I was born in Cali despite the fact both of my parents grew up there. Luckily my dad had been able to transfer to an air base in Arkansas last time, but I could tell he worried where we might be sent if we were discovered again. Settlers' Affairs doesn't mess around when it comes to being discovered. If you break cover, they decide how fast you run and how far.
Apparently Dad didn't want to find out if we'd be relocating to Outer Mongolia if my movie date met up with my zombie date. He was back in a flash with pen and paper. "I'll go check on your mother. If you hurry, you can have this guy out the back before I dig her out of the Closet."
"But she gets pissed if I let them walk through the house," I said, though something other than violating Mom's house rules was bothering me. I hadn't done this in so long. What if I forgot something?
"I'll vacuum after you leave for your date." Dad smiled and disappeared, and I couldn't help but smile back. For a man who had been adamantly opposed to letting his not-quite-sixteen-year-old go out with a senior, he was being incredibly cool.
Right! Screw doing things the Settler way. I had to get this guy out of here and get on with my real life.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the dearly departed. Hopefully, I still remembered how this was supposed to go.
"Welcome to your after-death session. My name is Megan. May I have your name, last name first?" The words rolled off my tongue with the same practiced ease they had years ago. And here I'd thought I'd suppressed all that zombie stuff.
