by Stacey Jay
Whatever. I had things to do that I didn't want him to observe anyway.
I'd read enough in Mom's old third-stage Settler book over the past twenty-four hours to learn about the importance of full moons and eclipses in black magic, but I hadn't had the chance to practice any of the more advanced commands I'd read about because Ethan was always around. Since I'd just thrown out bait I firmly believed would bring on another attack, however, today seemed like an excellent time to get some real-life experience with the things I'd been reading about.
Especially the flame command. No matter what Ethan said about it taking up a lot of power and being so scary and dangerous, it still seemed like a pretty useful thing to have in your bag of tricks. The rest of the third-stage stuff wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped it would be-at least not as far as combating Reanimated Corpses was concerned-but it did make me more hopeful about the future.
According to the book, third-stagers had a lot more wiggle room when it came to how often they used their power. They could basically "shut off for days at a time. As long as they spent one to two nights a week at home waiting for Unsettled, their power wouldn't get out of control. It made me feel way better about staying a Settler to know I'd have more freedom in a few years… or as soon as I advanced to the third stage.
Mom and Ethan had both said I was manifesting way more power than the average second-stager. Shouldn't that mean I could move up sooner? Getting to choose which nights I was "at the office" would really help me make sure I didn't miss night performances with the pom squad. And if I already knew most of the third-stage stuff before I started pestering Mom to talk to Settlers' Affairs for me…
Well, I didn't see how they could refuse, which made me even more rabid to get started.
Once we got home, however, I exercised great restraint and resisted whipping out the third-stage book until I'd finished dinner and read my English assignment. Macbeth. More like Macblech. So far I just wasn't into Shakespeare, which sort of made me rethink English as one of my possible majors in college.
Then I hopped on the computer to IM the news of Macbeth's snooze factor to Jess, took a super-fast shower, and finally raced into the kitchen to snag a bag of Doritos because all the dancing had made me extremely snacky for junk food and Mom had cooked something gross as usual. So I was just getting around to memorizing the hand motions for the flame command when the phone rang.
I waited for Mom to answer it on the off chance someone was actually calling my house to speak to my parents-which had happened maybe once or twice in the past six months-while I hid the stage-three book under my mattress. Then, in an effort to appear innocent while I waited for Mom to yell for me to pick up, I turned on one of my TiVo'd episodes of Engaged & Underage, my favorite guilty pleasure.
It was like watching an angsty hormone-fueled train wreck and firmly cemented my resolve to be at least twenty-five before I considered getting hitched.
"Megan! Phone!"
The phone was already in hand, dearest Mother. "Hello?"
"Megan? Hey, it's Del."
"Hey, Del, what's up?" I asked, trying not to sound surprised. Del and I were friends, but she rarely called. We had more of an IM-every-once-in-a-while relationship.
"I was just wondering if you'd mind picking up my homework from the office tomorrow since you live closer than Jess or Claire. My brother was going to do it, but now he's got mono too."
"You've got mono? That sucks!" And meant she couldn't be my zombie raiser… unless this call was a deliberate attempt to throw me off her trail.
Her trail? What trail? You have no trail. You are the worst Nancy Drew ever.
The inner voice was back on a pessimistic streak. Why was I not surprised?
"I know, and right before homecoming! I'm so bummed." Del sighed. "But Zeke is the one who gave it to me, so I guess I wouldn't be going anyway."
Zeke, Del's man, had been absent all week too, so this was seeming pretty believable. Besides, Del and Zeke spent too much time making out to get around to raising zombies. It was only my paranoia that had made me suspect her. Well, paranoia and Jess's comments about Del's weird behavior lately and the odd phone call she'd gotten from Del the other day.
Maybe that was why she was calling me instead of Jess even though Jess lived nearly as close. Maybe she'd already weirded Jess out by being all freaky on the phone. Or maybe she was trying to lure me over to her house so she could tie me up in her basement to make sure I didn't get to the dance?
I made a mental note to make sure Ethan was with me when I went by Del's. It was better to be paranoid and safe than trusting and dead.
"No problem," I said. "I'll pick it up and bring it by after tryout clinic tomorrow."
"So how's that going?"
We talked about clinic and the gorgeous dress Del wasn't going to be wearing to homecoming for a few minutes; then I signed off with a promise to see her Thursday afternoon. I'd barely had time to get the stage-three book pulled out from under my mattress, however, when the phone rang again.
Hmmm. Caller unknown. How intriguing.
This time I didn't wait for Mom to answer because it was almost ten and I knew she'd get on me for late phone calls-probably while still on the phone with me and whoever had called.
"Hello?"
There was a brief, creepy pause before a scratchy voice came on the line. "I've got a present for you, Megan."
"Who is this?" I vaulted off my bed to pace around the room, for some reason feeling safer on the move.
This was it! This had to be my guy. Or my girl, rather. The person was obviously masking her voice, but it still sounded like a female.
"It doesn't matter who I am. It's who you are that's important." The weirdo laughed then, but the sound was inhuman, like a robot coughing up a hair ball. She was using something high-tech to conceal her voice, which made me even more afraid. A high tech voodoo freak didn't seem like a good combination. "I know you like to play with dead people, Megan."
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice shaking.
I wasn't going to give her confirmation if she didn't have it already, but in my heart I knew my cover had been blown. Someone knew I was a Settler. If this person wasn't Monica, that meant my family could be relocated, all of our lives ruined because some twisted freak liked to use Reanimated Corpses as her own personal murder weapons.
"Oh, I think you do. It's okay, I like to play with them too." The way she said "play" made my skin crawl. "Experimenting with new things can be such fun, don't you think?"
"Please, you're freaking me out. I don't understand-"
"No, you don't, but you will," she snapped, clearly near to losing what little sanity she had left. "I wish it could have been different. It's been fun playing with you from a distance, but I wanted to look you in the face when you finally died. Too bad it looks like that won't be happening. Still, at least I know you'll still be getting what you deserve."
The sharp click as she hung up the phone made me flinch. My mouth went dry and my lips opened and closed, with no words coming out. Someone wanted me dead. Someone really wanted me dead.
I frantically punched star-69 into the phone, but all I got was a recording telling me the number was blocked. Of course. Like a freak who went to the trouble to use voice-disguise technology was going to let a murder plot be foiled by last call return.
A murder plot. This wasn't about homecoming, after all. I felt the Doritos I'd eaten come racing back up my throat and barely made it to the toilet in time.
"Megan! Get to the door! Now!!" My mom's scream came just as I was flushing. I wiped a trembling hand across my mouth and dashed to the door, fearing the worst, but when I got to the foyer, it looked like Settler business as usual.
Well, not exactly as usual.
Just inside the door stood three zombies-all of them girls. And all of them with the same face and dirty shoulder-length blond hair. Triplets.
My mom stood next to the newspaper she'd laid out
by the door, looking as struck by the sadness of this as I felt. Someone out there had lost three kids all at once. I felt so bad for their family. Combined with the terror inspired by the phone call, it was enough to make me tear up.
Mom must have seen how upset I was because she stuck close even after she'd handed me the official record book. Her hand on my shoulder helped me pull it together as I opened the book to the first empty page and clicked my pen. I just had to get through this, put these girls to rest. Then I could tell Mom everything.
I had to tell her, even though I hated to let her know our cover could have been compromised. No matter how many times I'd moaned about the lameness of living in Arkansas, I didn't really want to leave and start all over somewhere else. With a new school, no friends, no best friend, and no Ethan. I really wished Ethan hadn't disappeared right when I needed a friend-and a bodyguard-in the worst way.
"Hello, my name is Megan," I said, surprised my voice didn't sound shakier than it did. "Welcome to your after-death session. Could you please give me your names, last name first."
"Wellington, Shane," they all three said at once, creating a creepy kind of stereo effect as the human part of them came online.
"No, I'm Shane!" they said, again at the same time. They turned to look at each other, obviously confused. "Who are you? Stop copying me!"
"Okay, just relax. Let's try this one at a time." What was their problem? I'd never heard of an after-death identity crisis, but then, I'd never dealt with triplets before either. I motioned to the girl on the far left. "Let's start with you."
"No, we'll start with me, whatever your name is," said the one in the center in a snotty voice. I was starting to feel a little less sorry for her. "I'm the real Shane. I don't know who these other losers are."
The two girls on either side of her chose that moment to start groaning. Not a typical zombie groan-more like they'd been asked to take out the trash and were expressing their displeasure for the chore. Still, there was something… off about the whole situation. Especially coming so soon after the phone call.
I struggled to remember the exact words the crazy on the phone had used but kept drawing a blank. All I could hear was her creepy robot voice telling me she wanted to look me in the face while I died.
While I died. I couldn't die. My sixteenth birthday was only three weeks away!
"Shut up, freaks." Shane flipped her grave dirt-covered hair out of her gray eyes and glared first at me, then at my mom. "Would you people mind telling me what's going on here?"
"Maybe you could tell us why you've chosen to emerge from your rest?" Mom seemed fairly calm, so maybe this wasn't anything weird after all. She must have seen or heard about something like the three Shanes before.
Still, uneasiness niggled at my brain. There had been something about a present. The psycho had said she'd gotten me a present. Judging from the death threat, I could assume it wasn't going to be a gift I would enjoy, but I didn't see how this could be related. Shane and her sisters were normal Unsettled, no glowing red eyes or lunging for my throat.
Well, they weren't completely normal since the other two weren't really very talkative. But Shane certainly had normal Unsettled issues, which she revealed as she began spilling her guts.
"My cousin Melinda stole every last pair of shoes I owned while I was in a coma. She came in and told me about it while I was on life support. She thought I couldn't hear her, but I could." She sneered, her contempt for her shoe-stealing cousin clear in every line of her face, which was weird, considering the other two Shanes were looking less and less lifelike every second, their jaws growing slack and their eyes empty. "I want her to know that she can't have my shoes. I want them to go to like charity or something because there's no way that thief- will you shut up?"
The other two zombies were groaning again, louder and louder, making every hair on my body stand on end. They sounded like they were getting ready to go Rogue, which shouldn't be possible since they still hadn't told me what had made them rise from their grave along with their sister. This was so strange, so unlike anything I'd ever even heard of.
"Okay, so you want your shoes to go to charity. I've got it. Now what about the other two of you? Who wants to go first?" But the other two Shanes just moaned again, and their eyes began to glow a faint blue color. Okay, creepy. But at least not red. "Mom, what's going on? Have you ever seen-"
"No, but I've read about something similar," she said, and this time I could hear the fear in her voice. "Shane, are you sure the shoes are the only reason you came to talk with us tonight?" Mom edged slightly in front of me, as if to put herself in harm's way rather than her baby chick. "Go get the phone, Megan. I'll handle-"
"No, Mom, this is my responsibility. These girls are obviously here for me," I said, edging back in front of her.
"Megan Amanda-"
She didn't have time to get to my last name before the two sisters' blue eyes suddenly turned bright, Reanimated red. They lunged at me, claws raised as I stumbled backward into Mom. I had just enough time to notice that their French manicures were in awfully good shape for chicks who'd dug themselves out from under six feet of dirt before we were on the floor, rumbling like something from the WWWF.
CHAPTER 11
I heard Shane screaming and saw Mom trying to pull one of the sisters off of me, but they were too strong. Groaner number one shoved Mom away as if she weighed nothing and then turned her attention back to me with a swipe aimed at my eyes. I wiggled to the left just in time to catch the blow on the shoulder, not the face, but it still hurt like nobody's business.
"Absis-" Groaner two shoved her hand into my face, interrupting the freezing command even as groaner one made a lunge for my throat.
Mom grabbed a baseball bat from the closet and knocked the lunger's head hard enough to spin her face around to her back, then started whaling on the second zombie, but the thing barely seemed to notice. Argh! If only Mom could still command the dead!
But Mom hadn't been able to actively Settle since I was five years old and started manifesting. That meant she couldn't help me any more than the average terrified human parent. It also meant that, once these ladies had eaten me, she and Dad would have no way to get rid of them.
I had to get free. There was no other option.
I screamed and kicked and thrashed but barely managed to keep clear of one zombie's hands and the other zombie's mouth. The second one was getting way too freaking close to getting her teeth into me, a fact that made my heart beat triple time as I shoved at the hand still covering my mouth.
One part of me heard Mom yell for Dad, but the other part was back at the night of my first attack. I remembered the searing pain as the zombie tore into my shoulder, the feeling of flesh tearing away from flesh as I scuttled backward, screaming. I was suddenly ten years old again, helpless to do anything but lie there and pray for help.
No! Ton aren't that little kid anymore. Pull your head out of your ass and do something!
I forced the memory away as I reared back and head-butted the thing on top of me. Pain blossomed through my forehead, but luckily the zombie was dazed enough by the blow to be temporarily distracted from her bid to rip out my throat. Seconds later, Dad was there above me, kicking her away.
"Grab my arms, Megan!" I clung to my dad's forearms as he snatched me under the armpits and hauled me out from under the two feral versions of Shane.
I kicked the one with her face still in the right direction in the eye as my dad wrenched me free, giving us a few extra seconds to turn and haul ass. Mom was already holding open the door to my parents' bedroom, ready to slam it closed as soon as we were safely inside. Dad and I lurched through the opening, still awkwardly clinging to each other, but luckily we didn't fall down until we were near the bed.
"They're clones, I'm sure of it," Mom spoke into the phone at her ear as she closed the door and flipped the dead bolt. "Yes, I know that- listen, I- dammit, Carl, they were trying to eat my daughter.
We'r
e locked in our bedroom, but I don't know how long the door will hold. We need backup. Now!"
As if on cue, something that sounded like a fist connected with the door, making it rattle. A second later, another blow hit and the wood groaned in a way that wasn't comforting. We had to get out of here before they found a way in.
"Mom, the window!" I was up and across the room in a second, throwing open the window next to my parents' bed. Our house is all one level, and the lot only sloped a little bit on that side. It was maybe a four-foot drop to the ground and from there only ten to twelve feet around to the side of the house where my dad's truck was parked in the driveway.
"We're going to try to get out to the-"
Mom was interrupted by a splintering sound as a white Mary Jane broke through the bottom of the door.
"Jennifer, come on!" My dad kicked out the screen and helped me through the window. I hit the ground and turned to see if Mom needed help getting through. I was reaching up to take her hand when she screamed.
"Behind you, Megan!"
On pure instinct, I ducked down. A second later, I felt the air stir as something zoomed over my head and hit the brick wall in front of me.
"Gunhhh!" Yet another version of Shane groaned as she struggled to stand, half of her head smashed in by contact with the bricks. Too bad zombies didn't need brains to function or I might have been able to eliminate her as a possible threat. But no, she was already up and at me-trudging forward, arms raised and hands ready to close around my neck and squeeze as soon as she got close enough.
I turned to run, only to find two other clones shuffling in from the front yard. I changed direction, rounding the house into the backyard.
If I'd been able to draw a big enough breath, I would have screamed.
The entire yard was filled with Shanes, at least two dozen of them. That evil freak on the phone had wanted to make sure I wouldn't survive this attack, so she'd made up for what black-magically raised zombies lacked in speed with pure numbers. My family was surrounded, and unless help showed soon, we weren't going to live to share the story of these clones with the rest of the Settler world.
