Team Human

by Justine Larbalestier

  Obviously, I’d wildly underestimated the romantic potential of this date.

  I turned and stamped away across rocks and sand back to the sunlight.

  Kit followed me. I sent him a furious look over my shoulder. He was part of it, part of the world that wanted to swallow Cathy. I kicked my way down to the waves and stood there looking out to sea, not caring if the ice-cold water turned my feet blue. Kit stayed near, a mere step behind.

  “Enjoying yourself?” I snapped, and then regretted it. This wasn’t Kit’s fault.

  “Yeah,” Kit said eventually. “It’s cool to see Honeycomb Beach. My mom talked about it.”

  The bay’s name did not match its history. Centuries ago it was the center of smuggling in this part of Maine. Boats used to come in from all over the country, and the rest of the world, full of slaves for vampires to feed on. Even when slavery was legal it was never legal, to sell to vampires. And yet it happened; hence the smuggling. Hard to know who was worse—the vampires or the humans who sold to them.

  I stared at Kit. I hadn’t thought Camille was that old.

  He raised his eyebrows. “When the English soldiers landed here during the War of Independence, and the people of the city, humans and vampires, were waiting for them? My mom was there.”

  Did he hear himself? His mom was biting soldiers during the Revolutionary War. I wondered if Camille had eaten slaves too. Did she think of that time as the good old days? When vampires were a huge part of keeping the slave trade alive? Yet now she was a vampire cop arresting vampires who so much as nibbled on humans who weren’t donors. Times change, huh?

  I wondered how many vampires wished they didn’t.

  “It’s great to finally see it,” Kit said.

  “It’s only a few miles from the city,” I said. “You could have come anytime.”

  “Yeah,” said Kit. “But a day at the beach with my shade would be the least fun outing ever.” He looked around, and I saw with his eyes for a second, and then just saw his eyes, the color somewhere between sky and sea, taking it all in. “It’s nice,” Kit told me. He sounded slightly wistful.

  The knot of anger eased in my chest a little. “It’s okay.”

  “Spoiled is what you are,” Kit teased, and poked me in the ribs with sandy fingers. “Minty always said lavishing buckets of sunshine on children makes them uncontrollable.”

  “Raised a lot of children, has she?”

  Kit laughed. “No, just me, and not really. She says pretty much everything makes me uncontrollable.”

  “Great choice of words. Uncontrollable? She sounds lovely.”

  Kit poked me again. “She’s not exactly my favorite. But no shade is perfect.”

  “Is that one of your mom’s sayings?”

  He went to poke me again and I grabbed his hand. Fearing some sort of poking retaliation, he grabbed my other hand. And then we were standing there, the surf almost reaching our feet, with our hands linked.

  “So, thanks for inviting me,” said Kit. I could feel his pulse racing, and I realized he might not know this wasn’t actually a date after all.

  Perhaps this was not a good time to tell him that I hadn’t invited him.

  Instead, I drew one hand free of his grasp, stood on my tiptoes, and pulled his head toward mine. The sun beat warm on my hair, and his mouth was warm against mine. All the energy from the game, all my misery and confusion over Cathy, poured out into the kiss and changed to something new and fierce.

  Kit’s lips pressed against mine as the kiss turned more certain, and my sandy palm reached for the back of his neck. His hand went to the small of my back and I stepped in, my body curving along the lines of his, our mouths locked, standing together hot and close and human.

  Kit pulled back and murmured, “I don’t want to have sex, okay?”

  “What?”

  “I know how humans are always up for it,” Kit said. “Which is totally fine! I’m not judging. It’s just, you know, I’m not ready and my mom would have a fit and—”

  I shoved him so hard he stumbled into the surf.

  I will now use a seaside metaphor. It was the emotional equivalent of being stung in the pride by a jellyfish.

  “You know how humans are always up for it?” I repeated, my voice rising. (It was a bit like a seagull’s cry, if we want to continue with the seaside theme.)

  Kit rubbed the back of his neck and looked at me warily. “Well,” he began. “There are these guys and girls who hang around the Shade and—”

  “They are groupies, Kit!” I snarled. “They are vampire groupies. They are there because they want to have sex with vampires! They are not how all humans behave.”

  “Oh,” Kit said. “Oh, right.”

  He was beginning to go a bit red.

  “Here is a lesson about how humans behave,” I said. “When a guy assumes a girl wants to have sex with him on the second occasion they meet, we humans generally regard him as an enormous jerk! In fact, that goes for any guy assuming a girl wants to have sex with him anytime before she says, ‘Yes, sex sounds terrific!’”

  My fists were clenched again. My mood was not improved by the realization that I’d just yelled “Sex sounds terrific” at a guy loud enough for everyone within shouting range to hear.

  “Okay,” Kit said, sounding very serious. Which I already knew was rare for him. “Wow, I’m really sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to offend you or insult you or anything. I’m sorry.”

  It served me right, didn’t it, going on some kind of weird fake-maybe-real date with a guy who didn’t even know how to be human and then stupidly kissing him.

  Vampires were ruining my life!

  “It was my first kiss with a human. Told you this was a day of firsts.”

  I did not want to know about those other kisses. He meant vampires, didn’t he? I suppressed a shudder. How could he live the way he lived? How was Cathy going to live like that?

  Which reminded me that I needed an ally.

  “Okay,” I said, mimicking the way Kit had said it. A brief grin flashed across Kit’s face, not quite comfortable enough to stay. “You have, however, ruined the moment.” I paused. “Speaking of the moment—what do you think of this new Cathy-and-Francis development?”

  “Those two crazy kids,” said Kit, still looking a little wary. “It does seem like they should wait to celebrate a month’s anniversary at the very least before thinking about eternal life together. I’ve made this point, but Francis told me I was to go to my room for having no poetry in my soul. Camille told me to ignore him, which I did.”

  “See,” I said, vindicated. I’d been right: He was on my side. “It’s weird for him to be dating Cathy. They can’t make it permanent.”

  We both stepped farther up the beach as the tide moved in. “It seems like a bad idea to me, too,” Kit said. “But it’s not really our business.”

  “It’s my business if Cathy’s making a decision that will make her unhappy forever. Or kill her!”

  “It’s not like Francis is going to chain her down,” he said. “He’s a good person, and he really cares about her. If the relationship doesn’t work out, they can always break up.”

  “She can’t break up from being a vampire,” I snapped. “And she’ll never be happy being one of those things!”

  Kit went very still.

  “Those things?” he repeated.

  “No,” I said, scrambling. “Look, I’m sure Camille—uh, your mom—is really nice, but—”

  “Yes, my mom,” said Kit. “She is my mom, and you can stop saying it as if you’re putting quotation marks around it.”

  “I wasn’t!” I protested.

  “Yes, you were,” said Kit. “Let me tell you something about those things. Humans left me on a doorstep. Vampires took me in. If there’s a choice to be made, I’d go with the vampires every time.”

  “That would be a pretty dumb decision, as you don’t know anything about humans!” I yelled.

  “What more do I
need to know?” Kit yelled back. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll know all I need to know in a couple of months, when I can forget all about humans and turn into one of those things!”

  It was my turn to go still. I felt cold—as if the shadow of the cliffs had fallen on me, or a different shadow.

  “What did you say?” I whispered.

  “I’m going to become a vampire as soon as I turn eighteen,” Kit said, very coolly. “Of course.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Fun with Zombies

  The waiting room was pretty much like every waiting room in the history of the world. Really, it could have been a dentist’s, or a doctor’s, or even a beauty salon. Magazines everywhere. Posters on the walls. Even a penned-off area for small kids to play in.

  The only tip that this was not your regular waiting room was that the posters were all about zombies and vampires and the dangers of transitioning. Oh, and the doors leading in and out were made of lead and had more locks and security than Fort Knox.

  I smiled awkwardly at the receptionists yet again. Though were they still just receptionists when they were armed and trained in zombie neutralizing?

  Other than the receptionists/zombie neutralizers, I was alone. That made the waiting even worse. I couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if one of the zombies got loose and attacked Cathy. Supposedly that was impossible. This was a secure facility, blah blah blah.

  But it was a facility with zombies in it, and my best friend was currently being shown those zombies as part of her preparation for deciding whether to become a vampire or not. Along with Kit of the Unfortunate Kissing Incident, who I hadn’t talked to since. Neither Francis nor Camille was with them. Something about bias and undue influence.

  Kit had not smiled when he’d seen me this morning (the first time since the Unfortunate Kissing Incident). All I got was a brief stiff nod, which could mean “Oh, that girl who kissed me who I presumed was going to demand sex, how incredibly awkward this is” or “Oh, that girl who hates all vampires, including my mom, how incredibly awful she is.”

  Not that it bothered me, not really. I was much more concerned about Cathy, who—though she wasn’t admitting it—was very nervous about the whole morning. She’d never seen a zombie before. Neither had I. Or even Kit. Or anyone we knew, except for the vampires.

  When a transition goes wrong and a zombie is created instead of a vampire, the Zombie Disposal Unit (ZDU) is called in immediately and all traces of the zombie are erased. They have to be. The minds of zombies might be gone and they may be slow moving, but they’re highly contagious. If you get bitten, you have about a day to have the affected area cut out or off, or else you turn into one. Nasty stuff. These days, even the smallest cities have their own ZDUs. There hasn’t been a serious outbreak in decades.

  But still. Zombies.

  Somewhere on the other side of those incredibly secure-looking lead doors, Cathy was within spitting distance of a zombie. Maybe more than one. I knew they kept several in some institutes, and replaced them when they fell to pieces.

  I went to a protest once with my mom, for people advocating the erasure of all zombies. The other side says people need to see zombies to be fully prepared for all the potential consequences of transition.

  Personally I think that the other side will reconsider their position if there’s ever another zombie outbreak. But it’ll be a little too late, won’t it?

  I went over to the water cooler and poured myself a cup.

  “How long does it usually take?” I asked one of the ZDU receptionists/elite zombie disposers.

  He looked up from his work and gave me a small smile. “Depends. Sometimes they’re out within a few minutes.” He screwed up his face. “They tend to not look so good. You know what I mean? If you’re hoping your friends will change their minds, you’re in luck. Of those who do this tour, more than half change their mind.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “It’s not pretty back there. For most people the risks don’t seem real. They think to themselves, A ten-percent risk of zombification doesn’t seem so bad. Forgetting that the chance is as good that they won’t even be a zombie—they’ll go straight to the being-dead part. Seeing an actual zombie and how we deal with zombies? That makes the two chances out of ten failure rate absolutely real to them.”

  I shivered. “No need to convince me. I’m totally Team Human.”

  He laughed, then said, “Uh-oh,” before coming to my side of the counter with a bucket in his hand.

  The door that Cathy had disappeared through banged open. My heart did a metaphorical high jump into my throat.

  Kit took a few unsteady steps forward with the woman beside him lending a hand. “If you need a bucket,” she began.

  Kit bent over. The receptionist got the bucket to him just in time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Of Vomit and Kisses

  “I’m glad that Mom wasn’t here,” Kit said. “Human illness kind of grosses her out.”

  We were in the recovery room, which looked remarkably like a hospital ward, complete with curtains surrounding each of the six beds. Only one of the beds was currently occupied. Kit lay with an ice pack on his head. The doctor had checked him over, given him a clean bill of health, and decreed that he hydrate and rest for a minimum of half an hour before leaving. I sat beside him and tried to be supportive.

  I was practicing for when Cathy re-emerged.

  “Well, vomiting is not high on the list of activities I like to witness either. Or partake in. Vampires are not alone in their vomit distaste.” I did not point out that my parents had never been grossed out by me when I was sick. Or if they had been, they hadn’t told me about it.

  “Right,” Kit said, looking dismayed. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “No problem,” I said, patting him below the knee. He shot me a strange look. “Um, no,” I told him. “My touching your knee does not mean I want to have sex with you.”

  Kit blushed. “I didn’t—”

  “You know, when you’re a vampire, you won’t be able to blush anymore.”

  He went even redder. “I may not miss blushing. Sorry again.”

  “It’s fine,” I lied. I hadn’t told Cathy what had happened between me and Kit. Accused of nymphomania by a weirdo raised by vampires? I wasn’t going to tell anyone ever. “I’m teasing you, Kit, which is probably not that nice of me, given that you just vomited your guts up multiple times after seeing a zombie.”

  Kit grimaced. “Many zombies.”

  “Many?”

  “Okay, three. But one was more than enough. Way more than enough.”

  “I’m sorry. It sounds awful.” Though this was the most he’d said about it. I was dying to ask for more details. What did they look like? Up close, I meant. Was it true they could remember what it was like to be human, at least for a little while? Did they talk? Or just groan? Did they smell as bad as everyone said?

  “I can’t imagine turning into something like that,” Kit said, reaching for his glass of water. “It’s too …” He shuddered. “And there’s two chances in ten.”

  “Actually,” I said, repeating the receptionist’s words, “I think it’s one chance in ten of becoming a zombie. The two chances in ten are of winding up dead, either by just dying instantly or by becoming a zombie. ’Cause, you know, zombification leads to immediate eradication.”

  “Right. Well, that’s much better,” Kit said. He took a sip of water and sat up a bit more. He glanced at me and his mouth twitched. He seemed to be attempting a grin, even though he still looked shaken and pale.

  He was always smiling and trying to get everyone else to smile. I guess you learn to be persistent about that around vampires, or you give up. Clearly Kit wasn’t the giving-up type.

  “Why do you want to be a vampire?” I asked suddenly. “I mean, you said yourself you don’t even know what it’s like to be a human.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know much
about humans. Why do you think vampires are things and not people?”

  I bristled and then bit my lip. He looked kind of pitiful lying there, which wasn’t surprising considering he’d vomited four times in quick succession.

  “I shouldn’t have said that,” I admitted.

  “But you did mean it. Why?” Kit asked. “No vampire’s ever hurt you.”

  I felt my lip curl. “Well, I’m not sure about that. Vampires have hurt friends of mine,” I said, and hurried on because Anna’s situation was none of his business. “Francis is trying to take away my best friend. Plus the way he talks harms me. And his poetry!”

  Kit laughed. I smiled seeing him laugh.

  “You haven’t even heard any of his poetry!”

  I punched his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean I want sex either. By the way.”

  “Oh, hush,” Kit said. “Answer the question. Vampires. Why are you against them?”

  “Kit, I’m honestly not. I mean, I do think the vampire groupies are ridiculous.”

  Kit looked away and coughed.

  “But it’s just that the vampires are over there.” I pointed in the direction I figured the Shade was. “We humans are in the rest of town. And that’s the way I prefer it. Francis is the first vampire I ever really talked to. They’re easier to deal with as an abstract concept, but I guess even the idea of them grosses me out. Alive, but not really. Dead, but not really. And they’re like leeches or mosquitoes or those bats: They drink our blood. It’s hard not to have a reaction to that, you know?”

  Kit frowned. “Obviously I’m no expert—you’re the only human I’ve ever had a real conversation with. I mean, beyond, ‘I’ll have the thin crust with extra pepperoni.’ Or, ‘Stop bothering my mom—she doesn’t want to make you her sex slave.’ But vampires are as varied as humans. They’re people. Some are mean and selfish—Minty, for example. Some are caring and responsible—my mom. Some are annoying but mean well—Francis. They’re all sorts. Some are good, some aren’t. Some really would eat you if they could. Some want to study you. Some don’t care about you at all. You can’t tell me there aren’t humans like that.”