Alice in Zombieland wrc-1

by Gena Showalter

  She hesitated, backing up only a few feet, her expression dark with horror and uncertainty. Pops punched me again and again, a battering of his fists. I grappled with him, knowing releasing him would make everything worse. I couldn’t fight him and shield Nana.

  “Now!” I shrieked. “And don’t come back in here. Pops isn’t himself. He’ll harm you.”

  “Ali, I—”

  “Go!”

  At last she took off, disappearing around the corner. Without her presence, the full force of Pops’s rage switched to me. No longer was he content to punch me. Instead, he clawed and bit at me. Forget grappling. There was no longer any need to hold him, and I sprang away from him.

  “Calm down, Pops. Okay? You don’t want to do this.”

  He jumped up—only to go lax, his body collapsing to the floor. His eyes rolled to the back of his head. He stilled.

  I watched in horror as his spirit rose from his body.

  Horror—because I knew. A zombie had bitten him. Had infected him. Had killed him.

  He was dead.

  But he would live on.

  He looked just as sickly as he had while inside his body, yet there was now a deeper cast of gray to his skin. His gaze swept through the room, never quite landing on me. He sniffed, licked his lips and moved toward the only door.

  “Pops,” I said, and stepped out of my own body.

  Instantly his attention locked on me and he forgot about tracking Nana. He stalked me throughout the room. When he lunged for me, I hopped out of the way. There were no Blood Lines in the house, so we both ghosted through the table, the food.

  A pattern formed. We would circle each other. He would propel toward me. I would dive out of the way. The process would begin all over again. I had a dagger in my boot, but I couldn’t bring myself to stab him. I just couldn’t bring myself to disable him. Then I’d have to try to ash him, and I didn’t have the heart.

  A scowling Cole finally strode into the room, Mackenzie, Bronx and Mr. Holland behind him. Mr. Holland demanded to know where my grandmother was, and after I told him, he took off. Bronx kicked the doors shut. I purposely avoided Cole’s eyes. This was the first time I’d seen him today, and I couldn’t afford a vision right now.

  “Don’t kill him,” I said. “Please. There has to be another way.”

  “Quiet,” Cole said. “Watch your confessions.”

  Pops sniffed the air and licked his lips. “Taste.”

  My friends stepped out of their bodies and surrounded him, quickly subduing him by pinning him to his stomach, his hands locked behind his back, his ankles tied with a glowing length of rope.

  “Maybe we can…” I began, only to press my lips together and look down when Cole’s violet eyes swung to me. Our gazes locked—

  —Cole was standing in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “I’m sorry. It had to be that way. The man you loved would not have hit you like that. I don’t know when he was bitten, only that he was. What you saw today was a shell. Only a shell.”

  “Then how was he able to come inside the house,” I asked as tears streamed down my cheeks, “with the Blood Line around the property?”

  “Permission overrides the Blood Line. His house. His rules.”

  My heart broke inside my chest. I should have checked for bite marks. I’d smelled the scent of rot the night of the break-in. “If I’d had more time, I could have figured out a way…”

  “There was no other way,” Cole insisted, his tone ragged. “He had to die. To my knowledge, no one’s ever come back from this.”

  He would know, wouldn’t he. He’d watched his own mother die this way—

  “—Taaasssste.”

  My grandfather’s voice broke through the vision. The world returned to normal. Cole was across the room, holding Pops down.

  “Give me permission, Ali,” he gritted out.

  I realized the power of my words had stopped him from acting before now—just as the power of his words nearly unhinged my jaw to get the right words out. I resisted.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Nana cried from outside the closed doors. “Why did he do that to Ali? That’s not like him. He’s a good man.”

  “I told you things are dangerous down here, Mrs. Bradley,” I heard Mr. Holland say.

  Mackenzie stepped back into her body. “We just need a few minutes more,” she called.

  “Ali,” Cole prompted.

  I couldn’t dump this burden on him. “I’ll…I—I will do it.”

  He studied me before nodding stiffly. “Can you?”

  I looked down. Obstacle one: my hands were perfectly normal. Beyond a doubt, I could light up. The question was, could I do it on command?

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” I said, my chin trembling. Obstacle two: my love for the man.

  No, not a man. Not any longer.

  “He won’t feel a thing, I promise you.”

  Pops struggled for freedom, and I began to cry. He wanted to destroy Nana, and I couldn’t let him. So, really, there were no obstacles. I closed my eyes, dug deep inside myself and found a reservoir of determination.

  “Yes,” I said, and I believed it with all my heart. “I can.”

  Something inside me shattered, and heat exploded through my hands, up my arms, pooling in my shoulders. My eyelids popped open. Both of my arms were totally and completely lit up, from the tips of my fingers all the way to my collarbone.

  Cole, Mackenzie and Bronx were staring at me with shock and awe.

  I stumbled to my grandfather before I lost my nerve, crouched beside him, and waited until Cole had flipped him over. Pops nipped his teeth in my direction. Shaking, avoiding his gaze, I flattened my palm over his chest.

  Within a single heartbeat of time, he was gone and ash was floating through the air. I gazed at my arms in bafflement. Cole had said it would take some time.

  “Ali,” my grandmother called. “Ali, are you okay? Talk to me!”

  Cole jumped back into his body. “Ali. Don’t touch anything else.”

  “Ali!” Panic now laced Nana’s voice. “I am your grandmother and I demand you talk to me.”

  But I had to touch my body. I had to return, had to respond to my grandmother.

  “No,” he shouted as I reached out.

  Spirit fingers brushed natural fingers. I gasped as the two halves of myself connected. The glow vanished, but I could feel remnants of the heat, little buzzes of lightning snapping and sizzling.

  “Are you okay?” he demanded.

  “Yes.” I called, “I’m fine, Nana.” But Pops isn’t. A fresh spring of tears cascaded down my cheeks. “How did I do that?” I asked Cole.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I was afraid you’d burn your body when you touched it. Next time, listen to me. I can’t take another scare like that.”

  “Ali?” Nana said shakily. “I need to see you for myself.”

  I peered at Cole pleadingly, silently begging for permission to tell her what had just happened. She deserved to know.

  He nodded.

  “The truth?”

  Mackenzie protested, but Cole said, “Yes.”

  I opened the dining room doors and Nana rushed inside, Mr. Holland close to her heels. Both of them scanned the room.

  “Carl!” Nana gasped, throwing herself on top of Pops’s motionless body, as if to act as his shield from further damage. “Wake up. You have to wake up.”

  I had to choke back my sobs. “He can’t, Nana. He’s…he’s gone.”

  “No. He’ll wake up. He will.”

  Eventually, though, she realized the truth and cried all the harder.

  Cole helped her to her feet and led her to one of the chairs he’d righted. “There’s something Ali wants to tell you before the authorities arrive.”

  I sat next to her. I was shaking, breathing so shallowly I knew I’d hyperventilate if I failed to calm down.

  Though I feared she would decide I was crazy, that we were all crazy,
I told her about the zombies. About Dad’s ability, and now mine. I told her that people trying to control the zombies had broken into the house, that somehow a zombie had bitten and infected Pops.

  Zombies had changed Pops. Killed his body—and I’d had to destroy his spirit.

  With every sentence I spoke, she released a pained moan, and each of those moans choked me up. By the end I could barely understand myself.

  “This is…this is…” She couldn’t quite make herself say the words that would condemn me, but I knew she was thinking them. She had to be.

  “Unbelievable, I know,” Mr. Holland said, picking up the slack. “But she’s telling you the truth. This is why she’s been gone so much. This is why she’s been bruised. This is why she snuck out that night.”

  Cole crouched between us, his solemn gaze on Nana. “It’s time to call 911. You can’t wait any longer, or there will be questions. Tell them he collapsed.”

  I knew why he wanted that. The authorities would do an autopsy and decide Pops had died of that “rare” disease.

  Her chin trembled, tears continuing to track down her cheeks and leave red marks. She looked at me, taking in my battered face. “He was so ashamed. He told me only this morning that the people who broke in dragged him outside. He was so scared, thought they were going to kill him. But they took him past the fence, held him down, told him about the horrible things they were going to do to him. He said the more terrified he became, the more he felt little pricks of heat in his chest. He thought he was having a heart attack. Then he heard the sirens. They let him go, and he rushed back inside.”

  Rage bloomed inside me, white-hot, consuming. So. The people Justin worked with were responsible. They had forced my Pops past the Blood Line, had filled him with fear, an aphrodisiac to the zombies, and then watched as he was devoured.

  Maybe Justin and Jaclyn hadn’t known. Maybe they had. Either way, their leaders had expected Pops to infect me—to turn me into a zombie. What I wasn’t sure about was whether they wanted to experiment on me or end me.

  “I’m sorry, Ali,” Cole whispered, and I knew he’d arrived at the same conclusion I had.

  My life had just taken another terrible turn, and I had a sick feeling things were only going to get worse. And you know what? I’d had this feeling several times before…and not once had I been wrong.

  17

  A Nightmare of Zombie Proportions

  For the third time in less than six months, I attended a funeral. Unlike the others, this morning dawned bright and beautiful. The air was cold enough that I needed a coat, the wind a frenzy; it was the kind of day my dad had loved.

  This time, I wasn’t closed off from the proceedings. I couldn’t be. Nana needed me too desperately. I sat beside her and clutched her shaky hand. I let her cry on my shoulder, and then I cried on hers.

  Cole sat on my other side and held my other hand. He was my rock. He’d picked us up, not wanting either of us to drive while we were so emotional. We hadn’t had a vision, and that had surprised me, but I hadn’t had the energy to figure out why.

  An even bigger surprise—Cole had given me an iPod loaded with music he’d thought I would like. He’d noticed I was without one. I’d been crying too hard to say thank you. I know he felt bad about what had happened to Pops, and he was trying to make things better for me, but the fault was not his.

  “We’re digging into Anima Industries,” he’d said when I’d calmed. At my quizzical look he’d added, “The company Justin works for. We’ll find a way to take them down, once and for all.”

  “Good.” The sooner the better.

  I watched as people walked past Pops’s casket to pay their respects—and saw Emma winding her way through them, the wind not touching her. No one else spotted her. Tears tracked down her cheeks. She stopped in front of me and placed her dainty little hands on my shoulders.

  I felt the slightest pinprick of heat.

  Cole stiffened. Could he feel her, too? See her?

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I thought that if I stopped warning you of the attacks, you would stop going out to hunt the zombies. Instead they got Pops, just like they got…”

  “Who?” I asked, and several people glanced over at me.

  Emma turned a sickly shade of white. “Ali, don’t make me…not here.”

  “Who,” I demanded, and Nana squeezed my hand to try and settle me down.

  “I… Ali, have you wondered what a witness is? It’s someone who has died, who lives in heaven and watches over the lives of those she loved. That’s what I do. I watch you. I cheer you on. I hurt when you hurt. Let this go.”

  “I can’t.”

  I thought she would leave me then, but she didn’t. She sighed and said, “I’d hoped to save you from this, but I can see your determination is too great. It’s…Daddy,” she whispered. “He’s out there, and he wants to turn you. They tried to get Mom, but she fought the evil and won. She’s up there with me, and she wants you safe, too. Let this go, Alice. For us.” With a sad, soft smile, she vanished.

  I could only reel. My father was a zombie. That’s what she’d tried to warn me about before, the thing that would hurt me worse than I’d ever been hurt. My father was a zombie, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

  He wouldn’t want my help anyway.

  He was coming for me. Hoped to kill me.

  I was still in shock when Cole dropped off Nana and me at home. His dad needed him to do something, he’d said, or he would have stayed with me. He’d told me what that something was, but I’d tuned him out. Nana retreated to her room and I retreated to mine. Kat called, but I let her go to voice mail. Cole called an hour after that, but I let him go to voice mail, too. I lay on my bed, lost in a nightmare I hadn’t known I was living in.

  My father was a zombie.

  My father, whom I’d placed in the line of danger.

  My father, whom I had served up on a silver platter.

  He was beyond salvation.

  How was I supposed to deal with this? With a shaky hand I picked up the journal, flipped through the pages. Answers were in here. I knew they were. If only another passage would morph…into…English.

  Even before the thought finished, several paragraphs cleared, hieroglyphics changing into letters.

  Throughout your fight against the zombies, you’ll face many hardships. People will call you crazy. Some of your family and friends will be bitten. Some of your family and friends will die.

  Never forget that evil is evil. You cannot change it. You cannot lead it to the light. But, if you let it, evil can lead you to the darkness.

  You’re probably wondering who I am, how I know what I know—and how you’re reading this. No, it’s not magic. I wrote this for those who are in spirit.

  In spirit. I wondered if that meant I would be able to read every word if I left my body. Wondered if the others would be able to read it if they left theirs. Maybe, but at the moment I was too wrung out emotionally to care either way.

  If you’re reading this while you’re in the natural realm, then you’re like me, more conscious of spiritual things. If you’re having trouble reading it, don’t worry. When your mind is ready for the rest of the information, you’ll be able to read the passages.

  Do you want to know more about the evil? No. No, I think you’re more interested in love. You want to know what you can do to save the people you love. I know, because I hungered for that information, too. Tell them the truth. Teach them. The unseen, unknown enemy is still the enemy. If they know, they can fight. If they refuse to believe you, you’ve still done your best.

  My eyesight hazed from a new flood of tears. I wished I had told Pops the truth. I wished I’d taught him to fight. Now, it was too late.

  * * *

  I must have cried myself to sleep, because the next thing I knew, a knock was shaking my window.

  I wrenched awake, hair tumbling around my shoulders and the journal falling to the floor. I rubbed at my eyes,
my heart hammering in my chest. Cole raised the pane and slipped inside my room—but that only made my heart beat harder. He was armed for war. He wore black from head to toe, had the black smudges under his eyes to absorb light, had knives anchored on his arms and hilts sticking out of his boots.

  “I’m sorry to do this now, and this way, but you ignored my calls and texts,” he said, “and we need you. We found a nest inside a house about a mile away. We’re going to flush them out, and we need your help. We’ve never seen anyone light up like you did or ash a zombie so quickly, and we hope you can take them all down.”

  Fight the enemy. I could do that, no matter how bad I felt. “I need to change.”

  “Hurry.”

  As I geared up in the bathroom, Cole said hesitantly, “I saw your sister today.”

  I stilled, the shirt I’d been pulling on catching on my ears.

  “I heard her, too,” he added.

  Then he knew. He knew my father could be part of this new nest.

  “I’m sorry, Ali.”

  Shaking now, I finished dressing and stepped into the room. Cole was leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

  “Can you do this?” he asked.

  Could I? I’d ended my grandfather. My dad would attack me if given the chance, just as Pops had. In another life, Dad would have hated himself for that. And in that other life, I think he would have wanted me to end him permanently. But could I really live with myself if I ended him a second time?

  “I need to tell my grandmother I’m leaving,” I said, ignoring his question. “And someone will need to come over and protect her.”

  He accepted the change of subject without comment. “Already thought of that. My dad is on his way here.”

  Okay, then. Together we pounded downstairs. Nana was walking around the corner, looking older than her years. One glance at us and she realized what was happening. To my surprise, she didn’t try to stop me. She planted a kiss on my cheek and said, “Be careful.”

  “We will,” I assured her.

  “We’ve reinforced the Blood Line around the house,” Cole said, “and my father should be here any minute. He’s going to stay with you for the rest of the night.”