by Stacey Jay
“More time for what?”
“I figured we should do some investigating of our—hey, are you okay?” Ethan asked as he opened the passenger’s door of his car.
“Not really. But I’m better now that you’re here. I assume you heard the news.”
“I did, and it’s ridiculous. I can’t believe they think you had any part in raising whatever those things were.”
“Thanks. It’s nice that someone still believes in me.” There were tears stinging the corners of my eyes, but I sucked them back into wherever tears come from. Tear ducts, I guess? “Kitty and Barker and Elder Thomas think I did it.”
“They’re insane. Of course you didn’t,” he said, leaning down to give me the softest little kiss. He closed the door and ran around to the driver’s side, while I smiled and tried even harder not to cry. I really did have the best boyfriend in the world. “But like I said.” He slid into the driver’s seat and started the car. “I figured we should do some investigating of our own to help prove what we already know.”
“Won’t that get you in trouble at work?” I asked, as Ethan pulled into the line of cars heading out of the parking lot.
“Protocol got kicked off the case last night around midnight by the Enforcement team. Apparently they don’t want a bunch of small-town losers screwing up their investigation. So it’s not a direct conflict of interest.”
“But I thought you said you weren’t supposed to—”
“The Elders haven’t said anything outright, but Kitty called and strongly advised me to stay away from you until you’re cleared of suspicion.” He pulled forward, taking a left out of the parking lot. “She made it sound like a request, but I got the order vibe loud and clear. I have a feeling I won’t be invited back to training if I get caught helping you.”
“Then take me back to school.” I grabbed my backpack and pointed to a good place to turn around. “I don’t want you to ruin your chances to do something you love.”
“I love you, Schmeg,” he said, using the old nickname that used to drive me absolutely insane. Now it seemed kind of sweet and made me want to cry again. But then, what didn’t? “It’s just work. You’re my girlfriend.”
I finally lost the tear battle and started sobbing. Ethan loved me, he really loved me. It was wonderful. I was so lucky! So why was it making me have a major, snotty come-apart?
“Meg, you okay?” Ethan asked, looking a little green to be trapped in a car with a sobbing girl, even one he loved. I nodded, but the tears didn’t seem to want to stop. “I think there are some napkins left over from Sonic in the glove compartment.”
Sonic! The site of our first pretend date months ago! Remembering how I’d been crushing on Ethan that night, and how I’d been certain he’d never think of me as anything but an annoying little-sister type, helped me pull myself together.
The impossible had happened. The proof was sitting in the driver’s seat, telling me he loved me. And proving my innocence wasn’t impossible either—it just felt like it because I didn’t know what was going on. Hopefully, by the time Ethan and I were done today, that would no longer be the case.
“I’m better.” I dabbed at my nose and eyes and took a deep breath. “Where are we starting this investigating?”
“I drove by Kroger on my way. Looks like the Enforcement team finally pulled out of the woods behind the parking lot. I figure it’s as good a place to start as any.”
“Right, sounds good,” I said, but it didn’t, not really. I didn’t want to go back into those woods. Still, what choice did I have? Leads were few, and Ethan was right, the best place to start was at the scene of the crime . . . whatever that crime was. “Did Protocol get any information on why these zombies were so different? I mean, I know using black magic is a felony charge, but there’s got to be some reason the Enforcers think I’m the only one who could have done this. I’m guessing it has something to do with having more power than the average Settler, but that’s about as far as I’ve gotten.”
“That’s what I figured too. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Right. But maybe if we can find out what’s so special about the RCs—”
“They could be Settler-Resistant Undead,” Ethan said, his tone making it clear he’d rather not share this information with me if he could have helped it. “Our Protocol task force leader said he’d heard about SRU attacks in Europe in the fourteenth century that wiped out entire towns. Back then the Settlers’ Affairs people blamed the deaths on the plague to keep humans from freaking out about zombies.”
“Geez. That’s . . . very bad.” And Megan wins the Understatement of the Year award. “But why—”
“And no one ever found out where they came from, who had raised them, or why Settlers couldn’t control them. They just kind of disappeared in modern times. Until now, maybe?”
“Which would explain why the Enforcers are freaking out, but wouldn’t explain why they think I did this.” Must keep thinking logically, must not start imagining zombies swarming over the entire town of Carol.
“So we need to find out more about these SRUs, something that will help us start a list of real suspects.”
“I don’t know much, but I did hear Smythe and Barker saying something about checking the hospitals in Little Rock. They shut up pretty fast when they realized I was standing close enough to hear, but still, it’s something.” He turned into Kroger and pulled around to the back of the store. “If we don’t find anything in the woods, we can start snooping around hospitals and see if we spot anything unusual,” he said, parking beside a Dumpster.
I couldn’t think of any connection between the Undead and a hospital, but I hadn’t slept very well last night. Still, the whole situation seemed so overwhelming.
As if sensing my angst, Ethan turned and grabbed my hand before I could open my door. “We’re going to figure this out, Megan. I promise. Everything is going to be fine.”
After that I just had to kiss him for a minute or two. Even if he was just saying it to make me feel better, it was wonderful having a boyfriend who knew exactly what to say.
CHAPTER 6
Three hours and a fruitless search through the woods for clues later, Ethan and I were sneaking down the stairs at the University Medical Center, bound for the morgue. That’s right, the morgue, where they cut dead people open and poke at their insides and then stick them in cold storage.
It was freaking creepy, even for a zombie Settler who regularly kicked it with dead people. I swore I could smell the horrible mix of cold flesh and antiseptic and industrial cleaner wafting through the air, and we still had three more flights to go.
“You’re sure this is a good idea?” I shivered even as I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. How was it possible to be both sweaty and freezing at the same time? “Don’t you think they’ll have security?”
“Security for what? The people down here aren’t going anywhere.”
“I don’t know, security to, like, protect the bodies,” I said, trying to discreetly breathe through my mouth. “To make sure murderers don’t come down here and destroy evidence or something.”
“You’ve been watching too much Law & Order.”
“I never watch Law & Order. I don’t have time for TV.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but when I did have time, I didn’t watch crime shows.
I’m more of a really heinous reality-TV kind of person, though I would never admit that to Ethan. He likes to watch films. Not just movies, but films, and I knew he wouldn’t be impressed with my addiction to Engaged & Underage and Wife Swap.
“And what about security cameras? Don’t you think—”
“Megan, if you don’t want to go, you don’t have to, but we both agree that the morgue is the most logical place in the hospital to look for clues about weird zombies. It’s the only place we’re likely to find a concentration of corpses. Right?”
“Right. You’re right.” I sighed and gave up trying to dry my hands as we descended the final
flight of stairs. Obviously my sweat glands were as super-powered as the rest of me. “I don’t know why I’m being such a chicken.”
“Because morgues are creepy and the smell is seriously disturbing?”
I managed a tiny laugh. “I thought I was imagining how bad the smell was.”
“No way, it’s awful.” He smiled before turning to peek through the door in front of us.
I saw bright fluorescent lights and clean white walls and caught a whiff of coffee mixed with the dead chemical smell. I couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse, but at least it reminded me that there were living people down here. People who would have to be dealt with if we wanted to get our information.
“Okay, what’s our story again? We’re college kids doing a report for our cultural anthropology class?”
“Yeah, let me grab a notebook and pen from your backpack so we’ll look official.” He closed the door and turned me around so he could get to the zipper of my bag.
“Get me one too,” I said, though I wondered if I’d even be able to hold a pen with the amount of palm sweat I was presently producing. “And shouldn’t we have a thesis or something in case they ask?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like, Investigating Rituals of Death in the Twenty-first Century?”
“Did I ever tell you how totally hot it is when you get all smartypants?” Ethan finished digging around in my backpack and handed me a notebook and pen.
I smiled. “Not as many times as you told me you love that stupid hat.”
“That hat is not stupid. It’s sexy.” He leaned down to kiss me, which was great for a second. But then I started to get this weird feeling . . . like someone was watching. Everything was quiet and I hadn’t heard a door open or close, but the certainty that we weren’t alone quickly grew so strong I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t check for peeping creeps.
“Sorry.” I pulled away and glanced up. Nothing. There was no one there. But still, the feeling we weren’t alone didn’t go away. Maybe I was suffering from paranoid delusions as well as profuse palm sweat.
“Is something wrong?”
“No . . . my lips were just cold,” I said, not wanting him to think I was chickening out again.
“Oh, okay.” Ethan looked a little hurt, but shrugged like it was no big deal. “I’m sorry. I should have made you take my coat. Here, take it now.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s just my lips.”
“Megan, take my coat.”
“No, really, it’s—”
“Take the stupid coat,” he said, loud enough I was afraid someone would hear. Great, now he was mad at me. Geez. Sometimes it seemed like things between us were easier before we threw all the kissy stuff into the mix.
“Fine.” I ditched my backpack, put on his brown corduroy jacket—which did feel good and smelled yummily of Ethan—and then grabbed the pack off the ground. “Ready?”
“Let’s go.” Ethan opened the door for me, but he still didn’t look happy. I was going to have to make it up to him by proving how addictive I found his kisses . . . later, in all my spare time, when I wasn’t trying to avoid going to jail.
We found the front-desk guy within a few minutes of easing into the blindingly white hall. The morgue was a lot smaller than I’d thought it would be, even though I knew Little Rock had a lot of hospitals and they each had their own cold storage. It wasn’t like the university morgue had to be big enough to handle all the stiffs in town.
Though that sure would have made it easier. If there were one central holding area, we wouldn’t have had to worry about investigating five or six different hospitals trying to figure out where the weird zombies had come from. That is, if they had even come from a hospital and we weren’t on some kind of wild goose chase.
“Hey, we’re students from Williams and were hoping we could ask a few questions.” Ethan quickly filled the skinny guy at the desk in on our cover story and asked if there was someone around who might be willing to talk to us.
“Someone like who?” he asked, picking at a dry piece of skin on the side of his nose. The guy looked bored out of his mind, not a condition I would have thought applied in his kind of work. But then again, I got tired of my job sometimes, and I work with the dead. And my dead people walk and talk and are generally far more interesting than your average corpse.
“Like, maybe a morgue supervisor,” I said. “Someone who knows everything that goes down around here.”
“That would be Dr. Blackmon, but he’s not here today.”
“Oh . . . well is there anyone else who could help us? We only need a few minutes,” Ethan said with his most charming grin. Too bad bored skinny guy—Caleb, according to his name tag—didn’t seem to respond to charm.
But maybe he’d respond to a little excitement injected into his humdrum life.
“Anyone who’s been here in the past few days would work. We just need someone who might be able to explain all the weird stuff that’s been happening.” I did my best to ignore the scowl on Ethan’s face. Sure, this wasn’t the plan, but sometimes a girl had to improvise.
“Weird stuff?” Caleb perked up. Not much, but at least he stopped harvesting dead skin from his nose. Ew much? Someone should have taught him peeling dead skin was an activity best done in private before he reached his twenties.
“Yeah, we heard there’s been some issues with the bodies,” I said vaguely.
I couldn’t get too specific since I had no idea if the zombies I’d worked the spell on last night returned to this morgue or not—if they had come from a morgue at all. The reverto spell was intended to send a corpse back to the person who had raised it for a quick bite and from there back to its grave. So I wasn’t sure where the RCs would go if they had been morgue residents and not in possession of graves just yet. If they hadn’t headed back to their lockers here at UMC, missing bodies would certainly be weird.
But even if they had, surely someone would have noticed that one of them had singed pajamas and that all of their feet were filthy from tromping about in the forest and—
No shoes! The zombies last night hadn’t been wearing shoes. Duh, I should have thought about that before, but I’d been so focused on the pajamas that their feet hadn’t crossed my mind. I’d seen a couple Unsettled who were buried in their PJs in my time, but every Out-of-Grave Phenomenon I’d gotten a close look at had sported some kind of footwear. People didn’t like to bury their loved ones without shoes, even if it’s just a pair of bunny slippers.
I was going to have to share this new clue with Ethan ASAP.
“I haven’t heard about anything out of the ordinary around here, but . . .” Caleb narrowed his eyes and leaned a bit closer. “But there’s definitely something going on upstairs. There were policemen all over the hospital today.”
“Really?” Ethan asked. I could tell he was excited, but trying not to show it.
“Yeah, there wasn’t a pastry left in the cafeteria by lunch. Not even a stale bear claw. I thought that stuff about cops and donuts was just some stupid stereotype, but it’s totally true. I had to have a nonfat yogurt for dessert. It was disgusting.” He sniffed, and his eyes became distant and unfocused as he slipped into deep thought mode. “I think it might have been expired, but the date was rubbed off the label so I couldn’t be sure.”
God, this guy was fascinating. Snore. Time to get him back on track. “So what were they doing here, besides scarfing down sugar-coated carbs?” I asked. “Did you talk to any of them? Did they ask you any questions?”
“No, they weren’t interested in talking to the basement dwellers.” Caleb sighed and returned to his skin picking. “And no one at my table knew what they were up to. It’s being kept very hush-hush, though, so it must be something big. The suits were in an uproar, scenting lawsuit in the wind.”
“Wow, sounds serious.” Ethan scribbled something on his notepad and then tore off the piece of paper. “Would you be willing to call us if you hear anything more?
”
“Sure, but weren’t you here to learn about the morgue?” Caleb looked suspiciously from me to Ethan.
“My mom is a reporter for the Arkansas Sentinel Gazette,” Ethan said, the lie falling from his lips without a moment’s hesitation. “I try to keep an ear out for stories I think she might be interested in, and this sounds like it has scandal potential. She’d want to interview you if she gets the scoop. As a secret informant, of course.”
Caleb nodded and glanced down at the number, clearly intrigued by the idea of being a secret informant. “Cool. I’ll give you a call if I hear anything else. And I’ll ask Dr. Blackmon if he has time to answer a few questions. Maybe you could even interview him on the phone, save you a trip down to the crypt.”
Well now, wasn’t he helpful? We should have told him we were reporters from the beginning. “That would be great. Thanks so much—we really appreciate it,” I said, beaming down at him.
Caleb returned my smile, his grin transforming his pale, scrawny face into something a lot more approachable—if he’d quit the skin-picking thing, of course.
Ethan and I thanked him and headed back upstairs. This time, however, we went ahead and used the elevator. No need to skulk. It didn’t seem like anyone cared that we were here. Ethan had been right—I’d obviously been smelling danger where there was none. Speaking of danger . . .
“Hey, I have to get back to school. My parents didn’t go to work this morning, so I’m not sure whether they’ll be in the parking lot after pom practice or not. Sometimes Mom shows up unexpectedly.”
“Yeah, about your mom . . .”
“Yeah?” I asked, a funny feeling in my stomach. “What about her?”
“Elder Thomas gave Kitty a file last night and it had your mom’s name on it,” he said. “You have any idea what that’s about? Why she would be digging up stuff on your mom when you’re the one they suspect of raising these zombies?”
“I don’t know. Elder Thomas said something about a ‘mistake’ Mom made last night, but I haven’t been able to get the four-one-one,” I said, unable to believe I’d forgotten to share that with Ethan. Some investigator I was. “Do you think it might have something to do with when Mom and Dad got relocated to Arkansas?”
