“This isn’t right,” I said.
“What’s not right?” snipped Trina. Then she saw my eyes. We did that unspoken thing again where she practically plucked the thoughts right out of my head.
“Are you serious?” she whispered.
“Serious about what?” asked Prianka.
Trina chewed at the skin on the inside of her cheek. “He thinks that Black Point Fort is one of the sites like Site 37.”
“Wouldn’t that be a little too convenient?” asked Jimmy as he readied himself to torch the poxer.
“Look at it,” I said. “It’s remote, it’s, um, a fort, and there are helicopter people around. They were after us last night, and they were just over the woods. Hello. Yes, I think it’s a site. Why wouldn’t it be?”
Damn. I jinxed myself. The words were barely out of my mouth when a helicopter came out of nowhere. It had been lying in wait, just outside our range of vision behind the stone building. One minute we were talking and the next it was just there.
This one wasn’t the same helicopter that hovered over the woods while we hid in the cellar hole. That one was loud and obvious. This one was almost silent, and it was small, like the one that carried Cheryl The It when she first caught sight of Trudy Aiken and left her in the middle of the road without her pizza.
“I hate being right,” I said.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
42
THE SPEAR CAUGHT the poxer from behind, right through the purple backpack, and exploded out her chest like an alien parasite being born. Black stuff splattered on the ground.
Four little metal arms with hooks on them snapped out of the weapon’s pointy end. Then the spear was rudely yanked back and the hooks dug into the poxer’s gray flesh.
It was gross—cool, too, but gross won out over cool.
The spear was attached to a long chain and the chain came from the opening in the side of the helicopter.
I looked up as the whirlybird buzzed over our heads. Whoever shot the poxer was wearing all black like a sniper in a James Bond movie.
Bullseye automatically pulled out his gun and raised his shooting arm.
“No,” I shouted and grabbed him from behind, throwing him to the sandy ground. The gun flung out of his hand and shot off in the air. For a sickening moment that seemed to last forever, I imagined the bullet finding its mark in one of us. I spun my head around. Thankfully no one was hit, but everyone was in shock and Sanjay was screaming. The poxer writhed and moaned, blackness seeping out of it like mud.
“What did you do that for?” Bullseye cried as he brushed his dirty hand across his face.
“We don’t shoot people,” I screamed at him. “We never shoot living people.”
He pulled himself to his feet, his brown hair flapping around his head in the wake of the helicopter blades. “You mean, you don’t shoot people,” he screamed at me. “You’re not me.”
I could see the rage boiling up inside of him. This was so not the time for a meltdown, but instead of Bullseye flying off the handle, my sister came unhinged.
“What’s happening?” she shrieked at the top of her lungs. “What is happening?”
The helicopter spun in a circle over our heads and lifted up a few feet. The spitting, snarling poxer lifted up as well, impaled by the spear and hopelessly dangling by the chain. When the poxer was about five feet off the ground, the copter swung it around and faced the undead woman right in our direction.
Then it started coming for us.
What was this, a colossal game of zombie fishing with us as the fish? We turned back the way we came and all started running down the sunny path in the middle of the woods. I let go of Newfie’s collar and scooped up Sanjay as I ran. He screamed, loud and long, and struggled to get free, but I held him tight.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I huffed as I ran.
“Buddy’s a nickname,” he wailed. “Buddy’s a nickname. Buddy’s a nickname.”
I made the mistake of turning around and what I saw made me absolutely sick.
The poxer was hanging by the chain. Blackened goo seeped from the hooks that dug into her flesh. She kept snapping her jaws together and curving her fingers into claws. She looked like a flying demon coming after us.
This was the stuff of nightmares—dead people sailing through the air, all black goo and gnashing teeth. This was a horrific campfire story.
I ducked as I ran, and the poxer flew past me, kicking me hard in my back with her hiking boots. I went sprawling and so did Sanjay. He hit his head on a small rock when we fell and a dark gash opened up on his forehead. He touched the wound with his hand and pulled back red.
His face, however, turned white.
Thankfully Prianka was there. She lifted him up into her arms and ducked as the helicopter turned to try and knock her down with the impaled poxer. Andrew flew at the flailing hiker and actually collided with her instead of darting out of reach. He was thrown to the ground, too.
“No,” screamed Jimmy and madly wheeled over to him. By the time he got there, Andrew was already up, his wings held over his head, shaking his little beaked head like he had just flown into a glass window. “Andrew,” Jimmy cried and reached down for the bird, pulling him up into his lap.
“This is crazy,” screamed Trina. “We can’t keep running.”
“We have to keep running,” I bellowed.
“Screw that,” she wailed and grabbed the paper bag from Jimmy. She reached inside and pulled out a book of matches and some paper towels. I watched her bend down, bunch up a wad, and strike a match. The paper burst into life in her hands.
Immediately Prianka froze. It was like something went off in her head—something important. She looked around, the acrid air from the woods still assaulting her nostrils.
That’s when she freaked.
“NO,” she screamed at Trina, who completely wasn’t listening to anything that anybody was saying. “NO,” she wailed again. “The trees. NO.”
Oh no. The trees—they smelled liked gasoline. They were covered with something sticky. Sticky plus gas equals something that burned. Prianka was right. Whatever was on the trees wasn’t any sort of University science experiment. It was a defensive strategy against a horde of poxers roaming too close to Black Point Fort. After all, we all knew the easiest way to get rid of poxers.
Fire.
Crap.
We were running through the middle of a fire bomb and Trina was about to light the fuse.
“Leave us alone,” Trina screamed. “Leave us the hell alone.” The paper towels were like a flaming bouquet in her hands. I didn’t know how she was holding on to them.
“Drop it,” I screamed. “Drop it, Trina. The trees . . .” but she wouldn’t listen.
The helicopter rotated in the sky again and the chained poxer smacked into a tree. That’s when Trina dashed forward and pushed the fire at it. The poxer immediately burst into flames. It started screeching the way that poxers do, but I wasn’t even listening. I was staring at Trina’s hands. She held them out in front of her—all angry and red. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to see she was burned—maybe even badly. I couldn’t tell.
Then two things happened at once—one I half expected and one I didn’t. The poxer exploded, sending burning chunks of gooey poxer tar everywhere. One hit Newfie and he yelped. I ran to him, scooping up a bunch of dirt as I went, and planted a handful right on his back. I could smell singed fur, but I think he had so much of it that he was no worse for wear.
The second was what happened to the forest. Wherever the poxer goo hit the sticky covered trees, they burst into flames, fast, one after the other after the other.
What was worse was what happened to the helicopter. When the poxer exploded, the spear and the chain got caught in the branches of a tree and the sticky bark sang into life, sending a plume of flame up as high as the helicopter. Whoever was flying it lost control, and the copter spun around and around in the air.
“No, no, no, no,
no,” yelled Jimmy as he watched it spin out of control.
Then it dive-bombed into the woods like a giant moth that had the powder on its wings rubbed off by an evil little kid. The crash was deafening. A great fire ball shot up into the sky like a mini nuclear explosion.
Before we knew it, there was fire everywhere, and we were all running through the woods away from the reservoir. Prianka clutched Sanjay tightly to her chest. Bullseye ran with his pistol in his hand as though he was getting ready to shoot at the flames. Newfie and Andrew were ahead of us on the path. I remember seeing Newfie stop and turn back like he was Lassie, waiting for us to catch up with him so we could all go find Timmy in the well.
Jimmy kept screaming, “No, no, no, no, no,” as he pushed hard on his wheels. “No, no, no, no, no.”
As for me, I ran with Trina. There were no tears in her eyes—just pure hatred. Her hands were blistered and red. She held them out, her fingers splayed, and all I could think was that they hurt my sister, the bastards.
They hurt my sister.
43
FIRE IS A HORRIBLE thing—a dragon on a pyro-maniacal rampage. Fire is death and destruction and despair. Fire held Trina’s hands in its burning claws for scant seconds and did its damage. I could tell she was using every ounce of willpower to fight back the tears.
Trina didn’t usually cry like some girls. It wasn’t her thing. Heather Wallace in seventh grade social studies was a crier. If Mrs. Kaplan said something she didn’t like, or if someone made fun of her because she sort of looked like a ferret, she would cry. It didn’t matter when. She would just let loose with the waterworks and we all had to sit there and suffer in soggy silence until she was done leaking.
Trina wasn’t like that. She was tough. I could see her angry red hands with the blisters bubbling to the surface. They looked bad. Why didn’t she let go of the burning paper when I told her to? Why did she have to be so freaking stubborn?
Oh yeah, I forgot. She’s Trina, that’s why. Look what she got for it—a forest fire that was going to burn, unchecked, for who knows how long.
I thought about Black Point Fort as we ran. I wondered which site it was—twenty-four, maybe? Seventeen? Did it even matter? Besides, what was that stunt with the flying poxer? Whose brilliant idea of security was that?
What about the people who went down in the helicopter? There had to be at least two—one to fly the thing and one to shoot the spear at the poxer. Now they were gone in a fiery blast and the forest was burning like someone had poured lighter fluid on it.
Trees that weren’t plastered with the sticky stuff were burning like dried tinder. It had been a really hot summer. I couldn’t even remember the last time it rained. Once, in August, Trina and I and a bunch of friends went tubing down in Satan’s Kingdom in Connecticut. The water was so low that our butts practically scraped on the bottom of the river bed. Now, the dry, hot summer had turned into a crisp, dry fall, and all that dried stuff was burning—and we were running.
At one point, Trina tripped over her own feet and she fell to the ground. I grabbed for her.
“Are you . . .?” I began.
“I’m okay,” she blurted out. “Get off me. I’m okay.”
“Oh really? Look at your hands.”
“I’m fine,” she growled and staggered to her feet. She still held them out in front of her like claws. They must have hurt something fierce. It wasn’t like her hands were charred or anything. They just looked really red. All I could think was how lucky we were to find the ambulance. There would be a salve in there, and maybe some bandages.
My first day of nursery school I met this girl named Amy something-or-other who had a bandage on her hand. She told me that she touched the stove and that’s how she got it. So, of course, being the five-year-old nimrod that I was, I went home and turned on the burner. When I saw the coils glow red I put my palm on them just like Amy did.
Ow, ow, ow, and Amy and I had matching bandages for a couple weeks.
Trina was going to have bandages on her hands for a while. Someone was going to have to step up to the plate and take over her reign as the tough-as-nails part of the gang. Was that going to have to be me? There were a lot of things I was, but tough as nails was definitely not on the list. Hello, I was the one who used to get pushed into his locker by Chuck Peterson.
The fire crackled and burned behind us, but we were already past the birch tree and near Ross Esi Allan III’s cellar hole. The others had stopped on the path and were waiting for us.
“Your hands,” exclaimed Jimmy when he saw what happened to Trina.
“I’m fine,” she snapped at him. “The poxer’s gone, isn’t it?”
She was right. The poxer was gone. So was our peace-and-quiet morning. No quick dips in the reservoir. No alone time with just us kids. Now, all we could hope to do was to get back to Swifty’s as quickly as possible and somehow load everyone up, sick or not, and get out of Hollowton, Massachusetts without frying. If whoever was at Black Point Fort wasn’t on to us before, they sure as hell were now. That meant that we had to go. We had to go right away.
Newfie made a chuffing sound and pricked up his ears. My heart sank. I didn’t want to look where he was looking. I didn’t want to see what the fire had stirred up.
Still, I had to.
“Oh, no,” said Jimmy, his eyes growing wide.
“Crap,” I said without even looking. What was it going to be now—some of the people from the fort? Poxers? Lions and tigers and bears?
It turned out I was right on the last one. A black bear ran out of the forest about a hundred feet behind us. It stared at us, its slick fur glistening and its eyes wild with fear. The bear was framed on the path by the glowing flames behind it. Then a deer ran past the bear—then another, and another.
“They’re running from the flames,” said Bullseye.
“Like Bambi,” whispered Sanjay. “Bambi is the title character in a 1942 animated film produced by Walt Disney. It was based on a book by Austrian author Felix Salten.” His eyes were wide as he watched the wildlife flee in terror.
“Well, yeah. Just like,” Bullseye said.
Then Newfie began to growl. Sure, he was practically the size of a black bear. I just didn’t want him to tangle with one.
“Keep moving,” I barked like a commando, and grabbed Newfie’s collar. I started trotting down the dirt road, followed by the rest. Prianka now had Sanjay pressed to her chest, his arms and legs wrapped around her shoulders and waist. He stared back at our friend on the trail.
“Ursus americanus is a medium-sized bear native to North America,” he said. “It is omnivorous, with a diet varying greatly depending on season and location.”
“But do they eat people?” I chattered as I jogged. Wouldn’t it be ironic to be eaten by a bear in a world full of zombies? Newfie ran next to me, but I could tell that he wanted nothing more than to turn around and face the bear, head-on.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Prianka as she clutched her brother. Poopy Puppy bobbed in his hand.
“Sometimes they become attracted to human communities because of the immediate availability of food,” he said. “Poopy Puppy says so.”
“Is Poopy Puppy ever wrong?” I asked. Somewhere behind us I heard a crash, which signaled the first of the trees to fall to the ground. I smelled smoke on the wind. This was not good. Not good at all.
Before Sanjay could answer, the wail of a siren pierced the forest, getting louder and louder as we ran.
“Now what?” gasped Jimmy as he pumped his wheelchair with his muscled arms.
We all slowed again and looked back. The bear ran off into the woods, and the flames stretched across our field of vision. It’s not bad enough that Necropoxy had to kill all the people. The idiots who did all this had to destroy the forests, too. What was next? Kill all the little fishies in the ocean? This was ridiculous.
How could this be happening?
How could we have just stumbled on another site?
For a moment there, I gave up. My legs stopped pumping and my eyes grew heavy. It would have been so easy just to give in. It would have been so easy to let Diana win.
The siren cut through me with a knife’s precision. It was probably telling everyone at the site that we were here. They were all jumping into their little military jeeps right now and were coming for us. That’s exactly what was happening. I knew it. They were coming for us and I just wanted to give in.
The moment quickly passed and I turned hard. Prianka saw my mouth turn down and my whole expression change into a scowl.
“What?” she asked.
What, nothing.
“Game on,” I whispered into the smoky wind, the heat billowing toward us and making my forehead break out in a sweat. “Game freaking on.”
44
I BURST THROUGH the door of Swifty’s and yelled, “We have to go.” Most everyone was sitting up. Their skin looked less gray. Dad had removed the fluid bags and some of them were sipping at cups of something hot. Still, they looked scared.
The siren blared through the late morning. I didn’t know how big the fire was going to get or how far the burning tendrils would extend. All I knew was that the store was made out of wood. With just a little bit of wind, the fire was going to jump the road and the little fishing bear was going to fry along with every other tacky thing in the place.
Trina was right behind me, her hands beet red.
“What happened?” my father exclaimed as he ran to her.
“I got a boo-boo,” she said with a sheepish grin. “Can you fix me up?”
“She’s an idiot,” I seethed. “There was a poxer. She torched it. It started a fire. We have to go.” I sounded so mechanical—so matter-of-fact. “The woods are burning. I don’t know how long it will be before the fire gets here.”
I didn’t wait for either of them to respond. Somewhere in the back of my head, my brain whispered something about this whole past week being a nightmare, but I shoved the thoughts down deep. There was something more important.
The Dead (a Lot) Trilogy (Book 2): Wicked Dead Page 18
