“How many people?”
“Maybe a dozen. Tops.”
Tiffany flashed her gray-stained teeth. “Yeah, I can do that. Thanks.”
“Sure.” Ani backed up to the door. “Hey, I’ve got an exam.”
“Yeah. You’ll be around?”
“For the summer, anyway. Not sure what’s up with college yet.”
“Cool. Let me know.”
They said their goodbyes, and Ani stepped outside into the sun. After another pause, she wandered over to their old house. Everything looked the same, only covered in plastic—the dining room furniture, the couch, her piano. She wondered if the lab was still there, lurking behind the bookcase, and realized she didn’t want to know.
She took her time getting back to the road.
* * *
At the request of Principal Leoni, she took her tests in the Special Dead room. Apparently even a former zombie would be too much a distraction for the other kids, and God knew Ohneka Falls couldn’t take a hit on their School Report Card. A few easy finals—with the exception of math, they were more reading comprehension tests than anything to do with content—and she was done with high school. It should have been momentous, transformative, transcendental...yet she had no one to share it with.
Devon, Sam, and Mike were smothered with family and friends of family, with scarce moments to spare for themselves much less anyone else. Tiff was “busy” more often than not, and Ani’s mom still spent twelve or more hours a day at the lab. Ani played the piano—-her beloved baby grand—amazed at how sore she got after only an hour or two, and she wandered upstairs to her old bed. She liked sleep more than breathing, more than food.
* * *
Ani pulled the white box out of the closet and set it on the bed. Save for a thick layer of dust, her room hadn’t changed a bit in two years.
Just like me.
She lifted the cover and folded back the white tissue paper to reveal the bright pink fabric beneath. Hooking her fingers on the sleeves, she pulled out the strapless mini-dress and held it against her body.
“Did you find it?” Sarah called up the stairs.
“Yeah!” Ani folded it, lay it back inside, and resealed the lid. “I’ll be right down!”
* * *
She woke up to a batch of store-bought cinnamon rolls and a note from her mom: “See you there.” She shoved a bun in her face, showered, and slipped into the dress. She’d put on weight in the two weeks since the cure but still came in just under a hundred pounds. The dress emphasized the fact that her body was that of a waifish fourteen-year-old girl, and her pale-white chicken legs cried out for nylons. She chose pink to match and wondered if she’d grow any more now that she was alive.
She smiled at the car horn, touched up her lipstick, grabbed her heels from the foyer, and tiptoed outside. She rolled her eyes at the beat-up pickup jacked up on four enormous tires but couldn’t help but smile. “Really, Mike?”
He smiled down at her around Sam, who scooted into the middle. “Your mom insisted,” he said. Something about the way he said it made her pause.
She climbed into the cab. “Mom insisted?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “Said we ought to arrive in style.”
She blinked. “Uh, sure.” She shut the door, and he hit the gas. She managed to get her belt buckled before they reached the end of the street.
The side parking lot was packed, so he parked in the back. The school somehow looked funny without the electrified chain link, without the guard towers. Mike got out, helped them both down, and they all walked in together. Mr. Murphy met them at the guidance office. He’d somehow finagled white caps and gowns for Sam and Ani, and blue ones for Mike.
“What about Devon?” Ani asked.
Sam held up her phone. “She already got hers.” On her screen, Devon flipped off the camera with both fingers, gown draped over her shoulder and mortarboard on her head.
“Classy,” Ani said.
“Classy girl,” Sam agreed. “Looks happy, though.” Her face flushed, her smile genuine, Ani had never seen Devon so happy.
Well, there’s that.
They ducked into the bathrooms and dressed, then joined the rest of the seniors in the hall. They got more nervous looks than hellos, but Ani didn’t have anything to say to them, either. They lined up two by two, and when the music started, they marched.
Sort of. Without the seniors, the band lacked most of their first strings, and “Pomp and Circumstance” suffered for it. The beat dragged, and with it, the seniors’ feet. When she and Sam stepped out into the sunlight, Ani gasped.
Every inch of lawn crawled with people, and the crowd spilled out onto the lawns across the road. Huge, makeshift gantries sported TV cameras, boom microphones, and small satellite dishes. News vans lined both sides of Academy Street, and helicopters circled overhead. Ani squinted against the late morning sun and followed the feet in front of her.
They reached the bleachers beneath the old maple trees, and Sam turned left. Ani went to the right, taking her seat on the top riser, behind Mike. The heavy white gown stuck to her shoulders—she wasn’t used to sweating, and the sun and crowd exacerbated the heat of the day.
The school board sat in the front row with the administrators and visiting politicians. Dr. Banerjee gave her a curt nod as her eyes lit on him, but he didn’t smile. She waved anyway. Dr. Freeman returned the wave from her right, and to her left the chair sat empty. Ani frowned.
Where are you, Mom?
She pulled out her phone and, using Mike as a shield from the crowd, put the thought to text.
Fourteen people sat in a special section reserved just for them, right behind the bigwigs. The only thing they had in common—a return to life after a waking death—made them celebrities, but Ani knew none of them. The teachers sat at stage left, across the aisle from the former zombies. Mr. Cummings and Mrs. Weller-Cummings were notably absent, on their honeymoon in the Bahamas.
Superintendent Salter addressed the board and the audience, then Principal Leoni. She frowned again at her mom’s empty chair.
Halfway through a musical interlude by the chorus, Ani’s phone buzzed. THERE SOON. GET READY TO RUN. Ani’s eyes snapped up as Mike flipped open his own phone, and she read the same message over his shoulder, also from her mom. She looked across the sea of graduates to Sam, who snapped her phone closed and looked straight ahead.
Devon, in the front row, either didn’t get the text or ignored it. Ani leaned forward and whispered in Mike’s ear. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged without taking his eyes from the chorus. Always a terrible liar, she read the tension in his face but couldn’t do anything about it.
Her phone buzzed. THREE MINUTES. The kid next to her grimaced at the phone and shook his head in admonishment.
The chorus finished to polite applause, and Kate Jackson took the podium, her hair as perfect as her makeup. She greeted the board, the administrators, and the audience, then launched into her valedictory address.
“Carpe diem. Seize the day.”
The phone buzzed in her hand. NINETY SECONDS.
“They say that opportunity knocks but once, but this isn’t true. Opportunity never knocks; you have to hunt it, chase it, wrest it from the clinging hands of an uncaring world.”
Devon shot to her feet, drawing the eyes of the crowd. She took a step toward the podium, then two, and groaned. Kate turned, her puzzled expression shifting to cruel distaste.
“I didn’t mean now, Devon.” The line drew laughs, but Ani leaned in to Mike.
“Look.”
Behind the bigwigs, the special guests twitched and lurched in their seats. One, a gray-haired man in a navy suit, grabbed Dr. Freeman’s arm. As she turned to him in surprise, Devon reached the podium.
THIRTY SECONDS.
“Mine,” Devon said, reaching for the microphone.
Kate put her hand in Devon’s face. “Step off, bitch.” The audience gasped.
Devon lunged
. Kate screamed over a sickening crunch. Kate flailed, her missing fingers spraying crimson blood over the nearest seniors. The man behind Dr. Freeman yanked her backward over the seat and fell on her. Dr. Banerjee whirled, a pistol appearing in his hands. He shot the woman groping for him in the head, and she collapsed over the back of his chair as he stumbled away from her. The crowd panicked.
Devon leaped onto him from behind, teeth tearing a stringy hunk of bloody flesh from his neck. Screaming, he put the pistol to his temple and fired.
The risers shuddered as Mike scooped Ani into his arms and turned. His truck skidded to a halt behind the bleachers, Sarah at the wheel, and he leaped into the bed. Tires flung dirt as he reached out, his fingers tangling in Sam’s gown as she fell to the ground. He dragged her up even as he pitched backward from the sudden acceleration. Ani grabbed Sam’s arm and heaved her up next to them, her shoulders screaming at the effort.
They fishtailed across the soccer field and onto the access road behind the school. Ani tore open the back window and stuck her head in the cab as Sarah shifted gears.
“What the fuck, Mom?”
She kept her eyes on the road. “They weren’t making cures; they were making weapons. You, Mike, Sam. Me.”
“Devon?” Ani stared ahead. “What about Devon?”
“I never had the opportunity to remove hers, sweetie.”
“Shit, Mom. How did you—”
“Remote trigger. They work exactly as Freeman and Banerjee designed them.” She pulled a small transmitter from her pocket and tossed it on the seat without looking at it. “Now let me drive.”
She swerved onto the highway and buried the speedometer. Ani closed the window and crouched low behind the cab. Sam and Mike held each other, shaking, and she joined them, saying nothing. A minute later, a police car passed them, lights on and sirens blaring, headed out of town.
He’s got the right idea.
Sam looked at her phone, then held it up to them, face pale. The screen read: BREAKING NEWS—ZV OUTBREAK IN OHNEKA FALLS. PRESIDENT ORDERS STRATEGIC CONTAINMENT.
Ani felt the blood drain from her face. She swallowed, then yelled over the wind. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
Sam nodded. “I think so.”
Mike looked confused as Sam shoved her head into the cab. “Drive faster!”
Eight minutes later they pulled into a gravel pit next to a charcoal-gray SUV. “Go!” Sarah said. They leaped out and clambered into the new vehicle. Tires spit gravel as they pulled out onto a side road.
In the relative silence of SUV, Sam found her voice. “Oh, my God, Ms. Romero. What the hell just happened?”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I couldn’t save everyone. We’d never be safe with Banerjee and Freeman alive. I didn’t see another opportunity.”
“Wait, what?” Sam asked.
“I triggered the weapons and saved who I could.”
Sam sat back and pressed the palms of her hands to her eyes. Her feet kicked a duffel bag under the seat. Mike pulled it up, unzipped it, and grunted. He showed the contents to Ani and Sam.
“That’s eight hundred thousand dollars,” her mom said. She looked at Ani. “There’s more if we need it.”
The truck rocked as a shape blurred overhead. Ani slammed into the back of the front seat as her mom hit the brakes. The SUV skidded sideways, then vaulted the ditch as Sarah gunned the gas. They came to rest behind a dilapidated wooden barn.
“Duck and cover,” she said. She put her head down, and wrapped her arms around her face. Ani copied her.
The world went white, then silent.
“Don’t move,” Sarah whispered.
The wind gusted, then roared. The truck rocked on its tires, a back-and-forth motion that made Ani seasick. The barn shuddered, casting off shingles and boards, but held. The roar died to a murmur.
“Okay.”
Ani looked up as her mom put the car in reverse and backed onto the road.
A mushroom cloud blossomed in a reddening sky.
“My God,” Mike said.
Ani said nothing, could say nothing. Tears streamed down her face.
“Ms. Romero,” Sam said, her voice soft. “What do we do now?”
The SUV picked up speed.
“We live.”
The End
Special Dead Page 25
