by Elle Casey
Chapter Four: Malcolm
I PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE BEEN more freaked out about what was happening, but I couldn’t get over the coolness factor of the panic room I was standing in. The place was stocked, probably so well we could survive the zombie apocalypse or whatever. I picked up a can of beans and looked at the label. This stuff would last forever.
I put the can back and grabbed a box of Ding Dongs off the shelf. After opening it up, I took out a package to share with Rae. She was seriously scared, and I was hoping the sugary cake would help calm her down. She was better now that we’d talked about maybe being able to see each other again, but I could tell she was still nervous. I hadn’t seen her dimple come out for a while.
“Here,” I said, handing her a sticky cake I’d taken out of the clear wrapper. I tried not to stare at the pink tongue that came out to lick the frosting.
“What?” she asked, pulling her tongue back in and smiling.
There’s that dimple. “What? Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re staring.” She took a big bite of the cake and then smiled, chocolate frosting and cake coating her teeth.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s nasty.”
“Vese are goob.”
“Yeah. Delish.” I shoved one whole into my mouth. No way was I going to lick the thing like Kootch had. I smiled big at her, very satisfied when she cringed in disgust.
She swallowed her cake. “Nice manners.” She still had chocolate in her teeth.
“Better check a mirror before you scold me,” I said, pointing to one I could see in a small alcove where I assumed the toilet was.
She left me standing there, grabbing her clothes off the stairs on her way. I watched her walk away, thinking about what we’d just decided; we were officially going to try and keep in touch. The idea gave me hope. Hope that I wouldn’t be alone out there in the world. Even if I was up in the mountains in Canada or the deserts of New Mexico, I could find an online connection somewhere and communicate with her. And then maybe one day, we could actually hang out together.
Is that what I want? To hang out with Rae and no one else? To make her a permanent part of my life? I’d only known her for a day, but she’s special. She gets me. She gets what I go through every day. She’s the only one in the world I’d ever met who I could say that about. But is that enough to sustain anything more than friendship? I thought about our kiss, and just the memory got me all hot and tingly again. I was definitely interested in doing that again, and more stuff too if she’d let me. As she walked back towards me with her street clothes on, I wondered if I’d ever get the chance.
“Have you ever seen a compost toilet before?” she asked. “It’s wild.”
“No. Is it like a regular one? Or do you go over a hole in the ground?”
“Nope. It’s mostly like a regular one.”
I had to see this thing. “Be right back.” I walked across the room and into the alcove. Behind a closed-off space was a big white toilet. It had a lid, seat, and tank, just like a regular one, but with a much bigger base. Using it would be like sitting on a big toilet box. I nodded my head in appreciation; a panic room with a toilet no one could shut off from the outside. What will the world think of next?
“This thing is cool,” I said, raising my voice so it would carry out into the room.
I heard Rae go, “Eeep!” and then running footsteps.
Rushing out of the alcove, I noticed immediately that she was no longer standing at the bottom of the stairs. And feet were coming down into the panic room. Whoever it was, he was wearing jeans and dirty sneakers.
“Yo, what’s up, freakazoids?” asked Kootch. He saw me coming out of the bathroom and grinned like a fool. “Oh, sorry. Did I catch you on the scrap crapper?”
“No,” I said, looking up the stairs and then around the room. “Where’d Rae go?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? She’s down here with you, right?”
“She was, but then you opened the door and I guess she disappeared.”
Kootch looked around. Then he smiled again. “I bet I know where she is. Follow me.” He walked across the room to a door I hadn’t explored yet. Pushing it open, he gestured inside. The room was lit already. “Voilà. Welcome to the range.”
“The range?” I asked, stepping into the room. Rae was standing in the middle of it, looking around with her eyes so big they took up half her face.
I could see why she was so shocked. There were guns and all kinds of other scary looking things on the walls and shelves around her.
“They call it the range, even though you can’t actually shoot anything in here. It’s like code, you know? They trust me with the code.” He nodded, obviously very proud of himself.
“So you know about popcorn then?” I asked.
“Yeah, dude. It’s my favorite snack next to Ding Dongs. What’s that got to do with anything?”
Rae shook her head at me.
“Nothing. Just taking a poll. What are you doing down here, anyway?”
Kootch crossed his arms. “I was having a little talky talk with the cops outside and then Butts had to get all up in my juice. She pulled me inside and then sent me down here. She’s worried I’m going to get arrested or something, I don’t know. I just came down for the Ding Dongs.” He uncrossed his arms and turned around. “You guys want one?” He was already halfway to the shelves that held his favorite cake.
“We already had one,” said Rae, her color coming back and her eyes not quite as bugged out.
“Pretty ridiculous, huh?” I asked, following her gaze to a section of handguns in open cases on a bench against the wall.
“Um, yeah. Or messed up. Or just plain scary, I’m not sure what. My brain isn’t exactly working right at the moment.”
“I know the feeling.” I stepped closer to her, wanting to make her feel more secure. She reached her hand out and I took it. Her fingers were ice cold. I enveloped them between my palms. “You’re freezing.”
“It’s not the temperature,” she said. “I’m just freaked. My heart is going a million miles an hour.”
I knew what Kootch would say to that. If he were standing here holding her hand, he’d say it wasn’t the situation; it was him doing it to her. But I’m not a bullshitter like he is, so I said nothing.
“What’s going to happen, do you think?” she asked, looking up at me with her beautiful eyes. I just wanted to stand there and stare at her, memorize everything about her face so I’d never forget it.
She frowned. “Hello? Anyone home?”
I shook my head, getting it out of the ether. “Oh … yeah, sorry. Um, what was the question?”
She grinned, her dimple sinking in. “I asked you what’s going to happen next.”
“Well, I don’t know. But Jasmine sent Kootch down here, so I guess she plans on keeping us out of the way until her parents get here.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I hope.” The noises of crinkling wrappers came from out in the other room. “Come on. Let’s go see what Kootch can tell us.” I led her by the hand out into the main room.
Kootch was sitting at the desk that had all the monitors and a keyboard on it. He was tapping something out on the keys as he chewed his food, staring at the screen in the middle. It was logged on to the Internet.
“What’s going on?” I asked.”
“Buff pecking va news.” He swallowed his cake with effort, clearing his throat into the back of his hand when he was done. “Trying to see how the deep the shit is. Check it.” He pointed to an article, reading the headline out loud while he opened up another cake.
“Breaking news. Amber alert. Local teen, possible kidnap victim. Amber Alert.” Then he scrolled down. “Newcomer to town, Rae Livingston, seventeen years old, caucasian, brown hair, blue eyes, five foot four inches tall, one hundred and fifteen pounds, missing from her bedroom on today’s date, approximately ten p.m. Last seen in the company of a young male caucasian by
the name of Malcolm McNamara …”
“Stop!” Rae jerked her hand out of mine and put it over her lips. She shook her head as the tears came out. “I can’t believe it … they’re saying you kidnapped me!” She looked at me, an apology in her eyes.
My heart had kind of stopped beating for a little while there as I heard my name coming out of Kootch’s mouth. Now I was just stunned as it slammed against my ribs from the inside.
“Dude, it so wasn’t you at all,” said Kootch. “It was that Derek douchewad. Jesus, can’t they ever get anything right?” Kootch scrolled down to the comments section.
“What are you doing?” I asked, stepping closer to him.
“I’m telling them what fuckwits I think they are.” He started tapping on the keys. “How do you spell fuckwit? Two Ts or just one?”
I leaned over and pushed his hands away from the keyboard. “Don’t do that! They’ll trace it back here!”
He frowned up at me, shoving me back with his fist on my waist. “Dude, don’t be touching me with your whammy power, okay? I don’t appreciate being turned into a zombie. And for your information, they can’t trace shit back here. Jasmine’s mom is like a double oh eight bitch-ass programmer hacker lady and when she wants to surf anonymously, she can do it.”
Rae cleared her throat. “What’s a … double oh eight bitch-ass … whatever you said.”
“Double oh eight is better than that lame-ass double oh seven. And she’s awesome. She’s the bombadier. She can hack into anything. I tried to get her to hack into my grades and do a little magic last year, but she refused. But she could do it if she wanted to. She could get into the friggin’ Pentagon, I’ll bet.”
I highly doubted she was that skilled, but I wasn’t going to argue with Kootch about it. He was apparently the president of her fan club. “Whatever. Jasmine will probably get mad if you put a comment on there without talking to her first, so just don’t.” I frowned at him to make my point.
“Pssshhh. Like Jasmine’s the boss of me.” He rolled his chair back, abandoning the comment section of the website. “We’re stuck down here for the night. You guys wanna play a game or something? They have cards and boardgames and stuff on one of the shelves over there.” He jerked his chin over to the shelves at the back of the room.
“I’d rather sleep,” said Rae, yawning for effect. “We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, filled with I don’t even know what. Probably moving for me.” She looked around the room, her gaze landing on a cot. She walked over to it.
“Are you mental? You’re not moving anywhere.” Kootch stood. “Seriously. After all this? You can’t just take off. That’s not cool.”
She sat down on the edge of the cot. “Why not? What other choice do I have?”
He threw his arms up and let them fall down to slap his thighs. “I don’t know! But you can’t run away! That’s chicken shit!”
“That’s survival,” I said, resignation coloring my voice. “That’s what people like us do.”
Rae nodded. “He’s right. We get too close, we leave. We start all over. I have to admit, this is the fastest I’ve burned through a school … but it was worth it.” She smiled at me shyly.
“Well, I don’t accept that.” Kootch crossed his arms again. “That’s bullshit. Why just keep running? Why not just stand up and fight people?”
“What are we going to do?” I asked, getting mad at his complete lack of understanding. “If we try to engage with people we can hurt them. You saw it already! You were attacking Rae when Jasmine and I came in the room. You probably would have raped her!”
Rae’s face went white and she looked to the side, avoiding our eyes.
Kootch dropped his gaze to the floor. “Yeah, well … there has to be a better way than just running all the time.”
“There is. And I’m going to do it,” said Rae, sitting up straighter.
I was glad to see her face looking somewhat normal again. When she went all ghostlike like that it made me really upset for some reason. I wanted to help her but I didn’t know how. I didn’t like being so clueless.
“What are you going to do?” I asked. For the first time since we’d gotten to Jasmine’s, she didn’t look scared.
“I’m going to find a way to get some money, and I’m going to go. I’m going to do it.”
“Go where?” asked Kootch. “And what … you’re gonna rob a bank or something?”
She frowned. “No, I would never do that. But I could get some money from my father. I could convince him to give it to me.”
“Using your freakazoid powers on him, is that what you mean?” Kootch frowned at her. “Not cool. Trust me. I felt them firsthand. It ain’t right losing control like that. You shouldn’t zombify your dad.”
Rae’s face flamed red.
“Shut up, Kootch! You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Rae had finally gotten some balls and now he was going to ruin it. I was ready to punch him in the face again. “If Rae’s parents weren’t so wrapped up in her vibe they’d help her out. They’d give her the money. She’d just be helping them do what they’d do anyway if she used her influence on them.”
“Say whatever you want, man. You haven’t felt the mojo take over your mind yet. Talk to me when you do.” Kootch walked over to another cot, grabbing the mostly empty box of Ding Dongs on his way. He put the box on his chest and laid down on his back, lacing his hands behind his back and looking over at me.
I wasn’t so sure he was right about that - about me not feeling Rae’s influence - but I wasn’t going to argue in front of her. She was already feeling bad enough about who she is. I didn’t want her to think the only reason I was being nice was because she was tricking me with her vibe.
I decided changing the subject was our best bet to keep me from punching Kootch. One purple eyelid on his face was ugly enough. “Whatever. Tell us what Jasmine is planning.”
Jasmine’s voice came out of a speaker in the corner of the room, over near the computer stuff. “Kootch, keep your trap shut and eat a Ding Dong, would ya?”
Kootch pulled his hand out and pointed to the screen, still looking at me. “She’s a spy kid. Go-Go Gadget Butts. Never forget that.”
“I heard that, Kootch. Don’t make me come down there and school you.”
“Yes, almighty badass. Whatever you say.” He whispered, “Not,” as he put his hand in the box of cakes on his chest and pulled one out. Making quick work of the clear wrapping, he shoved the cake into his mouth and just chewed while looking at the monitors from his cot.
“Jasmine, where are you?” asked Rae, looking at the computer screens.
A face popped up on the top left monitor. “I’m right here. Howdy!” She grinned hugely, her teeth glowing out from the flat screen. “Having fun down there?”
“It’s cool,” I said, walking over to stand in front of her projected face. “So what’s the plan? What’s going on up there?”
She looked to the right and then back at me. “Well, the cops are cruising the hood, foaming at the mouth because they can’t get in here. I could have let them in and just got it over with, but my parents said no joy. No cops, no searches, nada. So the boys in blue have to stew unless they can convince someone to give them a warrant. My parents are about six hours out, and I have to stay topside to keep an eyeball on things. I suggest you get some rest so you’re ready when they get here.”
My face turned red with the heat that came from my fear. “Ready for what?”
“Ready for Operation Yinyang to commence of course.” Her head jerked to the side, and then her hand came up, a gun in it. “Whoopsy. Gotta go. Intruders on the premises.” Her face came in really close to the screen and she spoke in a lower tone. “Later, taters.”
And then the monitor flickered and went back to showing one of the video feeds, where we saw a figure run past a bush. I could have sworn it was Derek.
Chapter Five: Rae
“WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT? And was that Derek I just saw
on the screen?” I had moved over to stand next to Malcolm so I could see Jasmine better, and then she was gone. Now we were looking at some part of Jasmine’s yard, and a guy was running around kind of crouched over. He disappeared almost as quickly as he’d appeared.
Kootch walked over to join us. “Dude, that guy’s obsessed.” He looked at me. “What’d you do to him, anyway?”
My heart sank as I recognized the accusation in his eyes. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything to him.” I wanted to cry, even though I’d done nothing wrong.
“Dude, do you always talk out of your asshole or is that just a frigging virus you have right now making you so stupid?” Malcolm was upset. He turned to face Kootch, effectively putting himself between us.
“What? What’d I say?” Kootch sounded genuinely mystified.
“You’re talking to her like she has control over what happens to those Rainbow people or whatever. You know she doesn’t, right? You get that part of who we are?”
I wanted to throw my arms around Malcolm and squeeze him for all I was worth. He said we. How we are. My heart soared into the clouds.
I’m not alone anymore!
I started to cry, but now they were happy tears.
“Oh, man. Now she’s crying.” Kootch looked like he felt terrible. “I’m sorry. I’m an insensitive dick, I know I am. Butts tells me that all the time. Please don’t cry. I hate when chicks cry.” He tried to get around Malcolm and reach out to me, but Malcolm wouldn’t let him. He sidestepped and clamped his hand onto Kootch’s forearm.
“Don’t even think about it,” said Malcolm, a threat in his voice.
Kootch looked confused for a moment. Then he stared down at his arm and frowned. “Oh, fuck a duck. Dude … you’re doing it too.” His voice trailed off at the end.
“Doing what?” asked Malcolm, still irritated, still squeezing Kootch’s arm.
“Mojo. Fucking zombie mojo. Have I ever told you how much my life sucks?” Kootch looked up at Malcolm, staring at him with bloodshot eyes that were filling with tears. “That my dad’s a goddamn alcoholic and he likes to punch me in the abs after he’s had a few. Says it’s to test my strength.” He was clearly anguished, barely able to talk now. “Have I ever told you that?”
