by Stacey Jay
The girl’s name was Bobbie Jane. I’d seen her two or three times during the fall Enforcer training, though I hadn’t realized she worked at Pizza Pie until now. Her mom and dad worked full-time, and she usually had to watch her little sisters, so she didn’t make it to every training session, but Settlers’ Affairs didn’t stress about her being there. She wasn’t a very powerful Settler to begin with and wouldn’t be going into Enforcement, but she wasn’t a total slouch either. She should have been able to handle a couple of zombies without too much trouble. The two OOGPs-Out-of-Grave Phenomena-must be bad news if she needed help.
Monica and I ran for the kitchen. Even before we burst through the door, I had a horrible feeling I knew what we’d find.
“Shit,” I said, even though I’d been trying my best not to curse as part of my lengthy list of New Year’s resolutions.
My bad feeling was dead-on. Across the room were two zombies exactly like the ones Monica and I had fought in the woods-they looked amazingly lifelike and didn’t reek of grave dirt, and both wore pajamas-crawling over the cold stove and dishwashers in their haste to get to the three of us.
“Yeah,” Bobbie Jane said, agreeing with my assessment of the situation. “And it gets worse. I wasn’t observed, but they were. There were five people in here. They all booked it out the back, but-”
“They’ll be looking for help,” Monica finished. “Which means we’ve got five, maybe ten minutes to reverto their-”
“But the reverto spell isn’t working.” Bobbie Jane shouted to be heard over the moaning and groaning of the zombies headed our way. “I haven’t tried the pax frater, but-”
“It won’t work either. These freaks are different.” Monica grabbed my hand and dropped her shields, not wasting further time explaining, which was a good thing. Zombie One was already over the dishwasher-sending the dishes on top clattering to the floor-and had nearly cleared the industrial stove. Zombie Two wasn’t far behind.
Taking a deep breath, I focused my attention on pulling Monica’s power inside myself and prepared to cast. This would be cake compared to the last time. There were only two of them. Maybe if I took just a little bit of Monica’s energy and waited until the RCs were close, then I wouldn’t be so messed up afterwards. Then I could follow them back to wherever they came from, trap the person who was responsible for raising them, and clear my name. If I just waited until they were a little closer… a little closer…
“Do it, Megan!” Monica yelled over the hungry keening filling the room.
“Just a second.”
“Now!” Monica shouted just as Bobbie Jane screamed and hit the floor beside us.
We’d been ambushed from behind!
There wasn’t time to lift my palm and cast before someone ripped Monica’s hand from mine and a thick, solid body knocked me off my feet. I landed on the hard tile floor with a groan but did my best to flip over. I couldn’t see who was on top of me, but I was betting it wasn’t a friend.
“Gunh!” The boy groaned and lunged for my neck just as I shifted onto my back.
He-no, scratch that, she. It was a girl. The bald head had thrown me for a second, but it was definitely a girl’s body under her red flannel pajamas, and decidedly feminine lips curled above her teeth as
I knocked her foaming mouth away.
“Please help me!” Bobbie Jane was crying now, I caught sight of her tearstained cheeks and blood pouring down her arm out of the corner of my eye.
She was fighting the RC who’d taken her to the ground, but she’d been bitten-badly. Bobbie Jane wasn’t one of those wimpy chicks who cried if they broke a nail. She wasn’t the strongest Settler, but she was tough. I’d seen her get the wind knocked out of her sparring with Barker and she hadn’t so much as whimpered. If she was crying, she was seriously hurt. Monica and I had to get hooked up again and get rid of these things before she lost any more blood.
I punched the chick on top of me straight in the nose and rolled swiftly to the side, knocking her off long enough for me to struggle to my feet. Monica was less than five feet away, slamming one Undead’s head into the stove while delivering a roundhouse kick to the head of another lurching in behind her.
“Monica, over here, we-”
Her eyes darted to mine. “Behind you,” she shouted.
Spinning on my heel, I delivered a sharp uppercut to the face of the girl I’d just knocked off of me a second ago. She cried out but rallied in time to block the kick I’d aimed at her solar plexus. Dammit, she was fast! No black-magically raised corpse should be able to move that fast!
“Megan! Megan, please!” I risked a quick glance over at Bobbie Jane, who was now struggling against two zombies-one who had her forearm locked between his teeth and another trying to get a mouthful of her leg. Bobbie Jane kicked and bucked and fought like a champ, but she was outnumbered and in an undefendable position. We had to get her out of here, had to-
“Ah!” I cried out as Red Flannel Girl slugged me in the face, then made a lunge for my neck that I just barely managed to dodge.
What was with the hitting? The Undead didn’t possess the smarts to distract someone with a punch before making a bid for the blood and flesh they craved. They were soulless, mindless shells raised to pursue the will of another. They shuffled and groaned-they didn’t dart and weave.
Apparently this chick hadn’t gotten the memo, because ten seconds after slugging me, she kneed me between the legs-which hurts, even if you’re a girl, I’ll have you know-then swept my feet out from under me with the expertise of a trained fighter.
“Unnh!” I hit the ground a second time, wincing in pain as my tailbone felt like it exploded. If I hadn’t broken a bone, I’d come darn close, which ticked me off sufficiently that the next punch I landed to Red Flannel Girl’s face sent her careening backwards in one of those slow-motion arcs you see in the movies.
It was actually pretty sweet. Too bad I didn’t have time to relish my small victory.
Sensing movement behind me, I spun my arms in a circle, twisting as far to my right as I could, shattering the kneecap of the dude reaching for my neck. He screamed like a five-year-old and collapsed, distracted enough by his pain that his grasping hands missed me as
I jumped to my feet and leapt over him. I headed straight for where
Monica was still holding her own near the stove, knowing time was running out.
Bobbie Jane screamed again, a bloodcurdling sound that made my skin break out in goose pimples. I didn‘t even care anymore that she was probably going to bring a bunch of average human people running, and all three of us would be exposed. All I could think about was getting to Monica and evading the zombies long enough for us to get linked up and accomplish the reverto spell.
But where could we go? The kitchen wasn’t that big, and unless we knocked the zombies unconscious, there was no way we could get far
enough away from them to buy the time we needed.
Then I saw the pots and pans hanging above the stove, strapped to some sort of industrial grid bolted to the ceiling. It looked pretty strong, but was it strong enough to hold me and the Monicster? I wasn’t sure, but we were getting ready to find out.
“Monica, up!” I shouted as I ran, pointing above her head.
She glanced toward the ceiling, then turned back to her zombies, clocking them both in the face before interlacing her hands, forming a foothold. Say what you want about Monica, but the girl thinks fast and is a kick-ass person to have on your side in a fight. I stepped into her hands and she gave me just the boost I needed to reach up and grab the edge of the grid.
I swung wildly back and forth for a second, pots and pans crashing to the floor as I climbed on top, but finally managed to leverage myself up and over the edge. Scrambling around as fast as I could, I reached a hand over the side just in time to grab Monica-who had climbed on top of the stove-and pull her up beside me. Once she was safe from the zombie hands snatching at us from below, I summoned her power.
“Reverto!” This time, the aftershock from the command sent me shooting across the metal grid on my stomach, bruising my hip bones and ribs and proving Monica right-I needed to gain some weight. If I’d had a little more meat on my bones, it wouldn’t have hurt nearly as much.
As it was, I was still wincing in pain as the zombies streamed out the back door into the marshland behind Pizza Pie. Trying to ignore the throbbing of my ribs, I crawled to the edge of the grid. I was dizzy, but I had to get down. If people came in and saw me, I’d have a tough job explaining what the heck I was doing.
Of course, getting down would have been a lot easier if Monica had stuck around to help. Instead, she’d bolted the second the zombies headed for the door. I assumed she was checking on Bobbie Jane, but when she spoke it definitely wasn’t a fellow Settler she was talking to.
“Your mom’s Dr. Sampson, right? Okay, I need you to go get your mom and bring her back here, then I need you to call nine-one-one and tell them we have someone very badly hurt and we need an ambulance, and I need you to get Mr. Moretti. Do you understand?” Monica asked, her voice soft and kind of high-pitched, like she was talking to-
Kids. There were three kids standing in the door, I realized as I hit the floor, sending pans clattering to the ground. Two girls and a little boy were staring at the two of us with wide, frightened eyes, but nodding their understanding of their various duties.
“Good, now hurry.” Monica waited until they scattered before rushing over to Bobbie Jane. The other Settler lay very still, a puddle of red smearing her Pizza Pie uniform and the white tile around her. She’d lost a scary amount of blood. We needed to stop it or the ambulance was going to be too late.
Heart pounding in my ears, I turned and surveyed the room, grateful to see some clean-looking dish towels near the sink in the corner. I hurried to grab one as fast as my dizzy head and wobbly legs would allow and then rushed back to Bobbie Jane. “Here, we have to press this to the wound and stop the blood. Apply direct pressure on-”
“It won’t do any good,” Monica said, ignoring the towel I held out.
“Yes, it will. I remember the first-aid classes we took last October. If you apply direct pressure-”
“No, Megan. It’s not that,” she said, turning to look up at me with tear-filled eyes. “It won’t do any good because… she’s already dead.”
CHAPTER 10
I couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold. Sure it was probably thirty-something degrees outside and I’d been huddled on the ground for fifteen minutes, but I knew that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t stop shivering.
Bobbie Jane was dead. Not that I’d known her all that well, but what did that matter? Bobbie Jane, with her bouncy curls, heart-shaped face, and eyes that had seen far more than those of the average sixteen-year-old, was gone. Now those eyes would never open again, and it was all my fault. If I hadn’t waited so long to cast, if I hadn’t been more worried about clearing my name than about keeping people safe, maybe she would still be alive.
I was positive I couldn’t feel any worse when the shouts came from the marsh.
“We’ve got another one! About a hundred yards back.” Somber-faced policemen rushed into the swampy water, carrying guns and cameras, followed by the EMTs.
“Oh God, no. Please, no.” Tabitha’s mom was whispering, but I could hear the anguish in her voice all the way across the parking lot.
Once the initial chaos of learning Pizza Pie had been attacked by drugged-up cult members-the official story being spun by the Settler undercover on the Carol PD-had cleared, we’d realized one of the cheerleaders was missing. Tabitha, a sophomore, had gone to the bathroom a few minutes before all heck broke loose and never come back. Now they were pulling her from the swamp on a stretcher.
“No! Is she okay?” Her mom screamed, a sound that turned into a horrible wail as she rushed to her daughter’s side. It was Tabitha. The blond hair and signature gold ribbon were clearly visible above her pale face.
“She’s conscious, but she’s lost a lot of blood. We need to get her to University for a transfusion.” The EMT hustled toward the ambulance, followed by Tabitha’s sobbing mother.
“I wish that was Bobbie Jane. I wish she was going for a transfusion,” Monica said, her tone as flat and emotionless as it had been since we were pulled out of the kitchen and rushed to the ambulance for treatment.
Monica had a couple of bite marks, and I had the beginnings of a killer black eye, but nothing serious enough that we needed to go to the hospital. We’d insisted on waiting for our parents to come pick us up. No doubt we were both in need of parental comfort, but there was also the little matter of the Enforcers, who were on their way to investigate the death.
Dead. Bobbie Jane was dead. No matter how many times I repeated it, it just didn’t seem to make sense. This couldn’t have happened. People weren’t murdered in Carol, especially not by zombies. Settlers didn’t let things like this happen.
“Megan?” I turned to see Mom leaping out of the car before Dad had even fully pulled to a stop. Unfortunately, Kitty and Barker were in a car right behind them.
“We’re just going to tell them the truth, right?” Monica asked in that monotone, which was starting to freak me out.
“Yeah. Probably the best thing,” I said, awkwardly patting her knee. I had a feeling she was in shock, but couldn’t remember what I should do about it. My brain didn’t seem to be working, which made me suspect she wasn’t the only one who was a little out of it.
“Honey, are you okay?” Mom crouched down beside me, cupping my face in her hands and running her fingers through my hair, as if she had to touch me to make sure I was alive.
“Yeah, I… no. No, I’m not.” I swallowed hard but couldn�
��t fight the tears pooling in my eyes. “Bobbie Jane is dead.”
“I know. I heard,” she said, looking as sad as I felt.
“It was more of those freak RCs,” Monica said. “We tried to get rid of them, but they got to Bobbie Jane first. We couldn’t… We tried, but we-”
Then she finally lost it, breaking down in full-fledged sobs that had my mom wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close. Monica’s mom and dad had been an hour away at some political fund-raiser when she called and hadn’t made it back to Carol yet, but I guessed any mom would do in a crisis. Monica clung to my mom’s sweater and cried like the world was ending. If I’d ever had any doubt that there was a good person inside the often cruel girl sitting next to me, it was banished as I watched her grieve.
“We’re sorry, but we need to talk to the girls.” Kitty’s voice was respectful, but firm. I looked up to see her and Barker standing a few feet behind my mom looking as pale and shaken as I felt. It seemed even the big, bad Enforcers weren’t going to be able to take this one in stride.
“Can’t this wait?” Mom asked, making no attempt to hide her anger. “Obviously they’re both very upset, and-”
“It’s okay.” Monica sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “Let’s get it over with. I want to go home.” She rose and stomped off into the darkness at the edge of the parking lot. Barker followed without a word. Guess that left me with Kitty.
“Megan, you know you don’t have to do this. You haven’t been assigned a mediator yet, and until you have, you-”
“No.” I stood up and brushed the gravel off my jeans. “I want to do whatever I can to help them find the person responsible for this.”
“Just be careful,” Mom said with a sigh. It was pretty obvious she didn’t want me to talk to Kitty, but she knew how stubborn I could be when I set my mind on something. And my mind was definitely set. I had to help catch the real Very Bad Thing, even if it meant putting my own safety and future at risk.
