"Yeah, that would be stupid," I agreed, scrambling to think of something to say to keep him at the table. "And superficial."
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"Exactly. You can't tell what a person is capable of by looking at their outsides." This sent a little shiver across my skin. What a person was capable of? Was he confessing to murder, or had my brain simply begun to degenerate from hunger and prolonged exposure to Gavin's yummy boy-ness? "See you around."
And then he was gone. Leaving me with more questions than I'd had before. Either he'd been taunting me with his last remarks--insinuating that he shouldn't be trusted just because he was a hottie--or he was accusing Trish of something, or he actually thought I had something to do with all this. I was betting on the first scenario.
If he'd really had something on Trish, wouldn't he have dished when I issued my challenge about needing more than a difference of opinion to doubt my new friend? And how could he really think I had anything to do with the brain harvesting? If I'd been the one bashing heads in, I couldn't very well have had my own head bashed, could I? I mean, there was no way I could have given myself a dent the size of the one I was sporting yesterday even if I'd wanted to.
No, it was more likely that Gavin was toying with me. He knew I was on to him and was enjoying playing with my mind for a bit before he got down to the killing-me-to-protect-his-evil-secret part of all this.
"No way. Not going to happen," I muttered aloud, drawing a couple of raised eyebrows from the swim-team boys. But who cared if they thought I was crazy? I'd prove to everyone just who was nuts around here when I
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caught Gavin red-handed and turned him over to Principal Samedi.
Which might happen even sooner than I'd hoped. I watched Gavin return his tray, but not before he slid something long and silver in his pocket. All the rooms had been checked for illegal weapons after the first murder, so he probably needed to steal an implement of destruction if he planned to keep harvesting. A cafeteria knife wouldn't be the best choice, but if you were desperate enough and strong enough, I guess it could work.
Gavin definitely had the muscles to separate a brain from a head with a butter knife. Now all he needed was the opportunity. From the guilty look on his face as he snuck out the staff exit, he wasn't going to waste any time hunting down that opportunity and another innocent victim!
Moving fast, I ditched my tray of mostly uneaten food at the tray return window and, after waiting a moment or two, scurried out the door where Gavin had just disappeared. I wanted to stay close, but not too close. If he saw me, he'd abort his mission and I'd be forced to endure another twenty-four hours of being the freak, suck-butt girl who'd chosen the wrong best friend. The only chance for me and Trish, or for the girls whose brains had been stolen, was for me to prove Gavin guilty ASAP.
Immediately, if possible. Then everyone would see that Trish and I were heroic, mystery-solving, cool people and not some sort of mucous-like substance best wiped away with a tissue and thrown into the trash.
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Luckily, I caught sight of Gavin at the end of the long gray hall just as he turned left, but he didn't see me. I scurried after him, my black ballet flats barely making a sound as I ran. Thank goodness I'd gone for comfort over height-enhancement this morning. Anything with heels would have been making way too much noise.
As it was, I was able to trail my prey with the soft tread of a jungle cat, silently weaving through the maze of hallways until the scent of chlorine filled the air. Crap. Was Gavin just sneaking off for some extra swim practice? If so, I was going to feel like a complete dink, but there was no way I could turn back now. Deep in my bones, I was certain the boy ahead of me was up to no good.
Besides... if seeing my crush splashing around in his regulation Speedo was the worst thing to happen to me today, I wouldn't complain. I mean, it wasn't like I was a professional boy-ogler or anything, but if the opportunity presented itself...
Doing my best not to be distracted by visions of cute boys in spandex, I watched Gavin disappear through a heavy blue door. Silently, I counted to ten before easing the door open, peeking inside... and screaming my head off.
I couldn't help it. All stealth abandoned me in the instant I saw the pool.
I just wasn't prepared. I mean, I'd hoped to get some dirt on Gavin and maybe even catch him in the act of trying to harvest a brain, but there was no way I expected his next victim to already be dead, floating in a cloud of red in the center of the DEAD High pool.
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CHAPTER TEN
No eating, drinking, or running on the pool deck. No swimming within one hour of eating or within twenty-four hours of receiving a serious flesh wound. Undead flesh WILL begin to disintegrate if chlorine is introduced into an open sore.
--Pool Rules, DEAD High
I was drawn to the edge of the pool like a shop-a-holic to a fifty-percent-off sale. Gavin was nowhere to be seen, so there was nothing to keep my feet from wandering closer and closer to the body, or to keep my stupid eyes from staring at the limp figure in the pool until my brain eventually connected the dots. Even with the side of her head cracked open, it didn't take long to realize who that signature brown bob belonged too.
Then there were the ballet flats. We'd joked about wearing the exact same shoes only a couple of hours ago, just after first period when Trish had told me she was going to investigate a lead. She hadn't had time to tell me what the lead was or why she didn't want me along for the investigating, however, which had annoyed the heck out of me.
What was with the solo act all of a sudden? Weren't we a team?
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I'd made her promise to tell all at lunch, but she hadn't shown up. Because she'd been getting herself killed, and I'd been too busy stressing about my popularity or lack thereof and chatting with Gavin to actually go looking for my friend. And now, she was dead. Dead!
This couldn't be happening!
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod." I didn't know how long I'd been chanting the same phrase over and over again, but eventually I realized I was responsible for the shrill soundtrack to this horrific moment and that I should probably shut up while I still had the chance.
I slapped my hand over my mouth, muffling my hysterical episode as I shuffled away from the edge of the pool, toward the door. Trish was dead! Trish. My Trish was floating there with her brain swiped from her poor, innocent skull.
Deep breath. I was almost to the door. I had to get out of here, had to get help before--
A second later, a larger, manlier hand covered mine and I was pulled backward into about five-feet-eight inches of swimmer-muscled flesh. "Shh! Keep quiet, and do exactly as I say."
It was Gavin! He'd snuck up behind me and was going to gouge open my head with his appropriated kitchen knife and add my brain to his unholy collection. My life, and Trish's, hung in the balance!
If I couldn't get free and report him, forcing him to reveal the location of the brains he'd stolen, all would be
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lost. Principal Samedi would never suspect her star athlete and pet pupil of this kind of thing. He'd be the last person on her list. By the time she figured out Gavin was responsible-- if she figured it out at all--it would be too late to reunite the victims with their brains. I had to fight him.
And when your captor has seven inches and a few dozen pounds on you, the only way to fight is dirty.
"Ow!!" Gavin hissed in pain as I dug my nails into his hand and delivered a wicked stomp to the arch of his foot. But he didn't let go. Instead, his arms tightened around me as he captured my wrists in his other large, manly hand. Argh! A boy who died at sixteen shouldn't have hands this large! He was clearly a freak of nature who used his abnormally big hands not only for paddling through the water with great speed but for killing innocent girls.
Why not harvest the brains of other guys? Why not give himself a challenge instead of picking on people who were naturally smaller and weaker than he was? He wasn't just a murdering psyc
ho, he was a bully, and for some reason that made me even madder.
Using every last bit of my strength, I rammed my foot back into his shin bone. Unfortunately, all I received for my efforts was to be squeezed so tightly I couldn't breathe.
"Karen, stop it. I'm not going to hurt you."
Likely story. That's probably what he said to all the girls whose brains he harvested. "Oh, I'm not going to hurt you, just come over here and look at my large, manly
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hands," and then--wham! He struck. Like a python or a scorpion or an alien with acid for blood who'd been hiding in the ceiling waiting for a meal while the entire crew of the spaceship turned on each other and made the alien's job even easier by fighting when they should have been bonding together for the common good. Or something like that.
I thrashed as Gavin picked me up and began hauling me the last few feet toward the door. I kicked and struggled, making this abduction as difficult as possible, but finally had to give it up when the world started to spin. Geez... I was getting dizzy; I really needed to breathe. Wonder why that was?
Zombies don't have a pulse so I knew my heart wasn't working anymore, but my lungs obviously were. Still, an Undead person couldn't be killed by suffocation--we'd learned in Health that the only thing that could take us down was decapitation or severe trauma to the brain. So I wondered what would happen to me if I did pass out from lack of oxygen. Would I just stay unconscious until I was allowed to breathe again? Or at least until Gavin managed to pry my brain from my skull and throw me into the pool along with Trish?
The mental image conjured by that thought helped me summon the strength for one last round of thrashing. Gavin's hold slipped... I squirmed... and score! I had freedom! I darted to the right, booking it toward the bleachers that lined one side of the pool, not thinking anything but
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that I had to put as much space between Gavin and me as possible. There had to be another exit somewhere. If I could just move fast and--
"No!" My feet tangled in my stupid, oversized black robe and I fell to the ground with a grunt.
"Shh!" Gavin grabbed me under the arms and his hand smashed over my mouth once more. "Karen, come on! I'm not the bad guy. You've got to trust me. And be quiet!" He hauled me deep into the darkness beneath the bleachers, then crouched in the shadows, pulling me down with him until I was sort of sitting on his lap.
I was probably the closest I'd ever been to a boy. The fact that he was also an incredibly cute boy and smelled rather delightfully of pool and French fries and soap was enough to make a tiny thrill of girlish delight penetrate the fog of fear.
Never would I claim hormones help a person think more clearly. But in this case, they made me realize that I might have misjudged my present situation and prompted me to do a quick review of the facts.
First of all, Gavin hadn't killed me. He could have just smashed me over the head while I was distracted by the sight of Trish's watery grave, but he hadn't. Secondly, he kept telling me he wasn't going to hurt me, even after I'd done my best to rough him up. Thirdly, it seemed an awful lot like we were hiding back here under the bleachers, and why would we be hiding if Gavin was the murderer? There would be nothing to hide from and certainly
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no heavy, scary footsteps sounding out on the tiles surrounding the pool.
I froze, every muscle in my body tensing as I strained to hear exactly where the footsteps were coming from and where they were headed. They were definitely on this side of the pool. Oh no. Why hadn't I let Gavin pull me out the door while we had the chance?
As if he sensed the shift in the direction of my stressing, Gavin's hand eased from my mouth and his arms relaxed so I was no longer pinned in place. I turned and shot him my most confused what the heck is going on, spill all now look.
But he only shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips. He didn't know who we were hiding from either, but he didn't want to take any chances.
Or he was stalling until his accomplice reached our location.
A second ago that suspicion would have been enough to make me bolt for freedom once more and take my chances on outrunning Gavin and whoever this other person was, but now I stayed where I was. Something in Gavin's eyes told me he was as scared as I was, and just as disturbed by discovering Trish's body floating in the pool. Judging from his behavior the past few minutes, it looked like I'd had the wrong guy.
But if Gavin wasn't responsible, who was? And why had Gavin just happened to be the one to discover Trish? Unlucky coincidence, or something more? And what about the spells he'd lifted from Samedi's office?
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I didn't know what to think. All I knew was that the footsteps were getting closer and closer, and I couldn't see a darn thing through the spaces between the seats. The bleachers weren't fully extended so there wasn't even any light coming in from the front, only from the side where we'd crawled in. The other side was flat against the wall.
It felt like we were in a cave, a very creepy cave with a predator lurking somewhere in the shadows nearby. Whether Gavin was the predator or the person outside was, I suddenly decided I didn't want to stick around to find out. I still had time to get out from under the bleachers, across the few feet of pool deck, and reach the door. It couldn't be too late!
And this time, I wouldn't make the mistake of forgetting I was fashionably challenged.
I lifted the bottom of my robe and bolted for the light, only to trip over a piece of metal and go sprawling back to the ground. When had I become so uncoordinated? I was a trained cheer athlete!
The good news was that I was up and running again in a few seconds, despite the tingling in my legs indicating they'd fallen asleep sometime between crouching down and standing up again. The bad news was that Gavin was hot on my heels and the footsteps outside were running too. And it sounded like they were a heck of a lot faster than either me or Gavin.
The metal fixtures supporting the bleachers started screaming just as Gavin grabbed my wrist and pulled. "Get down!"
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"No, let go. Let--" My words turned into a cry of pain as the bleacher seats slammed into my right side.
The seats were collapsing. Whoever was out there was shutting the bleachers up the rest of the way, knowing Gavin and I were inside! If they succeeded in closing them completely, we'd both be smashed flatter than the fried-brain-and-potato pancakes the cafeteria had served for breakfast this morning.
Shock at realizing I was about to be crushed and the pressure of Gavin's hand finally convinced me to hit the ground. I landed in the dust accumulated beneath the bleachers just as the seat above my head collapsed. I scooted as fast as I could toward the wall, following Gavin's lead.
We were only buying time, and maybe only a few seconds of it, but the urge to survive was strong enough to make those few seconds seem vital. The world had narrowed to avoiding the crush of the metal closing in on our right for as long as possible, dodging the killing blow until there was no other choice but to take our medicine.
Take your medicine--what a stupid phrase darted through my mind, followed closely by I wonder if our killer knew we were here all along or if I tipped them off when I fell? I wonder if it's my fault Gavin's about to die?
Then the metal gave one last mighty screech and slammed into our sides. Gavin took the brunt of the hit, being wider, but the bleachers came for me soon enough. The person outside had shoved hard enough and fast enough that there was no problem with momentum.
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I screamed again and I think Gavin did too, but I couldn't be certain. After a second my ears stopped working and then my mouth, as if both had been swallowed whole. The pain came then, but it was mercifully brief, only a flash of white-hot agony and then everything went soft and dark.
All in all, not the worst way to die. Though if I'd had my choice, I would have picked that evening at the football field. At least the sun was setting sweetly in the sky, and I hadn't been forced to see my new BFF
floating face down in a pool, or know the guy I'd been crushing on-- who'd probably done nothing more than try to save my life--was dying along with me. And it was All. My. Fault.
Brains, brains, the magical food. The more you eat them, the more you...are so supremely grateful that you're a zombie and not a normal girl, because if you were normal you would be totally dead. Even taking brains all smushed up via some sort of tube inserted directly into the stomach--ew, I know, very gross, but actually not as painful as it sounds--wasn't something I was going to complain about.
"Don't touch it and try to lie completely still," Dr. Connor was saying, shaking her head wearily. "I hope you realize how close you and your boyfriend came to something even an infusion wouldn't fix."
Oh my god. She'd just called Gavin my boyfriend. Had
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he told her I was his girlfriend? Or had she just assumed we were a couple because we were found under the bleachers together? I was dying to know, but couldn't ask. How immature would that have seemed, to be more concerned about whether some guy had called me his girlfriend than nearly dying?
Whoa. Dying. I had nearly died. Permanently this time, of something a whole lot more serious than a whack on the back of the head. Someone had tried to murder me, and Gavin too. Murder. Like, for real murder (I go to the Encarta World Dictionary to reinforce how serious and real this is):