Undead Much

  I, ho­we­ver, was not gran­ted such lu­xu­ri­es… even tho­ugh I knew I co­uld fi­gu­re out how to turn my po­wer off if I tri­ed. I was ab­nor­mal­ly ad­van­ced, af­ter all.

  Unfor­tu­na­tely, I’d al­so lan­ded myself in an ab­nor­mal­ly lar­ge amo­unt of tro­ub­le a few months back whi­le trying to get ahe­ad, so now I was trying to walk the stra­ight and nar­row. Se­emed li­ke my boyf­ri­end, who wor­ked Pro­to­col and was ba­si­cal­ly a Set­tler cop, sho­uld ha­ve be­en a lit­tle mo­re sup­por­ti­ve of that!

  “I was just kid­ding.” He rub­bed my back as I wrap­ped my scarf aro­und my neck. “You know I lo­ve lis­te­ning to you ramb­le.”

  He kis­sed me on the che­ek and I mel­ted. I co­uldn’t stay mad at him. “Then co­me with us. I’m su­re Cliff wo­uldn’t mind. He se­ems fri­endly.”

  “Too fri­endly,” Et­han whis­pe­red. “I’m not su­re he’s gi­ving you the re­al fo­ur-one-one on why he left his gra­ve. May­be he’s hol­ding back un­til you two are alo­ne.”

  “Or may­be he’s just… dif­fe­rent?”

  “Oh, he’s dif­fe­rent all right, but not that dif­fe­rent. He knows yo­ur na­me, Meg, and didn’t you say the only Un­set­tled who ha­ve known who you are right off the bat we­re-”

  “The ones who di­ed. Badly.” I cut him off be­fo­re he co­uld men­ti­on “mur­der.”

  In the past few months I’d had a co­up­le of kids who we­re mur­de­red by black ma­gic prac­ti­ti­oners. Un­for­tu­na­tely, they hadn’t be­en ab­le to desc­ri­be the prac­ti­ti­oner very well, pro­bably due to the tra­uma of be­ing mur­de­red and all that. They we­re the ones who knew who I was be­fo­re I ma­de the pro­per int­ro­duc­ti­ons. And no one, not even the most ex­pe­ri­en­ced El­ders over at Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs he­ad­qu­ar­ters, co­uld gu­ess how the de­ad kids knew who I was. It was a mystery, li­ke so many ot­her things abo­ut me.

  For ins­tan­ce, why I had this inc­re­dib­le po­wer and whet­her or not I’d be ab­le to cont­rol it suf­fi­ci­ently to le­ad a re­la­ti­vely ave­ra­ge li­fe. Or why I still felt li­ke I was li­ving on bor­ro­wed ti­me even tho­ugh the pe­op­le ra­ising kil­ler zom­bi­es had be­en loc­ked away. No mat­ter how nor­mal I ac­ted in front of Et­han and my pa­rents, I still wasn’t my old self… and I was be­gin­ning to think I ne­ver wo­uld be.

  With tho­se che­ery tho­ughts in mind, I tur­ned back to Cliff. “Okay, let’s get strol­ling.” Might as well get him ta­ken ca­re of and back in his gra­ve, and may­be Et­han and I wo­uld ha­ve a few mi­nu­tes to talk be­fo­re my ten-o’clock-on-scho­ol-nights cur­few.

  “Call me if you ne­ed me,” Et­han sho­uted as Cliff and I set off ac­ross the pas­tu­re.

  “You won’t ne­ed him. I’m harm­less, I pro­mi­se,” Cliff sa­id in a chummy whis­per. “Not li­ke the ot­hers.”

  I hud­dled de­eper in­to my co­at as a we­ird shi­ver ra­ced down my spi­ne. “The ot­hers? What ot­hers?”

  “The… ot­hers. The… um… ” His smi­le fa­ded and he lo­oked as con­fu­sed as I felt, but se­conds la­ter his grin re­tur­ned. “You know what? I can’t re­mem­ber. Let’s just for­get it and enj­oy the walk. Co­ol?”

  “Co­ol,” I sa­id. But it wasn’t.

  Not­hing abo­ut the way this night was en­ding was co­ol. But then, what el­se was new?

  CHAPTER 2

  “Wow, Me­gan, lo­oks li­ke win­ter bre­ak re­al­ly didn’t ag­ree with you.”

  “Thanks, Mo­ni­ca. Ni­ce to see you too.” I grin­ned, de­ter­mi­ned not to let the Mo­nics­ter get to me. It was only our first af­ter­no­on back at prac­ti­ce. I co­uldn’t let her evil­ness we­ar me down un­til at le­ast Feb­ru­ary.

  “Re­al­ly, you co­uld pack lug­ga­ge in tho­se bags.” Mo­ni­ca Par­sons wig­gled in­to the girls’ loc­ker ro­om li­ke it was fil­led with guys re­ady to og­le her tiny si­ze-two body ins­te­ad of a bunch of girls chan­ging in­to wor­ko­ut clot­hes for af­ter-scho­ol bas­ket­ball, che­er, and pom squ­ad prac­ti­ce. “How is it pos­sib­le to lo­ok so ro­ugh af­ter a three-we­ek va­ca­ti­on?”

  As if she didn’t know. She’d be­en tra­ining right next to Et­han and me every day down at the Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs com­po­und. Mo­ni­ca was as ob­ses­sed as Et­han was with be­co­ming an En­for­cer can­di­da­te, even thin­king she wo­uld be the first Set­tler to be ac­cep­ted right out of high scho­ol.

  She was de­lu­si­onal, of co­ur­se, but I’d re­sis­ted the ur­ge to tell her so. We’d fi­nal­ly for­ged an une­asy tru­ce af­ter hel­ping con­ta­in a bunch of black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bi­es last fall, and I was do­ing my best to ke­ep the pe­ace. She was cap­ta­in of the pom squ­ad, af­ter all, and we we­re both bo­und to ke­ep our iden­tity as Set­tlers of the De­ad top sec­ret from the hu­man world.

  Still, that didn’t me­an I had to put up with her crap.

  “I don’t know, Mo­ni­ca, how is it pos­sib­le to lo­ok so ho-li­ke in je­ans and a swe­ats­hirt?” I as­ked, my to­ne swe­et as ho­ney. Shoc­ked gasps erup­ted from Lon­don and Ala­na, the Mo­nics­ter’s part­ners in cri­me. Well, the ones left over af­ter her ex-BFF, Beth, had got­ten loc­ked up for se­ri­o­usly cre­epy vo­odoo…

  “It’s easy.” Mo­ni­ca tos­sed her long, silky, ne­arly black ha­ir over her sho­ul­der, cle­arly ta­king my in­sult as a comp­li­ment. “What’s baf­fling is how you ma­na­ge to ma­ke a per­fectly cu­te mi­nis­kirt lo­ok so fugly.”

  “It’s the cab­le tights.” Ala­na smac­ked her gum. “They’re to­tal­ly short bus.”

  “Short bus me­ans re­tar­ded, idi­ot,” Mo­ni­ca sa­id, tur­ning on Ala­na with a cri­ti­cal gla­re.

  “Right, tho­se tights are re­tar­ded. Right?”

  “It’s pretty wrong to ma­ke fun of re­tar­ded pe­op­le, Ala­na.” Lon­don twis­ted her long auburn ha­ir in­to a knot on the top of her he­ad. “It’s not li­ke they can help it.”

  “Exactly. What’s up with you to­day?” Mo­ni­ca sho­ok her he­ad sadly, ob­vi­o­usly di­sap­po­in­ted with the in­sult qu­ality of her third-in-com­mand.

  Assu­ming I’d be­en for­got­ten now that Mo­ni­ca had fo­und so­me­one el­se to pick on, I wig­gled in­to my black span­dex dan­ce pants, ho­ping I co­uld get chan­ged be­fo­re I at­trac­ted any mo­re at­ten­ti­on.

  “And what’s up with that bru­ise, Me­gan? Has Et­han be­en be­ating you?” Mo­ni­ca as­ked, ho­ning in on the gi­ant black mark on my thigh. “That’s to­tal­ly go­ing to show if we we­ar the black uni­forms on Sa­tur­day night.”

  “I’ll co­ver it up with ba­se,” I sa­id, ig­no­ring her qu­es­ti­ons.

  For so­me re­ason, I co­uldn’t think of a re­aso­nab­le lie. All I co­uld think abo­ut was the way Cliff had fre­aked out when I’d fal­len down last night du­ring our walk. We hadn’t ma­de it ten fe­et from the car when I’d trip­ped on a fro­zen cow pat­ty-aka a lar­ge lump of bo­vi­ne exc­re­ment-and bit­ten it big-ti­me. Just ave­ra­ge klutzy Me­gan stuff, but Cliff had be­en re­al­ly wor­ri­ed, ac­ting li­ke the world wo­uld end if so­met­hing bad hap­pe­ned to Me­gan Berry. It had cre­eped me out. Es­pe­ci­al­ly con­si­de­ring he still hadn’t cop­ped to any un­fi­nis­hed bu­si­ness be­si­des a bur­ning de­si­re to tra­ip­se aro­und in a win­ter won­der­land.

  Des­pi­te his swe­et­ness, I’d be­en glad to get Cliff back in his crypt, all tuc­ked in for a ni­ce, long rest af­ter his first-and fi­nal-walk in the snow.

  “Ma­ke­up will rub off on the span­dex.” Mo­ni­ca sig­hed. “We’re just go­ing to ha­ve to we­ar the whi­te and gold. Wri­te that down for me, Ala­na.”

  Ala­na jum­ped to do her evil mist­ress’s bid­ding whi­le the rest of us fi­nis­hed chan­ging. Or tri­ed to fi­nish ch
an­ging. It wasn’t easy, what with the twel­ve che­er­le­aders stan­ding in a knot by the sinks, whis­pe­ring and sta­ring.

  What was up with ever­yo­ne to­day? You’d think three we­eks off wo­uld ma­ke pe­op­le less cranky. Ap­pa­rently not.

  But then, the che­er­le­aders and the pom squ­ad had be­en ene­mi­es ever sin­ce the in­cep­ti­on of the much mo­re awe­so­me dan­ce te­am-aka pom squ­ad-ten ye­ars ago. I per­so­nal­ly be­li­eved the ani­mo­sity stem­med from the fact that the che­er­le­aders we­re je­alo­us that all they got to do was yell and jump aro­und on the si­de­li­nes, whi­le the pom squ­ad com­man­ded cen­ter flo­or and the en­ti­re crowd’s at­ten­ti­on du­ring half­ti­me when we did our la­test ro­uti­ne. I me­an, our su­pe­ri­ority was cle­ar to an­yo­ne with half a bra­in-which even most of the che­er­le­aders pos­ses­sed.

  I whip­ped my swe­ater off and was re­ac­hing for my sports bra just as gig­gles erup­ted from the che­er hud­dle, fre­ezing me in pla­ce. I ma­na­ged not to flinch or hunch my sho­ul­ders, but it wasn’t easy. Old ha­bits di­ed hard, and I’d be­en the we­irdly flat girl for too long to be ab­le to strip with comp­le­te con­fi­den­ce even now that I had so­met­hing up top. Penny, anot­her sop­ho­mo­re on the pom squ­ad, and a co­up­le of the bas­ket­ball girls al­so fro­ze mid-strip, ma­king me sus­pect I wasn’t the only one with body-ima­ge con­cerns.

  Mo­ni­ca, ho­we­ver, had no such is­su­es.

  “Is the­re a re­ason you and yo­ur clo­nes are sta­ring at us, Da­na?” She un­ho­oked her bra and flung it in­to her loc­ker, then to­ok her ti­me grab­bing her black sports bra from the top shelf.

  “We’re not sta­ring, we we­re just… ob­ser­ving.” Da­na, the ba­rely fi­ve-fo­ot cap­ta­in of the che­er squ­ad step­ped slightly in front of her clo­nes.

  Nor­mal­ly I wo­uldn’t jud­ge, but Mo­ni­ca was right. The che­er­le­aders we­re eerily si­mi­lar. Every last one of them spor­ted sho­ul­der-length blond ha­ir-so­me na­tu­ral, but most from the bot­tle. Even Lee Chin, the Asi­an girl, was a blon­de, as we­re Kim­berly and Ka­te, the Af­ri­can-Ame­ri­can twins.

  “Well, I’m not re­al­ly down for a strip show right now, so why don’t you ta­ke yo­ur ob­ser­va­ti­on el­sew­he­re?” Mo­ni­ca tug­ged her sports bra on and be­gan pul­ling her ha­ir back in­to a pony­ta­il. “May­be you co­uld try, I don’t know, prac­ti­cing?”

  Ala­na la­ug­hed and a few ot­her pom girls stif­led gig­gles. The che­er­le­aders we­re no­to­ri­o­usly lazy, thin­king that a bunch of backf­lips co­uld ma­ke up for the fact that they spent most of the­ir prac­ti­ces to­uc­hing up each ot­her’s to­ena­ils and that no one wo­uld no­ti­ce if they mis­spel­led “Co­ugars” du­ring the fight song. They’d ma­na­ged to win the sta­te che­er­le­ading com­pe­ti­ti­on the ye­ar be­fo­re, but only be­ca­use Da­na’s aunt’s fri­end’s da­ugh­ter was one of the jud­ges. Ot­her­wi­se, not even an un­holy de­al with the de­vil co­uld ha­ve ma­de up for all the­ir slac­king.

  “Oh, we’ve be­en prac­ti­cing. We’ve be­en wor­king on new ro­uti­nes all win­ter bre­ak, eno­ugh to ke­ep the crowd fi­red up thro­ugh the en­ti­re bas­ket­ball se­ason.”

  “Fi­red up?” Lon­don mut­te­red, ma­king ever­yo­ne gig­gle this ti­me. Even me, I ad­mit it.

  The che­er­le­aders we­re li­ke ti­me tra­ve­lers from a dif­fe­rent age, a gent­ler ti­me when pe­op­le still sa­id things li­ke “gee whiz” and “golly” and me­ant it. It wo­uld ha­ve be­en kind of cu­te, if they we­ren’t our sworn ene­mi­es.

  “Yep, fi­red up and ins­pi­red to che­er the Co­ugars on to anot­her sta­te cham­pi­ons­hip.” Da­na smi­led and fis­ted her hands on her hips, every musc­le go­ing tight as if she we­re al­re­ady stan­ding on top of a pyra­mid. It ma­de me won­der if it hurt when she sat down, li­ke, if her musc­les got so­re from ha­ving her butt per­pe­tu­al­ly clenc­hed. “And Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins and the bo­os­ter club are to­tal­ly be­hind us. They’ve got so­met­hing spe­ci­al plan­ned for the ope­ning of the new gym, and they think it’s a gre­at idea for the che­er­le­aders to ta­ke the­ir turn on the co­urt at half­ti­me.”

  A hush fell over our si­de of the ro­om and the last of the lin­ge­ring bas­ket­ball pla­yers hust­led out in a hurry. They we­re unu­su­al­ly tall and mo­re ath­le­tic than the ave­ra­ge girl, but they still knew a cat­fight in the ma­king when they saw one.

  After all, this wasn’t just any bas­ket­ball ga­me. It was the first ga­me of the se­ason and the first ga­me ever to be pla­yed on the new gym flo­or. This ga­me was go­ing to be bro­ad­cast on Lit­tle Rock’s lo­cal sta­ti­on, pho­tog­rap­hed by every pa­per in the area, and ge­ne­ral­ly be the big­gest de­al Ca­rol, Ar­kan­sas, had se­en in a long ti­me. We’d prep­ped a dan­ce ro­uti­ne mo­re than worthy of the event. The che­er­le­aders trying to ta­ke over half­ti­me was tan­ta­mo­unt to rep­la­cing a fa­mo­us-na­me Bro­ad­way star with so­me no-na­me un­ders­tudy with badly con­di­ti­oned ha­ir.

  It just wasn’t go­ing to hap­pen, not if we had anyt­hing to say abo­ut it.

  “What?” Mo­ni­ca’s ice-blue eyes nar­ro­wed. “I’m not su­re I he­ard you cor­rectly.”

  “It’s al­re­ady be­en de­ci­ded.” Da­na flip­ped her blond pony­ta­il and grin­ned, ma­king her twin dimp­les pop. “We’re go­ing to be the ones per­for­ming at half­ti­me this bas­ket­ball se­ason.”

  “No, you’re the ones who’ve be­en smo­king crack,” Ala­na sa­id, step­ping up her in­sult ga­me. “The pom squ­ad owns half­ti­me. Ever­yo­ne knows that.”

  “Not Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins or the bo­os­ter club,” Da­na sa­id with a smug lit­tle grin. “They ag­ree with the rest of us and wo­uld li­ke to see so­met­hing a lit­tle mo­re who­le­so­me on our co­urt.”

  “What is that sup­po­sed to me­an?” Lon­don as­ked.

  “It me­ans we’re ti­red of watc­hing a bunch of strip­per wan­na­bes roll aro­und on the flo­or for fi­ve mi­nu­tes every ga­me,” Kim­berly sa­id.

  “It’s trashy,” her twin, Ka­te, se­con­ded. “Boys from ot­her scho­ols think Ca­rol girls are easy.”

  “It’s no won­der.” Da­na’s eyes ra­ked over every one of us, si­lently jud­ging our ba­re mid­rif­fs and tight span­dex pants. “The Slut Squ­ad gi­ves us all a bad rep.”

  Oh no she didn’t.

  Mo­ving with a sing­le-min­ded pur­po­se, the rest of the pom squ­ad fi­led in be­hind Mo­ni­ca, len­ding our si­lent sup­port to our cap­ta­in. If they wan­ted to rumb­le, we’d rumb­le, by God. I’d ne­ver scratc­hed fa­ces or pul­led ha­ir be­fo­re, but I was get­ting in the mo­od to.

  Or may­be Mo­ni­ca and I co­uld try out so­me of our new mo­ves on the pla­ti­num brats. Our En­for­cer tra­ining had inc­lu­ded ho­urs of tra­ining in self-de­fen­se and com­bat stra­tegy as well as spell work. It se­emed a sha­me for all that to go to was­te now that the black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bie si­tu­ati­on aro­und Ca­rol was un­der cont­rol.

  “So you’re tel­ling me Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins and the bo­os­ters did this wit­ho­ut even no­tif­ying the cap­ta­in of the pom squ­ad?” Mo­ni­ca as­ked, her vo­ice surp­ri­singly co­ol and cont­rol­led. “I find that hard to be­li­eve.”

  “Be­li­eve what you want. We’ll all see I’m tel­ling the truth co­me Sa­tur­day when we ta­ke the co­urt at half­ti­me.” Da­na nod­ded her he­ad in that twitchy way she did right af­ter gi­ving the “re­ady, okay” that sig­na­led her mi­ni­ons sho­uld be­gin a new che­er. “Co­me on, girls. We’d bet­ter go-Aaron sa­id he fo­und a top-sec­ret pla­ce for us to prac­ti­ce.”

  Aaron was the only du­de che­er­le­ader as well as the ne­west mem­ber of the squ­ad. He was
a juni­or, vi­ce pre­si­dent of the Ho­nor So­ci­ety, cu­te in an all-Ame­ri­can kind of way, and had na­tu­ral­ly blond ha­ir, so it wasn’t li­ke he co­uld help fit­ting in with the clo­nes. But he was ob­vi­o­usly a pas­sen­ger on the che­er­le­ader cru­ise li­ner of evil if he was sco­ping out “top-sec­ret” prac­ti­ce lo­ca­ti­ons.

  What was with that? Li­ke we we­re go­ing to ste­al one of the­ir la­me ro­uti­nes? Bet­we­en us we had over fifty ye­ars of com­bi­ned dan­ce tra­ining. We we­re the ex­per­ts-they we­re the pre­ten­ders to the thro­ne.

  “What are we go­ing to do?” Ala­na as­ked, as so­on as the che­er­le­aders from heck had va­ca­ted the loc­ker ro­om.

  “You’re go­ing to hit the old gym and prac­ti­ce,” Mo­ni­ca sa­id. “I’m go­ing to hit Prin­ci­pal Wat­kins’s of­fi­ce and re­mind him how things work he­re at CHS.”

  “Don’t you think you sho­uld put on a shirt first?” I as­ked, then im­me­di­ately wis­hed I’d kept my mo­uth shut. “I me­an, if what she was sa­ying abo­ut Wat­kins is true, then wo­uldn’t it pay to to­ne it down?”

  Mo­ni­ca gla­red whi­le I did my best not to crin­ge. Ge­ez, she still sca­red me, even tho­ugh I had stuff on her that wo­uld ke­ep her from a full-out at­tack. She’d be­en dab­bling in black ma­gic last fall, in an at­tempt to ste­al Et­han away from the sop­ho­mo­re no­body who had so­me­how cap­tu­red his at­ten­ti­on. (The no­body wo­uld be me.)

  I’d ag­re­ed not to tell Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs abo­ut her jo­ur­ney to the dark si­de as long as she let me ha­ve a spe­ci­al tryo­ut for the pom squ­ad-sin­ce I’d mis­sed the first one due to po­ten­ti­al­ly de­adly si­tu­ati­ons be­yond my cont­rol. But now that I was on the squ­ad, she co­uldn’t kick me off. I co­uld, ho­we­ver, spill my guts to the El­ders at SA and get her kic­ked out of En­for­cer tra­ining. Not that I wo­uld, but it was a ni­ce ace to ha­ve at ti­mes when Mo­ni­ca se­emed pri­med to re­vert to her old Me­gan’s-li­fe-dest­ro­ying ways.