Undead Much

  “And they just be­li­eved you? Didn’t they-”

  “After they saw how po­wer­ful Jess and I are to­get­her, they we­re re­ady to be­li­eve just abo­ut anyt­hing. Plus, we wor­ked a lit­tle spell to show them what they’d lo­ok li­ke in twenty-fi­ve ye­ars.” He la­ug­hed.

  “Most of them we­re so fat it was easy to con­vin­ce them to sell a lit­tle pi­ece of the­ir so­ul to ke­ep away tho­se pesky mid­dle-aged po­unds.”

  “But Jess has be­en in pri­son, ma­xi­mum-se­cu­rity pri­son. How did you-”

  “I can chan­nel her spi­rit. She can in­ha­bit my body and gi­ve me the po­wer I ne­ed,” he sa­id, this dre­amy lo­ok on his fa­ce that re­ve­aled how ple­asu­rab­le he fo­und this al­le­ged ex­pe­ri­en­ce, tho­ugh I’d ne­ver known an­yo­ne who suc­ces­sful­ly “chan­ne­led” anot­her per­son, at le­ast not a li­ving per­son. That was pu­re le­gend as far as I knew. “That’s how I ra­ised the zom­bi­es to­night and the pa­ti­ents from the hos­pi­tal.”

  “Aaron, I don’t know what you think-”

  “That’s be­ca­use you’re not as­king the right qu­es­ti­ons,” he snap­ped im­pa­ti­ently. “After se­e­ing you es­ca­pe the li­ving Un­de­ad wit­ho­ut a bi­te on you, I ex­pec­ted mo­re. But I gu­ess you’re all brawn and no bra­in.”

  “So what sho­uld I be as­king?”

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “Fi­ne.” I sig­hed, shif­ting on the cold gro­und. “What’s in it for me?”

  “Not you, you idi­ot. Me.”

  “Oh.” Okay, so I was a lit­tle slow on the up­ta­ke, but I had just re­ga­ined cons­ci­o­us­ness. “What’s-”

  “Li­fe. I get to li­ve,” Aaron exp­la­ined as he po­un­ded away at the herbs he’d pla­ced in a small clay bowl. “You’ve got very spe­ci­al blo­od, you know. Witch blo­od, the most po­wer­ful blo­od on earth.”

  Witch blo­od. Co­uld that be what the “WB” in “WB vi­rus” sto­od for? If so, how the heck had Aaron fo­und out I had it when I didn’t even know myself?

  “I drink the blo­od of a li­ving Un­de­ad who has tas­ted witch blo­od and I get to li­ve,” he went on. “I’m ter­mi­nal. Bra­in tu­mor. Ino­pe­rab­le.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “No, you’re right. I’m not,” I sa­id, stra­ining at my bonds un­til I co­uld ba­rely fe­el my fin­gers. I had no idea whet­her what Aaron sa­id was true, but he be­li­eved it, and that was all that mat­te­red.

  “That’s co­ol. I’m plan­ning to kill you. So I gu­ess we’re even. The spell do­esn’t ac­tu­al­ly re­qu­ire yo­ur de­ath, just yo­ur blo­od, but I-”

  “How did you even le­arn abo­ut this spell? I’ve ne­ver he­ard of-”

  “You’ve ne­ver he­ard of a lot of things. Didn’t even know you we­re a witch, did you?”

  “How can you be su­re Jess isn’t lying to you too?” I as­ked, re­fu­sing to fo­cus on my clu­eles­sness. “Tel­ling you what you want to he­ar so you’ll help her ra­ise her stu­pid army or wha­te­ver? She li­ed to me for ye­ars. Ye­ars. And I was sup­po­sed to be her best fri­end.”

  “Pos­sib­le.” He shrug­ged. “But I’m kind of out of op­ti­ons. Be­si­des, I do­ubt she’s lying. She didn’t ne­ed li­ving Un­de­ad for her plans. She’s be­en hel­ping me ra­ise them just to he­al me, and it’s be­en ta­king it out of her big-ti­me, the po­or thing. She’s be­en in the hos­pi­tal three ti­mes.”

  Aha! So Jess’s se­izu­res we­ren’t from what she’d do­ne last fall, but from much mo­re re­cent dab­bling in the black arts. I sho­uld ha­ve gu­es­sed she was up to so­met­hing. She was ne­ver the type to gi­ve up af­ter one me­asly de­fe­at.

  “For a lit­tle whi­le we tho­ught she’d be ab­le to do­na­te the witch blo­od, sin­ce she was at the hos­pi­tal any­way, but the li­ving Un­de­ad ha­ve to ta­ke the blo­od stra­ight from the so­ur­ce, and the­re was no one in a co­ma at the Set­tler cli­nic. Be­si­des, her gu­ards ne­ver left her alo­ne. The best she co­uld do was slip so­me of her blo­od out the win­dow to me when no one was lo­oking.”

  So that was whe­re the blo­od on the hos­pi­tal beds had co­me from. Jess had witch blo­od. Her mom had be­en de­ep in­to dark ma­gic, and I’d al­ways won­de­red how Jess had be­co­me so po­wer­ful in only six ye­ars of prac­ti­cing the black arts. Pro­bably wasn’t so hard if you’d in­he­ri­ted the WB vi­rus from yo­ur mot­her. And sin­ce Jess was a chick, it wo­uld exp­la­in why the vi­rus type was the one only pre­sent in fe­ma­les.

  Fi­nal­ly, re­al pro­of that I wasn’t the bad guy! Now… if I co­uld only li­ve to tell the En­for­cers abo­ut it. They co­uld get a blo­od samp­le from Jess, run the spe­ci­al test, and, bam, they’d ha­ve the­ir zom­bie ra­iser! I co­uldn’t even fa­ult them for not re­ali­zing the truth so­oner. Af­ter all, why wo­uld they run spe­ci­al blo­od tests on Jess? She was in pri­son, not con­si­de­red a thre­at to an­yo­ne, and Mo­ni­ca had sa­id ma­gi­cal blo­od types we­re only pre­sent in the ti­ni­est por­ti­on of the po­pu­la­ti­on.

  But now they’d know to test that witch, and I co­uld fi­nal­ly put the in­sa­nity of the past we­ek be­hind me. I just had to stall un­til I fi­gu­red a way out of he­re or so­me­one from SA fo­und me. Su­rely, no mat­ter how in­com­pe­tent they’d be­en la­tely, they wo­uld re­ali­ze I’d fled Ca­rol and co­me lo­oking. Kitty had told us abo­ut trac­king spells En­for­cers can work if they ha­ve the blo­od or ha­ir of the per­son they’re lo­oking for, and she cer­ta­inly had plenty of mi­ne on hand.

  “So how did you find out abo­ut Jess, any­way?” I as­ked, con­ti­nu­ing to strug­gle with my bonds, en­co­ura­ged by a slight lo­ose­ning in the ro­pe aro­und my right wrist. “No one at scho­ol knew she wor­ked black ma­gic.”

  “I was in a sup­port gro­up for ter­mi­nal­ly ill pa­ti­ents. Jess con­tac­ted El­sa, one of the ot­her girls in my gro­up, but things bet­we­en them… didn’t work out.” Aaron pul­led back the sle­eping bag to re­ve­al the slack and li­fe­less-lo­oking fa­ce of an ol­der man.

  “Con­tac­ted?” The news was eno­ugh to shock me in­to stil­lness for a few pre­ci­o­us se­conds. “How did she con­tact an­yo­ne?”

  “I don’t know. El­sa didn’t tell me how they met, but they kept in to­uch with no­tes.”

  “No­tes?” I had be­co­me a par­rot. A shoc­ked, hor­ri­fi­ed par­rot ca­pab­le only of re­pe­ating the ri­di­cu­lo­us things co­ming out of Aaron’s mo­uth.

  “Ye­ah, lit­tle no­tes li­ke back in ele­men­tary scho­ol. That’s how Jess and I did it too. We’d stick our no­tes to each ot­her in a ho­le in an old he­ads­to­ne at Rol­ling Me­adows Ce­me­tery.” He smi­led. “I sa­ved all of them. I think I’m go­ing to ma­ke a scrap­bo­ok.”

  A scrap­bo­ok. He was go­ing to ma­ke a scrap­bo­ok. I do­ub­ted they ma­de stic­kers for a no­tes-from-a-fre­ak-who-hel­ped-me-bring-abo­ut-a-zom­bie-pla­gue pa­ge, but the­re was no ne­ed to dash Aaron’s crafty dre­ams. I had mo­re im­por­tant things to fo­cus on, li­ke the fact that Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs had mas­si­vely scre­wed up.

  If I ma­de it off this ro­of ali­ve, I was go­ing to in­sist on an in­ves­ti­ga­ti­on in­to the Ca­rol and Lit­tle Rock branc­hes of SA by the Na­ti­onal High Co­un­cil. They’d al­lo­wed Jess to sne­ak no­tes out of a ma­xi­mum-se­cu­rity pri­son. That le­vel of in­com­pe­ten­ce was ri­di­cu­lo­us at best and cri­mi­nal at worst.

  I was no lon­ger cer­ta­in all the “over­sights” la­tely we­re simply the pro­duct of bumb­ling, nar­row-min­ded El­ders. The­re might very well be a tra­itor in our midst. A tra­itor who had fa­ci­li­ta­ted Jess’s evil plans, and who wan­ted me de­ad and Ar­kan­sas plun­ged in­to a sta­te of zom­bie emer­gency.
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  “Jess ne­eded so­me­one with a ter­mi­nal di­se­ase. Only so­me­one clo­se to de­ath is ca­pab­le of chan­ne­ling anot­her per­son’s spi­rit, and that was the only way for Jess to work her ma­gic in the out­si­de world.” He smi­led. “She was ho­ping El­sa co­uld help her out. But El­sa di­ed too so­on. When you think abo­ut it, it is pretty ama­zing that we fo­und each ot­her. The­re we­re kids in my sup­port gro­up from all over the sta­te, but Jess and I both grew up in Ca­rol. It ma­de it so much easi­er to de­ve­lop a de­ep, ma­gi­cal con­nec­ti­on. We knew all the sa­me pe­op­le, had a lot of the sa­me fri­ends, sa­me va­lu­es, even went to the sa­me church be­fo­re she left town.”

  “She didn’t le­ave town-she was ar­res­ted for cri­mes aga­inst hu­ma­nity!” I sho­uted, unab­le to ke­ep my fre­ak-out un­der cont­rol as Aaron be­gan tra­cing the ru­nes of re­ani­ma­ti­on on the un­cons­ci­o­us man’s fa­ce. He was go­ing to ra­ise him li­ke he’d ra­ised the ot­her co­ma vic­tims and turn him in­to a blo­odt­hirsty mons­ter with me as the in­ten­ded me­al. I had to ke­ep him tal­king, had to fi­gu­re out so­me way to get out of he­re. “She’s a mons­ter, she’s not-”

  “Shh! She’s in­si­de me now… her po­wer, her spi­rit… She can he­ar you.” His eyes got this fa­ra­way lo­ok that ma­de him even cre­epi­er. “No, I know, you’re not a mons­ter, you’re an an­gel,” he sa­id, al­le­gedly tal­king… to Jess? Who was in­si­de his he­ad so­mew­he­re? May­be chat­ting it up with all the ot­her vo­ices in that crazy me­lon of his?

  “She’s a psycho­tic fre­ak,” I sa­id, half ho­ping the nut­ca­se was right and Jess co­uld he­ar everyt­hing I was sa­ying. “And I’m go­ing to ma­ke su­re she pays for everyt­hing she’s do­ne.”

  Aaron scow­led as his eyes re­fo­cu­sed on me. “That psycho­tic fre­ak is go­ing to be my wi­fe if everyt­hing to­night works out the way we plan­ned, so I’d ap­pre­ci­ate it if-”

  “What?! Jess is gay. You know that, right? She pre­fers girls, a girl na­med Beth, to be spe­ci­fic. So I don’t get-”

  “Pe­op­le chan­ge, and we’re in lo­ve.”

  “In lo­ve? You’re crazy, and even if you we­ren’t, you’re too yo­ung to get mar­ri­ed.” They we­re li­ke an epi­so­de of En­ga­ged & Un­de­ra­ge: Psycho-Kil­ler Black-Ma­gic Edi­ti­on.

  Aaron la­ug­hed. “Well, you’re en­tit­led to yo­ur opi­ni­on. We we­ren’t plan­ning to in­vi­te you to the wed­ding any­way.” He fi­nis­hed with the herbs and sto­od up. “Lis­ten, I’ve re­al­ly enj­oyed you, Me­gan, but we’re out of ti­me. I ho­pe you know how much I ap­pre­ci­ate this. And ho­nestly, you sho­uld die pro­ud. If you hadn’t be­en so go­od at yo­ur job, one of the ot­her li­ving Un­de­ad wo­uld ha­ve bit­ten you and we wo­uldn’t be he­re right now.”

  The man on the gro­und stir­red and twitc­hed, and a low gro­an es­ca­ped his par­ted lips.

  “Aaron, don’t do this. You don’t want to mur­der me, I know you don’t.”

  “I don’t ha­ve a cho­ice.”

  “Yes, you do! This isn’t-”

  “One with witch blo­od must gi­ve blo­od to the li­ving Un­de­ad, and I must drink of the li­ving Un­de­ad un­til de­ath if I’m go­ing to li­ve.” Aaron bac­ked away when the man gro­aned even lo­uder. “That me­ans I’m go­ing to kill this guy af­ter he bi­tes you. If you we­re free, you wo­uldn’t let me get away with that, wo­uld you?”

  “Ple­ase, ple­ase,” I beg­ged, sco­oting back­wards un­til I ran in­to a wall of brick. The ed­ge of the ro­of. The­re was now­he­re el­se to run. Or sco­ot.

  “Sorry, but Jess is pretty ex­ci­ted abo­ut you dying a cri­mi­nal.” He pa­used and til­ted his he­ad to the si­de, as if lis­te­ning to a vo­ice only he co­uld he­ar. “She al­so thinks it wo­uld be co­ol to use yo­ur blo­od on the al­tar to­night. I told her you’re still a vir­gin, so the­re’s no ne­ed to use one of the che­er­le­aders’ blo­od.”

  “How wo­uld you know what I ha­ve or ha­ven’t-”

  “It’s to­tal­ly ob­vi­o­us, even if I hadn’t be­en spying on you and yo­ur boyf­ri­end. You won’t even let the po­or guy get to se­cond ba­se-the­re’s no way you’ve he­aded in for a ho­me run.”

  Gre­at. On­ce aga­in, my lack of ex­pe­ri­en­ce of the no­okie va­ri­ety was bi­ting me in the ass. You’d think I wo­uld ha­ve le­ar­ned my les­son the first ti­me I was tar­ge­ted for my vir­gin blo­od and just do­ne it al­re­ady!

  “She re­al­ly ha­tes you, you know,” Aaron con­ti­nu­ed. “Even af­ter she fo­und out her mom wasn’t re­al­ly de­ad-”

  “What?” Jess’s mom wasn’t de­ad? What the fre­aking heck?

  “Don’t worry. You don’t ne­ed to worry abo­ut that. Or yo­ur dad. That’s why I kept tho­se me­di­cal re­cords from you. I didn’t want you to ha­ve to le­arn what a cre­ep yo­ur dad was right be­fo­re you di­ed. Didn’t se­em fa­ir.” He sho­ok his he­ad sadly. “But you fo­und out any­way, right? At the pond? I didn’t fi­gu­re anyt­hing el­se co­uld ma­ke you so up­set. Sorry abo­ut that.”

  “Right. I can tell it’s re­al­ly bre­aking you up in­si­de.” So­met­hing mo­ved at the ed­ge of my vi­si­on, and a spark of ho­pe le­apt in­si­de me, but I did my best not to fol­low the sha­pe with my eyes.

  No mat­ter who-or what-it was, the­re was no way my si­tu­ati­on co­uld get any wor­se. I had to hold on to what lit­tle ho­pe I had left and pray so­me­one had co­me to help me. May­be one of the che­er­le­aders had a chan­ge of he­art. Or may­be Et­han and Mo­ni­ca fi­gu­red out whe­re I was.

  It was a long shot, sin­ce no one saw me le­ave, but man, did I want to see anot­her Set­tler fa­ce right now. If only I’d told one of them abo­ut Cliff and his war­nings when I had the chan­ce! Then they wo­uld ha­ve known to lo­ok for me so­mew­he­re ne­ar the ri­ver.

  Anot­her flash of mo­ve­ment be­hind Aaron, but this ti­me it was easy not to lo­ok. I had eyes only for the li­ving Un­de­ad man who was re­ani­ma­ting in ear­nest, rol­ling over and pus­hing to his fe­et among much gro­aning and mo­aning. “I re­al­ly do fe­el bad,” Aaron sa­id. “I’m pro­bably not go­ing to be ab­le to watch the ac­tu­al bi­ting part, you know.”

  What a prin­ce.

  The co­ma vic­tim was up now, lum­be­ring to his fe­et, sha­king his he­ad li­ke a dog get­ting out of the wa­ter. The mo­ve­ment knoc­ked the sock cap off his he­ad, and two long bra­ids fell down aro­und his fa­ce, ma­king him lo­ok li­ke a de­ran­ged Wil­lie Nel­son.

  Fran­ti­cal­ly, I pus­hed myself in­to a se­ated po­si­ti­on aga­inst the bricks be­hind me. It didn’t put me in a much bet­ter po­si­ti­on for com­bat, but it did gi­ve me a pe­ek at who had jo­ined us on the ro­of.

  It was Cliff! Swe­et, won­der­ful Cliff who was even now cre­eping up be­hind my kid­nap­per. Un­for­tu­na­tely, I wasn’t su­re he’d ma­de it in ti­me.

  Unde­ad Wil­lie lun­ged for my thro­at and I scre­amed a raw yelp that co­uldn’t com­pe­te with the fe­ral gro­ans is­su­ing from the man’s fo­aming mo­uth.

  CHAPTER 21

  Whi­le Cliff tack­led Aaron to the gro­und, the co­ma du­de’s cold hand latc­hed on­to my sho­ul­der and his mo­uth stra­ined to­ward the ex­po­sed skin of my neck.

  “Get off!” I bent my kne­es to my chest and then kic­ked di­rectly in­to the man’s gro­in. The fact that I was only we­aring socks to­ok the ed­ge off the blow, but he still gro­aned and fell to his kne­es, gi­ving me a few se­conds to re­po­si­ti­on myself for the next at­tack.

  Which was co­ming fast. The lon­ger Wil­lie was re­ani­ma­ted, the fas­ter he mo­ved. Pretty so­on, the­re wo­uld be no way for me to hold him off.

  “Cliff, help!” I yel­led, even tho­ugh a part of me was as ter­ri­fi­ed of Cl
iff as the co­ma zom­bie.

  The so­unds co­ming from ac­ross the ro­of­top we­ren’t pretty. At All. Aaron was scre­aming li­ke his fin­gers we­re be­ing chom­ped off one by one-which they very well might ha­ve be­en; the man on top of me was in the way, so I co­uldn’t see what Cliff was up to-and the smell of hot, sic­ke­ningly swe­et blo­od fil­led the air, re­min­ding me Cliff was a zom­bie, no mat­ter how li­fe­li­ke.

  But I didn’t ha­ve any ti­me to angst out abo­ut how Cliff was ta­king Aaron down; I just ne­eded him to hurry and get it do­ne be­fo­re Bra­id Guy ope­ned my jugu­lar.

  “Unh!” Wil­lie do­ve for my ank­les, cle­arly me­aning to di­sab­le the part of me that had de­li­ve­red the gro­in kick.

  Li­ving zom­bi­es so suc­ked ass! I me­an, at le­ast the de­ad Un­de­ad didn’t le­arn from the­ir mis­ta­kes. They we­re scary and wic­ked per­sis­tent, but, mer­ci­ful­ly, as dumb as the dirt they craw­led out of.

  “Cliff!” I dod­ged the man’s first grab, but the se­cond ti­me his hand las­hed out, he ca­ught me aro­und the calf, his fin­gers dig­ging in­to my skin with a for­ce that ma­de me cry out.

  “Me­gan, help!” Aaron wa­iled, his vo­ice crac­king as his words tur­ned in­to anot­her scre­am of pu­re agony. “Help me!”

  He had to be kid­ding. He was as­king me to co­me sa­ve his ass? The girl he’d in­ten­ded to be zom­bie chow?

  It was so ri­di­cu­lo­us I star­ted la­ug­hing. Re­al­ly la­ug­hing. Gi­ving myself a stitch in my si­de, lo­sing it even as I kic­ked and fla­iled and did my best to ke­ep Wil­lie from dig­ging in­to my calf li­ke it was so­met­hing from a KFC buc­ket. I was la­ug­hing so hard te­ars we­re stre­aming down my fa­ce by the ti­me the guy ac­tu­al­ly latc­hed his te­eth in­to my flesh and chom­ped.

  “Ahhh!!” I scre­amed, a so­und so fil­led with ra­ge I co­uld fe­el it vib­ra­ting thro­ugh my every cell. That was it! I’d had eno­ugh! The walls hol­ding my po­wer fell with an al­most audib­le pop­ping no­ise, and I cast. “Re­ver­to!”