Undead Much

  How she hid the thing in tho­se skin­tight clot­hes was an­yo­ne’s gu­ess, but I was glad she had the me­tal re­qu­ired for the pax fra­ter cor­pus spell. I had eno­ugh po­wer that I didn’t ne­ed to pi­er­ce the flesh of a zom­bie with me­tal in or­der to im­mo­bi­li­ze it-I just had to whack it with my fist whi­le I chan­ted-but the ave­ra­ge Set­tler did.

  “You get Shorty and Baldy, I’ll get the tall guy, and we’ll split the du­de co­ming up from be­hind,” Mo­ni­ca sa­id, ta­king the le­ad as usu­al.

  I wo­uld ha­ve ar­gu­ed that I sho­uld ta­ke the tall fo­ot­ball pla­yer guy sin­ce he lo­oked a heck of a lot mo­re thre­ate­ning than the two smal­ler, thin­ner zom­bi­es on the left, but the­re wasn’t any ti­me. We we­re abo­ut to be sur­ro­un­ded.

  “Pax fra­ter cor­pus, po­tes­ta­tum spi­ri­tu­um.” I chan­ted the first por­ti­on of the spell as I rus­hed for­ward, catc­hing the shor­test zom­bie with a sharp thrust of my palm to his fa­ce, then cro­uc­hing down to swe­ep the legs out from un­der the bald guy. Two se­conds la­ter, I was on top of him, po­un­ding him in the cen­ter of the chest. But for so­me re­ason, Baldy didn’t se­em to be get­ting the mes­sa­ge to lie down and die.

  I po­ured even mo­re strength in­to my punc­hes and po­wer in­to my spell. “Inmun­do­rum ut eice­rent eos et cu­ra­rent om­nem. lan­gu­orem et om­nem in­firm-” I was ne­arly to the end of the chant when fre­akishly strong hands fis­ted in my ha­ir and pul­led me off the strug­gling corp­se be­ne­ath me, drag­ging me thro­ugh the snow.

  At first I tho­ught it was the fo­urth zom­bie who had snuck up be­hind me, but then I spot­ted that du­de still a do­zen fe­et away. It was the short guy I’d al­re­ady put down! He sho­uld ha­ve be­en zon­ked out in the snow awa­iting an SA ret­ri­eval te­am, not up and figh­ting for his po­und of Me­gan me­at.

  The pax fra­ter was long and te­di­o­us, but it was de­sig­ned to put zom­bi­es down for the co­unt per­ma­nently and was the stron­gest spell I knew that didn’t in­vol­ve set­ting things on fi­re-which might ha­ve be­en an op­ti­on if I didn’t think fla­ming pil­lars of zom­bie flesh we­aving thro­ugh the tre­es wo­uld at­tract the wrong kind of at­ten­ti­on.

  What the heck was up with the­se guys? I’d ne­ver he­ard of anyt­hing li­ke them, not in fo­ur months of ir­ri­ta­tingly cons­tant lec­tu­ring. The En­for­cers we­re so go­ing to get an ear­ful abo­ut with­hol­ding vi­tal in­fo.

  I dug my he­els in­to the cold gro­und and did my best to pull free from Mr. Short-and-Perky. But be­fo­re I co­uld twist aro­und and bre­ak the du­de’s hold, a hot, slob­bery zom­bie mo­uth was at my thro­at.

  Ba­rely re­sis­ting the ur­ge to scre­am-and no do­ubt bring the rest of the pom squ­ad run­ning-I slam­med my clo­sed fist in­to the guy’s fa­ce. He gro­aned and his te­eth slid away wit­ho­ut bre­aking the skin, but he still didn’t let go. And now Baldy was up and at ’em, craw­ling thro­ugh the snow to­ward whe­re I strug­gled in the fro­zen le­aves.

  “Mo­ni­ca! A lit­tle help,” I cri­ed out, my words tur­ning in­to a grunt as I cont­rac­ted my abs, jack­kni­fing my soggy ten­nis sho­es in­to the fa­ce of the guy be­hind me. Thank God for fle­xi­bi­lity and dan­cer musc­les. Shorty gro­aned and re­le­ased his hold on my ha­ir just se­conds be­fo­re Baldy craw­led on top of me.

  “No one gets to do that but my boyf­ri­end,” I grumb­led in­to the zom­bie’s fa­ce as I slid one leg bet­we­en the pa­ir of his and shif­ted my we­ight. With a grunt, I flip­ped us over. Now I was on top, but I wo­uldn’t be for long.

  Shorty was al­re­ady lun­ging to­ward me, and the strag­gler du­de was clo­sing in from be­hind. I didn’t ha­ve ti­me to po­und Baldy’s fa­ce. I had to find a mo­re easily de­fen­ded po­si­ti­on.

  I do­ve to the right, rol­ling thro­ugh the snow un­til I’d put a go­od six fe­et bet­we­en me and the boys. Only then did I spring in­to a cro­uc­hed po­si­ti­on and ta­ke a qu­ick sur­vey of the si­tu­ati­on… and im­me­di­ately wis­hed I hadn’t.

  The news wasn’t go­od.

  The­re we­re mo­re of them. At le­ast two mo­re, stag­ge­ring thro­ugh the dar­ke­ning sha­dows be­ne­ath the tre­es, and the fo­ur we we­re al­re­ady figh­ting we­ren’t sho­wing any sign of slo­wing down. The big guy had Mo­ni­ca pin­ned aga­inst a tree whi­le she did her best to ke­ep his te­eth from her fa­ce, and all three of my guys we­re clo­sing in with to­tal­ly we­ird spe­ed. Very so­on we we­re eit­her go­ing to be dis­co­ve­red or de­ad, ne­it­her of which was a de­si­rab­le sta­te of be­ing.

  The­re was only one thing I co­uld think of that might get rid of the zom­bi­es and get the two of us out of he­re in one pi­ece. I hadn’t had to bor­row po­wer from anot­her Set­tler sin­ce I was a kid, but back in the days when Et­han had be­en my tu­tor, not my boyf­ri­end, he’d ma­de su­re I re­mem­be­red how. If I co­uld just get past the du­des in front of me, li­be­ra­te Mo­ni­ca, and get the two of us lin­ked up, the­re was a chan­ce we’d ha­ve eno­ugh ju­ice to get rid of the­se guys.

  Of co­ur­se, get­ting past the­se three was go­ing to be easi­er sa­id than do­ne. They we­re fre­aking de­ter­mi­ned to get a mo­uth­ful of Me­gan, which ma­de me pretty cer­ta­in I was the one they’d co­me for. Black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bi­es we­re ra­ised to hunt a spe­ci­fic tar­get. I was go­ing to ha­ve to check for to­tems-dol­ls re­semb­ling me, items of clot­hing, etc.-on the­ir gra­ves on­ce we got them sa­fe and snug in the gro­und aga­in.

  Assu­ming we ma­na­ged to get them back in the gro­und at all.

  “Me­gan! Do so­met­hing.” Mo­ni­ca’s legs chur­ned wildly in the air, and her fa­ce was tur­ning an un­he­althy red. The li­ne­bac­ker was go­ing to strang­le her if I didn’t do so­met­hing. Fast.

  Pra­ying that the pom squ­ad had plenty of cli­ents to ke­ep the­ir at­ten­ti­on tra­ined on was­hing cars, not bur­ning zom­bi­es, I tur­ned to Baldy and in­vo­ked the fla­me com­mand. “Exu­ro!”

  The go­od news was that Baldy’s pa­j­amas went up in fla­mes li­ke they’d be­en so­aked in vod­ka, dra­wing the at­ten­ti­on of Shorty and fri­end long eno­ugh for me to cut to the left and skirt aro­und them. The bad news was that Baldy star­ted scre­aming blo­ody mur­der, very li­kely dra­wing the at­ten­ti­on of the li­ving pe­op­le only fifty or sixty fe­et away.

  “Oppri­mo.” I tos­sed the smot­he­ring com­mand over my sho­ul­der, trying not to fre­ak out that the zom­bie I’d set on fi­re was ac­ting so very un-zom­bie-ish. I’d he­ard zom­bi­es shri­ek be­fo­re, but not­hing that so­un­ded so hu­man.

  And not only sho­uld he not ha­ve so­un­ded so li­fe­li­ke, the ot­her two guys sho­uldn’t ha­ve no­ti­ced the fi­re or Baldy’s scre­ams, let alo­ne be­en so dist­rac­ted by them that they let the­ir prey es­ca­pe. The­re was so­met­hing hor­ribly wrong, and I wasn’t su­re even lin­king mi­ne and Mo­ni­ca’s po­wer wo­uld do any go­od.

  “It’s go­ing to work; it has to work,” I mut­te­red be­ne­ath my bre­ath as I grab­bed a hefty fal­len limb from the gro­und and ra­ced to­ward the big zom­bie at top spe­ed. If Baldy co­uld be dist­res­sed by fi­re, may­be Butch he­re co­uld be bot­he­red by a log up­si­de the he­ad.

  Wo­od col­li­ded with me­lon with a sic­ke­ning thud, ma­king the big guy re­le­ase his hold on Mo­ni­ca’s scrawny neck. She suc­ked in a gasp of air and kne­ed the du­de bet­we­en the legs as hard as she co­uld, trig­ge­ring anot­her non-zom­bie-ish re­ac­ti­on.

  “What is wrong with the­se guys?” We both sta­red in shock as Butch’s kne­es hit the gro­und and he col­lap­sed si­de­ways in the snow, clutc­hing his wo­un­ded co­j­ones.

  “I don’t know, but I sug­gest we get rid of them first and ask qu­es­t
i­ons la­ter,” I sa­id, grab­bing Mo­ni­ca’s hand in mi­ne. “Let down yo­ur shi­elds, gi­ve me everyt­hing you’ve got.”

  It was a tes­ti­mony to how fre­aked the Mo­nics­ter was that she didn’t ar­gue or ma­ke a sing­le smart com­ment. Her shi­elds simply col­lap­sed and her energy ca­me rus­hing in­to me, fas­ter and fas­ter, un­til my en­ti­re body bur­ned with the for­ce of the com­bi­ned po­wer. But still I wa­ited, kno­wing I’d only ha­ve one chan­ce to cast be­fo­re the boys we­re on us.

  Clo­ser. Clo­ser. I for­ced myself to hold back un­til Shorty was clo­se eno­ugh to to­uch and the new­co­mers we­re no mo­re than six fe­et away be­fo­re thro­wing up my free hand and gi­ving the RCs everyt­hing I had. “Re­ver­to!”

  The air in front of me buck­led, wa­ve­ring li­ke wa­ter in a pond. Ti­me se­emed to hold its bre­ath, the en­ti­re world go­ne si­lent as the zom­bi­es re­ac­hed for me and the bub­ble of po­wer re­ac­hed for them.

  Luc­kily for me, the po­wer got to them first.

  The spell hit the RCs with an audib­le pop and my body hit a tree be­hind me a se­cond la­ter. I’d be­en bo­un­ced by my own spell, so­met­hing I’d he­ard of but ne­ver ex­pe­ri­en­ced. But I su­re was ex­pe­ri­en­cing it now. My body hit with eno­ugh for­ce to knock the wind from my lungs, and my he­ad smas­hed in­to the wo­od, ma­king lit­tle black spots exp­lo­de in front of my eyes.

  By the ti­me I slid to my si­de in the snow, everyt­hing was spin­ning. Still, thro­ugh the car­to­on birds twe­eting aro­und my he­ad, I tho­ught I saw so­me­one hi­ding in the tre­es, watc­hing the we­ird RCs stumb­le back thro­ugh the dar­ke­ned wo­ods. So­me­one with dark eyes who didn’t li­ke what they we­re se­e­ing. Didn’t li­ke it at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  “Co­me on, you can’t stay the­re. So­me­one’s co­ming.” Hands tug­ged at my co­at, and when that didn’t pro­du­ce the de­si­red re­ac­ti­on, mo­ved to my ha­ir and tug­ged even har­der.

  “Ouch. God, le­ave me alo­ne… my he­ad.”

  “You won’t ca­re abo­ut yo­ur he­ad if Penny and Ter­ra see tho­se zom­bi­es.”

  “Why? What?” What was she tal­king abo­ut? Not­hing se­emed to ma­ke sen­se. All I co­uld think abo­ut we­re the eyes… and the swe­ater. Whe­re had I se­en that swe­ater be­fo­re?

  Mo­ni­ca’s fa­ce swam in­to fo­cus only inc­hes away from mi­ne. “Why? Be­ca­use I’m go­ing to smash it in with a rock if we’re dis­co­ve­red. So. Get. Up. Now.”

  My bra­in felt li­ke it was slam-dan­cing in­si­de my skull, but I grab­bed the hand Mo­ni­ca put in mi­ne and held on as she ha­uled me to my fe­et. Then I let her throw my arm aro­und her sho­ul­ders and drag me back to­ward the par­king lot whi­le I did my best not to throw up.

  “You co­uld help a lit­tle,” she grumb­led.

  “I’m trying not to throw up.”

  “You’re he­avy.”

  “So you want me to throw up?” I as­ked, tur­ning to fa­ce her, re­lis­hing the idea of bap­ti­zing the Mo­nics­ter in my par­ti­al­ly di­ges­ted la­sag­na. I me­an, hadn’t a part of me wan­ted to barf on her sin­ce third gra­de?

  “No, no,” she hur­ri­ed to as­su­re me. “Just ke­ep mo­ving and ke­ep qu­i­et.”

  “Why do I ha­ve to ke­ep qu­i­et?”

  Mo­ni­ca cur­sed, then ad­ded in an ur­gent whis­per. “Just ag­ree with wha­te­ver I say, okay?”

  “What? I don’t-”

  “Oh my God, thank God you guys are he­re! Me­gan has fi­nal­ly lost it.” Mo­ni­ca’s vo­ice was as lo­ud and sup­re­mely ir­ri­ta­ted as it usu­al­ly was when dis­cus­sing yo­urs truly, which didn’t do my po­or he­ad any go­od.

  “What hap­pe­ned?” Ter­ra, anot­her sop­ho­mo­re I sho­uld ha­ve known bet­ter than I did, as­ked. Penny wed­ged her sho­ul­der un­der my ot­her arm and hel­ped me limp the last few fe­et to the ed­ge of the par­king lot whe­re I col­lap­sed on­to the asp­halt with a grunt.

  Oh, earth, swe­et uns­pin­ning earth. I wan­ted to lay my che­ek down on the gro­und and go stra­ight to sle­ep, but set­tled for bra­cing my el­bows on my kne­es and prop­ping my he­ad in my hands. Mo­ni­ca was right. I had to pull myself to­get­her and play this off so that no one el­se went in­to the wo­ods.

  “The­se dogs cha­sed this baby rac­co­on up in­to a tree. We ran them off, but then Me­gan de­ci­des she has to climb up and sa­ve the thing, and I was all li­ke, ‘Hel­lo, it’s a wild ani­mal, just le­ave it the­re,’ but she wo­uldn’t lis­ten.” She sig­hed, a so­und so ge­nu­inely put-upon I ne­arly be­li­eved her story myself. “Two se­conds la­ter, the branch she’s on bre­aks and Jane Go­odall he­re falls out of the tree.”

  “Who’s Jane Go­odall?” I as­ked, ten­ta­ti­vely lif­ting my eyes to lo­ok at the three girls, gra­te­ful to see only one of each of them. I wasn’t se­e­ing do­ub­le. That was a go­od sign.

  “I think she might ha­ve a con­cus­si­on. Or bra­in da­ma­ge,” Mo­ni­ca ad­ded.

  “I don’t ha­ve bra­in da­ma­ge. I’ve ne­ver he­ard of the wo­man.”

  “Isn’t she the one who li­ved with apes?” Penny as­ked.

  “It wasn’t apes, it was chimps,” Ter­ra sa­id. “I watc­hed the spe­ci­al on PBS.”

  “You watch PBS?” Mo­ni­ca as­ked, wrink­ling her no­se.

  “Don’t jud­ge,” Ter­ra sa­id in a surp­ri­sing show of chutz­pah for a sop­ho­mo­re tal­king to the qu­e­en bi-atch of CHS. “Chimps are in­te­res­ting. The­ir DNA is only one per­cent dif­fe­rent from a hu­man’s.”

  Wow. Ter­ra was way smar­ter than I’d re­ali­zed. And co­oler. May­be she and Penny wo­uld con­sent to be fri­ends with me on­ce I felt re­ady to do the who­le fri­ends thing aga­in.

  “Wha­te­ver.” Mo­ni­ca wa­ved a hand bre­ezily in the air. “The po­int is, Won­der Girl he­re is lucky she didn’t bre­ak her fre­aking neck. She pro­bably ne­eds to go to the hos­pi­tal.”

  “We co­uld ta­ke you to the emer­gency ro­om,” Penny sa­id. “Ter­ra has a hards­hip per­mit, so she can dri­ve even tho­ugh she’s only-”

  “No, I sho­uld ta­ke her. I saw what hap­pe­ned and her mom will de­fi­ni­tely want to know abo­ut it.” Mo­ni­ca whip­ped out her cell pho­ne with a me­aning­ful lo­ok.

  She was right. My mom wo­uld want to know abo­ut what had go­ne down in the wo­ods. Mom didn’t ac­ti­vely Set­tle the de­ad any­mo­re-she was re­li­eved of that duty when her offsp­ring, me, star­ted sum­mo­ning-but she was do­ing her best to ke­ep up with my tra­ining so she co­uld help if I ne­eded it. I hadn’t so far, but now help was so­un­ding pretty darn go­od.

  I su­re as heck didn’t want to run in­to any mo­re of tho­se we­ird zom­bi­es wit­ho­ut get­ting so­me help first. They we­re dan­ge­ro­us and co­uld ha­ve even be­en de­adly. If Mo­ni­ca and I hadn’t be­en to­get­her and ab­le to sha­re po­wer, I didn’t know how well eit­her of us wo­uld ha­ve fa­red.

  “You two get back to was­hing cars. We’ve only got two ho­urs be­fo­re the su­per­mar­ket shuts down and we ne­ed to ra­ise at le­ast two hund­red dol­lars to be on our way to re­ac­hing our go­al. We’re not go­ing to kick che­er butt by stan­ding aro­und sta­ring at the bra­in-da­ma­ged girl.” Mo­ni­ca sho­o­ed Penny and Ter­ra away as she punc­hed a num­ber in­to her pho­ne.

  I watc­hed them go with a grim smi­le. The ot­her girls pro­bably as­su­med it was my pa­rents she was cal­ling, but I knew bet­ter. Mo­ni­ca was a strict fol­lo­wer of pro­to­col. She’d call Set­tlers’ Af­fa­irs be­fo­re she cal­led an­yo­ne el­se, and in a mat­ter of mi­nu­tes, we’d ha­ve un­der­co­ver Pro­to­col of­fi­cers swar­ming all over the par­king lot. Not such a big de­al, you might think, sin­ce my own boyf­ri­end is a mem­ber of the te­am
and was pro­bably still on duty.

  But for so­me re­ason, Pro­to­col and I didn’t mix. When they sho­wed up, I ten­ded to get in­to tro­ub­le. Usu­al­ly I got out of it just fi­ne, but right now I didn’t fe­el up to the ine­vi­tab­le two hund­red and twenty qu­es­ti­ons. So I pul­led out my own cell and cal­led Mom and Dad, in­ter­rup­ting the­ir fancy din­ner and thril­ling them even furt­her by an­no­un­cing I ne­eded to go to the SA hos­pi­tal due to zom­bie-re­la­ted inj­uri­es.

  I ha­ted to worry my pa­rents, but I re­al­ly did ne­ed to go the hos­pi­tal-a fact ma­de even cle­arer when I tri­ed to stand up on my own and the world spun, my sto­mach lurc­hed, and I en­ded up back on my butt lo­sing my la­sag­na in the Kro­ger par­king lot.

  “Do you want me to run you a bath, swe­etie?” Mom as­ked as we stag­ge­red in­to the ho­use ne­arly three ho­urs la­ter.

  It had ta­ken over two and a half ho­urs for the doc­tor to or­der a CAT scan and then to tell me that I had a mild con­cus­si­on and I sho­uld go ho­me and get so­me rest. (You’d think they’d do mo­re for a he­ad inj­ury, right? Ap­pa­rently not.)

  But the SA in­fir­mary had be­en unu­su­al­ly swam­ped. A six-ye­ar-old girl had sum­mo­ned her first zom­bie, and her dad, the Set­tler in the fa­mily, hadn’t be­en ho­me to help her le­arn the ro­pes. The Un­set­tled had go­ne Ro­gue and inj­ured the mom and three kids be­fo­re the girl’s mom co­uld fi­gu­re out what to do.

  Ro­gu­es don’t cra­ve flesh li­ke black-ma­gi­cal­ly ra­ised zom­bi­es, but they can ca­use a lot of da­ma­ge when they start to lo­se the­ir co­ol. That’s why it’s so im­por­tant for Set­tlers to at­tend to the ne­eds of the Un­set­tled in a swift and ef­fi­ci­ent man­ner. Heck, that’s why it was so im­por­tant to ha­ve Set­tlers pe­ri­od. If the­re’s no one aro­und to lis­ten, the de­ad vent the­ir is­su­es in a much mo­re vi­olent man­ner.